#2010's music stinks

[aion-rsa]

HBO Max New Releases:. July 2021

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LeBron James might be out of the NBA playoffs, but he’s still angling to be a big part of the summer entertainment season. That’s because HBO Max’s list of new releases for July 2021 is highlighted by a very special sequel.

Space Jam: A New Legacy premieres on July 16. will find LeBron teaming up with the Looney Tunes in a Warner Bros. IP-extravaganza. Can ‘Bron and the Looney Tunes beat the Goon Squad before Warner Bros.’ server steals LeBron “Bronny” Jr.’s soul (or something)? Let’s hope so. The two other major WB releases this month, No Sudden Move and Tom and Jerry in New York, both come to HBO Max on July 1.

HBO Max is also bringing some fun TV shows to its stream this month. The long-awaited Gossip Girl revival premieres on July 8. That will be followed by Mike White’s satirical limited series The White Lotus on July 11. Ronan Farrow’s excellent book Catch and Kill gets a docuseries adaptation on July 12.

July 1 will see the arrival of library titles like Planet of the Apes, Reservoir Dogs, and Scream. Recent hit Judas and the Black Messiah comes to HBO Max on that date as well. It’s a good month for geek TV with the Doctor Who 2020 Christmas Special (July 1), Nancy Drew season 2 (July 3), and Batwoman season 2 (July 27) all coming home to their streaming residence.

HBO Max New Releases – July 2021

TBA FBOY Island, Max Original Season 1 Premiere Romeo Santos: King of Bachata, 2021 (HBO) Romeo Santos Utopia Live from MetLife Stadium, 2021 (HBO)

July 1 ¡Come! (aka Eat!), 2020 8 Mile, 2002 (HBO) All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, 1996 (HBO) All Dogs Go to Heaven, 1989 (HBO) Behind Enemy Lines, 1997 (HBO) Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 1970 (HBO) Bio-Dome, 1996 (HBO) Black Panthers, 1968 Blackhat, 2015 (HBO) Brubaker, 1980 (HBO) Cantinflas (HBO) Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, 1972 (Extended Version) (HBO) Cousins, 1989 (HBO) Dark Water, 2005 (HBO) Darkness Falls, 2003 (HBO) Demolition Man, 1993 Dirty Work, 1998 (HBO) Disturbia, 2007 (HBO) Doctor Who Holiday 2020 Special: Revolution of the Daleks, 2020 Duplex, 2003 (HBO) Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1971 (HBO) Eve’s Bayou, 1997 Firestarter, 1984 (HBO) First, 2012 For Colored Girls, 2010 (HBO) For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada, 2012 (HBO) Full Bloom, Max Original Season 2 Finale Ghost in the Machine, 1993 (HBO) The Good Lie, 2014 (HBO) Gun Crazy, 1950 House on Haunted Hill, 1999 Identity Thief, 2013 (Extended Version) (HBO) Ira & Abby, 2007 (HBO) Joe Versus the Volcano, 1990 Judas and the Black Messiah, 2021 (HBO) Laws Of Attraction, 2004 (HBO) Lucky, 2017 (HBO) Maid in Manhattan, 2002 Married to the Mob, 1988 (HBO) Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, 1997 Mississippi Burning, 1988 (HBO) Monster-In-Law, 2005 Mousehunt, 1997 (HBO) My Brother Luca (HBO) No Sudden Move Pleasantville, 1998 The Prince of Tides, 1991 Project X, 1987 (HBO) The Punisher, 2017 (HBO) Punisher: War Zone, 2008 (HBO) Rambo, 2008 (Director’s Cut) (HBO) Reds, 1981 (HBO) Reservoir Dogs, 1992 (HBO) The Return of the Living Dead, 1985 (HBO) Return of the Living Dead III, 1993 (Extended Version) (HBO) Rounders, 1998 (HBO) Saturday Night Fever, 1977 (Director’s Cut) (HBO) Scream, 1996 Scream 2, 1997 Scream 3, 2000 Semi-Tough, 1977 (HBO) The Sessions, 2012 (HBO) Set Up, 2012 (HBO) Snake Eyes, 1998 (HBO) Staying Alive, 1983 (HBO) Stuart Little, 1999 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2003 Tom and Jerry in New York, Max Original Series Premiere Trick ‘R Treat, 2009 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls, 2007 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, 2005 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself, 2009 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail, 2009 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family, 2011 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion, 2006 (HBO) Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too, 2010 (HBO) The Watcher, 2016 (HBO) The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, 2007 (HBO) Westworld (Movie), 1973 White Chicks (Unrated & Uncut Version), 2004 The White Stadium, 1928 Won’t Back Down, 2012 (HBO) Zero Days, 2016 (HBO)

July 2 Lo Que Siento por Ti (aka What I Feel for You) (HBO)

July 3 Let Him Go, 2020 (HBO) Nancy Drew, Season 2

July 7 Dr. STONE, Seasons 1 and 2 (Subtitled) (Crunchyroll Collection) Shiva Baby, 2021 (HBO)

July 8 The Dog House: UK, Max Original Season 2 Premiere Gossip Girl, Max Original Series Premiere Human Capital, 2020 (HBO) The Hunt, 2020 (HBO) Looney Tunes Cartoons, Max Original Season 2 Premiere

July 9 Frankie Quinones: Superhomies (HBO)

July 11 The White Lotus, Limited Series Premiere (HBO)

July 12 Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes, Documentary Series Premiere (HBO)

July 15 Tom & Jerry, 2021 (HBO)

July 16 Betty, Season 2 Finale (HBO) Space Jam: A New Legacy, Warner Bros. Film Premiere, 2021  Un Disfraz Para Nicolas (aka A Costume for Nicolas) (HBO)

July 17 The Empty Man, 2020 (HBO)

July 18 100 Foot Wave, Documentary Series Premiere (HBO)

July 22 Through Our Eyes, Max Original Documentary Series Premiere

July 23 Corazon De Mezquite (aka Mezquite’s Heart) (HBO)

July 24 Freaky, 2020 (HBO)

July 26 Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes, Documentary Series Finale (HBO)

July 27 Batwoman, Season 2 Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (HBO)

July 30 Uno Para Todos (aka One for All) (HBO)

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Leaving HBO Max – July 2021  

July 3 The ABC’s Of Covid-19: A CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall for Kids and Parents Part 2, 2020

July 4 Annabelle, 2014 Annabelle Comes Home, 2019 (HBO) The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, 2021 The Curse of La Llorona, 2019 The Nun, 2018

July 5 Lost And Delirious, 2001

July 8 Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015

July 10 It: Chapter 2, 2019 (HBO)

July 11 An Elephant’s Journey, 2018 In the Heights, 2021 Thanks for Sharing, 2013

July 15 Burlesque, 2010

July 17 The Notebook, 2004

July 26 The King’s Speech, 2010

July 31 17 Again, 2009 A Clockwork Orange, 1971 A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, 1985 A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, 1988 A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, 1989 A Nightmare on Elm Street, 1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street, 2010 Adam’s Rib, 1949 America’s Sweethearts, 2001 Anaconda, 1997 The Apparition, 2012 (HBO) Are We There Yet?, 2005 Argo, 2012 (Alternate Version) (HBO) AVP: Alien vs. Predator, 2004 (Alternate Version) (HBO) Badlands, 1973 Beau Brummel, 1954 The Benchwarmers, 2006 Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, 2011 (HBO) Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva La Fiesta!, 2012 (HBO) Billy Madison, 1995 (HBO) The Book Of Eli, 2010 (HBO) Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1992 Bringing Up Baby, 1938 The City of Lost Children, 1995 The Color Purple, 1985 The Comebacks, 2007 (Alternate Version) (HBO) The Conjuring 2, 2016 The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, 2002 (HBO) Don’t Let Go, 2019 (HBO) Downton Abbey, 2019 (HBO) El Angel (aka The Angel), 2018 (HBO) Eyes Wide Shut, 1999 Fool’s Gold, 2008 Fort Tilden, 2015 (HBO) The Four Feathers, 2002 (HBO) The Gay Divorcee, 1934 Get A Job, 2016 (HBO) The Goonies, 1985 Grand Canyon, 1991 (HBO) Hairspray, 1988 Happy Gilmore, 1996 (HBO) Hellboy Animated Collection, 2006, 2007 The Hurricane, 1999 (HBO) I Know What You Did Last Summer, 1997 Iniciales SG (aka Initials S.G.), 2019 (HBO) J. Edgar, 2011 Jackie Chan’s First Strike, 1997 Jacob’s Ladder, 1990 (HBO) Jeremiah Johnson, 1972 Keeper Of The Flame, 1943 Kill Bill: Vol. 1, 2003 (HBO) Kill Bill: Vol. 2, 2004 (HBO) Kung Fu Hustle, 2005 The Lego Ninjago Movie, 2014 Less Than Zero, 1987 (HBO) Life Stinks, 1991 (HBO) Lincoln, 2012 (HBO) Little Children, 2006 (HBO) Little Man Tate, 1991 (HBO) Lovely & Amazing, 2002 The Lucky One, 2012(HBO) The Madness of King George, 1994 (HBO) Marisol, 2019 (HBO) Me 3.769, 2019 (HBO) Michael Clayton, 2007 Mickey Blue Eyes, 1999 Monster-In-Law, 2005 Mulholland Dr., 2001 Muralla (aka Muralla, The Goalkeeper), 2018 (HBO) Murder on the Orient Express, 1974 (HBO) Music and Lyrics, 2007 My Dream Is Yours, 1949 My Girl 2, 1994 My Girl, 1991 My Sister’s Keeper, 2009 Now, Voyager, 1942 Old Dogs, 2009 (HBO) The Opposite Sex, 1956 The Pledge, 2001 (HBO) Precious, 2009 (HBO) The Producers, 1968 The Prophecy, 1995 (HBO) The Prophecy II, 1998 (HBO) The Prophecy III: The Ascent, 2000 (HBO) Prophecy IV: The Uprising, 2005 (HBO) Prophecy V: The Forsaken, 2005 (HBO) Pulp Fiction, 1994 Rachel and The Stranger, 1948 Radio Days, 1987 (HBO) The Reluctant Debutante, 1958 Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, 1987 (HBO) Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love, 2005 (HBO) Revenge of the Nerds, 1984 (HBO) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, 1991 Roger & Me, 1989 Rollerball, 2002 (HBO) Romance on the High Seas, 1948 Rumble in the Bronx, 1996 Safe House, 2012 (HBO) Salvador, 1986 (HBO) Shall We Dance?, 2004 Shallow Hal, 2001 (HBO) Shocker, 1989 (HBO) Sinbad of the Seven Seas, 1989 (HBO) Sprung, 1997 (HBO) Stop-Loss, 2008 (HBO) Sunshine Cleaning, 2009 (HBO) Swing Time, 1936 Tea for Two, 1950 Thief, 1981 (HBO) This Is Spinal Tap, 1984 (HBO) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 2011 (HBO) Top Hat, 1935 Trapped in Paradise, 1994 (HBO) Troll 2, 1990 (HBO) Troll, 1986 (HBO) Two Minutes of Fame, 2020 (HBO) Underdog, 2007 (HBO) Untamed Heart, 1993 (HBO) Up in the Air, 2009 (HBO) The Visitor, 2008 Waiting for Guffman, 1997 The Wedding Singer, 1998 Wendy, 2020 (HBO) Wildcats, 1986 (HBO) The Wings of Eagles, 1957 Without Love, 1945 Woman of the Year, 1942 Worth Winning, 1989 (HBO) Young Man with a Horn, 1949

The post HBO Max New Releases:. July 2021 appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[tisthenightofthewitch]

THE 20 GREATEST GHOST SONGS – RANKED - KERRANG!

From Opus Eponymous to Prequelle, we rank the greatest compositions from Ghost

Words: Sam Law

Photo: Tom Barnes 

Undoubtedly the breakout band in heavy music over the past decade, it’s been a wild ride for Swedish creeps Ghost. Melding elements of hard rock, doom, classic metal, psychedelia and outright guitar-pop – then daubing on the corpsepaint – their combination of deceptively digestible sound, occultist ethos and anti-ecumenical aesthetic has captured the imagination of music fans and sling-shotted their live ‘rituals’ into arenas on both sides of the Atlantic.

Of course, mysterious mainman Tobias Forge (aka Papa Emeritus I-IV, aka Cardinal Copia) has had his struggles. In 2013, the band was forced to temporarily rebrand as Ghost B.C. for legal reasons in the U.S. The initially intriguing, fluid anonymity of his bandmates’ Nameless Ghoul personas (even Dave Grohl apparently once donned the cowl) became a sticking point, too, as the collective sued Tobias in 2017, failing in their suit but also dispelling some of the precious mystique.

That Tobias has endured – not just surviving, but flamboyantly thriving in the heightened spotlight – feels like proof his band are here to stay. New music is eagerly anticipated in the not-so-distant future but, for now, we rank the 20 tracks on which Ghost have built their unholy empire thus far…

20. MUMMY DUST (MELIORA, 2015)

‘I was carried on a wolf’s back, to corrupt humanity / I will pummel it with opulence, with corpulence and greed!’ Arriving on a wave of staccato percussion, spiked with gnarls of riffage and flashes of synth, this pounding cut from 2015’s Meliora – named after the insubstantial detritus of years past – plays out as one of Ghost’s most compelling indictments of the avarice of mankind. Although its creeping instrumentation, growled baritone and choral climax don’t exactly show the Swedes at their most inventive, Mummy Dust has been elevated massively in the live arena, with Papa leaning into the lurching malevolence before showering the audience with ‘money’. In Ghost we trust.

19. WITCH IMAGE (PREQUELLE, 2018)

Ghost might have traversed a full spectrum from gouging metal via classic rock to shimmering guitar-pop thus far, but the further their sound has strayed into the light, the harder the lyrics have drilled down into darkness. It’s never been truer than on this underrated ditty from Prequelle. A textbook three-and-a-half-minutes built of sweet acoustic and rich electric guitars surging towards its massive chorus, you can practically taste the relish as Tobias ladles the syrup onto some of his darkest words. ‘While you sleep in earthly delight, someone’s flesh is rotting tonight / Like no other to you, what you’ve done you can not undo…’

18. CON CLAVI CON DIO (OPUS EPONYMOUS, 2010)

After the baroque organ intro of Deus Culpa, it’s the throbbing bassline of Con Clavi Con Dio that truly pulls back the sacristy drapes on Ghost’s compelling debut. Translating crudely as ‘With Nails, With God’, the title Con Clavi Con Dio is actually an attempt at clever wordplay, drawing comparisons with the nails of crucifixion and the conclave of bishops at the head of the church as Tobias sings, ‘Our conjuration sings infernal psalms and smear the smudge in bleeding palms.’ Theological musing aside, it’s the dark swirl of sound here that truly draws the listener in, with gauzy layers of guitar, synth and vocals – not to mention the devilish tritone interval – building into a towering cathedral of subversion.

17. FAITH (PREQUELLE, 2018)

No relation to the oft-covered George Michael classic, the fourth single from 2018’s Prequelle feels like a defiant statement of the band’s arena-straddling prowess twelve years in. Powered by snarling six-strings and pounding drums – custom engineered to get tens of thousands of fists pumping – it’s seething proof that this band’s heaviest sounds are still among their best. At the same time, we get a furious flash of the man behind the mask as Tobias takes aim at his ex-Nameless Ghouls with some serious lyrical barbs: ‘The Luddites shun the diabolical, a fecal trail across the land / Although it stinks, feels and looks identical / And a pack of fools can take the stand.’ Oooft.

16. PER ASPERA AD INFERNI (INFESTISSUMAM, 2013)

Riffing on the popular Latin phrase ‘Per aspera ad astra’ (‘Through hardship to the stars’), Per Aspera Ad Infini literally translates as ‘Through Hardships To Hell.’ Its churning sound diabolically matches up. Layering on riffage that calls to mind the epic doom of heroes like Candlemass, marching-beat percussion and a lyrical treatment revolving around that title chanted as a mantra, there is sinisterness throughout. Its defining quality, however, is the fragility and despair Tobias manages to summon as he begs with ecstatic fervour, ‘Oh Satan, devour us all / Hear our desperate call.’

15. SECULAR HAZE (INFESTISSUMAM, 2013)

The lead single from 2013’s sophomore LP Infestissumam immediately built on the spooky foundations laid by Opus Eponymous with broader pantomime atmospherics and – on its live premiere in Linköping, Sweden, where Papa Emeritus II was unveiled – the first branches of their expanded mythos. A carnivalesque organ sets the tone of mischievous eeriness before the pendulous musicality hits full swing with Papa inviting us in: ‘You know that the fog is here omnipresent when the disease sees no cure / You know that the fog is here omnipresent when the intents remain obscure – forevermore!’ As if their mainstream-invading intent wasn’t clear enough, its single release even came with a B-side cover of ABBA’s I’m A Marionette featuring Dave Grohl on drums!

14. SEE THE LIGHT (PREQUELLE, 2018)

Another barely-veiled reference to Tobias’ struggles with ex-bandmates, See The Light is also one of his band’s most shamelessly uplifting compositions. Feeling like a positivist ’80s anthem – shot through with a little venom – its tinkling keys, soaring synths and understated, rumbling riffage propel an effortlessly memorable message about transcending the ill-will of one’s antagonists. Sing it together: ‘Every day that you feed me with hate, I grow stronger!’

13. DEUS IN ABSENTIA (MELIORA, 2015)

Riding on the metronomic beat of their Monstrance Clock, the closer on Ghost’s third album (translated from Latin as ‘In The Absence Of God’) is an extravagant exercise in arch theatrics. Benefiting from Klas Åhlund’s grandiose production, Tobias comes across as both demon and angel, extending his dark invitation: ‘The world is on fire, and you are here to stay and burn with me / A funeral pyre, and we are here to revel forever.’ Concluding with a hymn-like Latin chorus, it feels like the ultimate corruptive culmination: a musical sacrament truly touching only to those in the know.

12. STAND BY HIM (OPUS EPONYMOUS, 2010)

The track that started it all. Inspired by that irresistible lead riff – stumbled upon while practising for another band – Tobias foresaw a deep, dark well of potential waiting to be tapped and threw himself in headlong. Although Stand By Him’s schlocky lyrics feel gleefully on-the-chin nowadays (‘The Devil’s power is the greatest one / When His’ and Hers’ holiest shuns the sun / A temptress smitten by the blackest force / A vicar bitten blind in intercourse’), they paved the way for everything that followed. On top of that, its soaring ‘It is the night of the witch…’ chorus line even rivals that of Donovan’s Season Of The Witch (an obvious influence) for sheer spellbinding catchiness.

11. GHULEH/ZOMBIE QUEEN (INFESTISSUMAM, 2013)

One of the less immediate tracks on Ghost’s second album was also its most important. A staggering, seven-and-a-half minute opus that unfolds from its sorrowing piano line and Papa’s desiccated hiss through a swaggering midsection to a conclusion full of proggy bombast; this was proof of the untold breadth and depth of their vision and sound. Pushing from their basis in ’80s classic rock through the looser sounds of the ’70s and right into ’60s psychedelia, this ode to the titular zombie queen (‘Up from the stinking dirt she rises, ghastly pale / Shape-shifting soon but now she’s rigid, stiff and stale’) feels like Tobias’ first real attempt to stretch his (cursed black) wings and remains amongst their most rewarding compositions.

10. RITUAL (OPUS EPONYMOUS, 2010)

Anyone who remembers Ghost’s ethereal emergence from the shadows likely does so with this earworm writhing in the back of their mind. Combining the slick melodies and wry fatalism of prime Blue Öyster Cult with the crunchiness of Pentagram and Saint Vitus – soothing organs and a driving bassline pulling away – they had the musical formula nailed. It was the imagery contained therein, however (all ‘bedouins and nomads’, fallen angels and ‘smells of dead human sacrifices from the altar bed’) that captured the imaginations of a congregation ravenous for a fresh take on ancient evil. Here, the doors to the sanctum were truly open.

9. YEAR ZERO (INFESTISSUMAM, 2013)

Tying into the Ghost B.C. renaming necessitated by their Stateside legal wranglings (the year zero being the pivotal point between the B.C. and A.D. timelines), Infestissumam’s sixth track developed into one of the greatest showcases of their dark majesty. Opening with a powerful Gregorian chant (‘Belial, Behemoth, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Satanas, Lucifer’) calling to mind Jerry Goldsmith’s legendary soundtrack to The Omen, Ave Satana, the direct riffage and bludgeoning choruses that follow hammer home a sense of sheer monstrosity. Typically, the Year Zero concept is subverted, with Forge (and, reportedly, guitarist Martin Persner) picturing an ancient antagonist far predating biblical times: ‘Since dawn of time the fate of man is that of lice, equal as parasites and moving without eyes / A day of reckoning when penance is to burn, count down together now and say the words that you will learn.’

8. MIASMA (PREQUELLE, 2018)

Just when you think you’ve got Ghost figured out, they pull something like this. The first of Prequelle’s two extended instrumentals feels like showboating from an outfit whose legitimacy some fans had dared question following the acrimonious departure of so many players. Rearing into view as an expansively primitive space-rock soundscape, layering up into an ’80s prog epic, then exploding in a kaleidoscopic whirlwind of synths, Michael Jackson riffs and the best metal saxophone this side of Norway’s Shining, it was proof that Tobias’ vision would not be dictated solely by his own crooning King Diamond fixation and that it, frankly, knew no bounds.

7. ELIZABETH (OPUS EPONYMOUS, 2010)

Four years since their formation, Elizabeth felt like the break Ghost had been waiting for. Released on 7” vinyl (with the less-ear-catching Death Knell on B-side), the Mercyful Fate comparisons were immediate, with many seeing the sense of eerie grandeur and kitsch luridity at play as directly descended from the great Danes’ 1987 classic Devil Eyes. An ode to infamous Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory – alleged serial killer and bloodbather – sees Papa getting his teeth sunk in lyrically: ‘Her pact with Satan, her disposal of mankind / Her acts of cruelty and her lust for blood makes her one of us!’ The fine balance between sensuality and sin has yet to be bettered.

6. RATS (PREQUELLE, 2018)

The lead single from 2018’s Prequelle feels like a bridge between the (relative) heaviness of the band’s past and the unfettered theatricality of the album that was about to follow. Powered by a straightforward riff and piercing organs, dazzling solos and a rogue harpsichord, its introduction of the Black Death concept in which the album would wallow (refracting contemporary grievances through the filthy lens of the 14th century bubonic plague) felt both atmospherically appropriate and deliciously alive. The Scandi-pop ‘oooh-aahs’ in the chorus remain one of the band’s most gleefully irreverent touches, too. And the question of whether ‘them filthy rodents still coming for your souls’ is reference to Tobias’ old bandmates has provided rich fuel to keep the metal gossip mill turning.

5. MONSTRANCE CLOCK (INFESTISSUMAM, 2013)

In the Roman Catholic church, the monstrance is an (often ornate) receptacle in which the consecrated communion host is displayed for veneration. A monstrance clock was an aesthetically-similar Renaissance-era timekeeping device capable of displaying date, time and a wealth of other celestial information, often used in church rituals. We suspect that Ghost just liked the faintly cheeky sound of the phrase when quickly spoken. Still, the song they wrought from that initial giggle is utterly unforgettable. Deliberately paced and overflowing with evangelical zeal, a slow build flourishes into a splendiferous closing chorus that’s turned many an arena into a church of the Dark Lord: ‘Come together, together as one / Come together for Lucifer’s son!’

4. DANCE MACABRE (PREQUELLE, 2018)

If Rats was pandering somewhat to the existing fanbase, Dance Macabre was the other side of the coin. A shamelessly retro ’80s-style power ballad that’s as light on overt Satanic references as it is heavy on the cheese, some fans saw it as a form of selling-out: a dilution of devilish imagery in service of greater American radio-rock appeal. Perhaps they had a point. From its fist-pumping percussion and effervescent guitar solo to that ‘wanna, be wit chu’ chorus hook, however, it’s executed with enough committed precision and knowing panache to stand on its own terms, and a whole legion of new fans couldn’t help be swept along through the gateway and on to far darker delights. Tobias’ explanation that this is a soundtrack for people living like there’s no tomorrow – as many literally did during the plague – adds an extra dimension. Best experienced with the gleefuly vampiric music video.

3. CIRICE (MELIORA, 2015)

It’s strange how things work out sometimes. Originally conceived with producer Klas Åhlund as a nine-minute instrumental deep cut, Cirice was chopped down and reworked into Meliora’s irresistible lead single – becoming the song that really kickstarted Ghost’s stratospheric ascent. An insidious opening combusts into an infernal crescendo before lurching into the band’s most bludgeoning riff to date. All the while, Papa’s beguiling vocals reach out, full of dark romance, for new converts to their corrupted congregation. 2016’s GRAMMY for Best Metal Performance felt like just reward for such inspired work. The Roboshobo-directed music video – featuring a school talent show that’s almost as horrific as the ones we remember – is another stone cold standout.

2. SQUARE HAMMER (POPESTAR, 2016)

Following the unprecedented success of Meliora, Ghost found themselves suddenly commanding crowds far larger – and more diverse – than they’d seen before. Most of the ingredients for these grander live rituals were already in place, but they lacked the barn-burner early in their set to get these massive rooms onside. Dropped as the standalone original track on the Popestar covers EP, Square Hammer gave them just that. Abstractly melding the cultist themes of Satanism and Freemasonry, the concept of selling one’s soul – ‘ready to swear right here, right now, before the devil’ – was hardly new, but the outright pop energy of those surging synths and that exuberant chorus clearly signalled that the game had changed.

1. HE IS (MELIORA, 2015)

If Ghost’s diabolical mission statement is to make the Luciferian ideals more palatable to the masses, then He Is must be their masterpiece. So perfectly camouflaged – with twanging acoustic guitars and reverberating vocals that could’ve been nicked from the golden age of AOR – is their message, that they could drop this at any Christian rock festival and only the most switched-on devotees would know the difference. Openly indebted to giants like Kansas and Journey (and less openly to more recent occult acoustic acts like Ancient VVisdom), there’s a burning light to the sound. The use of divine-sounding Latin (‘Nostro Dispater, nostr’alma mater’) to identify the titular ‘He’ as the dark lord of the underworld is just another characteristically twisted masterstroke. Kneel at their altar.

All rights owned by Kerrang!

What do you guys think? 

Personally there’s a few I’d replace and Ritual is always my NO.1. 

#The Band Ghost #Ghost Band #Cardinal Copia #Tobias Forge

[elenajohansenauthor]

let me ramble about music for a minute

I went to Spotify to get my Wrapped report like all the cool kids are doing, and I’ll share that sometime today, but something more important happened than it telling me I listened to one album over and over and my top five songs are all from it. I knew that already.

ANBERLIN HAS RELEASED A NEW ALBUM.

Some of you are definitely going to be like, who? What is Elena so excited about?

But I am blessed on a cosmic level that the number one inspiration for my about-to-be-published novel gets back together and drops a new album right as I’m getting ready to release. After the shit year we’ve all had, I am choosing to take this as a good sign. My novel will be well-received. People will like it. People will tell their friends about it. I will make new fans.

See, back in the early 2010′s I was moving on from my old Pandora days, when somehow I was listening to primarily European death metal and beauty-and-the-beast style rock from all over the world, while listening almost exclusively to Canadian rock radio at my job, because we didn’t have satellite radio there yet and that was one of the only stations we could get to come in reliably. (Which was how I was constantly stumping my friends in my mostly-American World of Warcraft guild by throwing band names out there that they’d never heard of, like Thornley and Alter Bridge and Stabilo and The Tea Party. Before “The Tea Party” was a rising American political movement, anyway.)

But Pandora stinks, honestly, and I was tired of paying for it, and Spotify wasn’t a blip on my radar yet. I had another friend online who mostly interacted with me my dropping links to music in our Skype, and she and I would try to stump each other with songs a) we thought the other would like but also b) suspected they’d never heard of.

(We once both dropped Griffin House on each other on the same day, so we were at least right about each other’s tastes.)

But looking back over that time in our friendship, she wins our friendly competition, because in 2015 she threw this at me:

And I was GONE. I listened almost exclusively to Anberlin’s entire catalog for about the next three years.

Which was when I wrote the first draft of Fifty-Five Days. Yeah, that was my 2016 NaNoWriMo project, originally under the working title “This Novel Has No Title, Just Words and a Tune.” (Because I like clever plays on song lyrics, yeah, I’m cute like that.)

It’s no mistake that my fictional band’s structure mimics Anberlin, or that I sometimes refer to aspects of their musical style that are my favorites. I deliberately chose not to have the band cover any of their songs--too on the nose, there--but if there’s one existent band to listen to, to get an idea of what their sound would be like, it’s this one.

I was bitterly disappointed to realize that I had found this new favorite band of mine right after they broke up. But I consoled myself with the huge amount of music they left behind, and eventually, with their lead singer’s side project, Anchor & Braille, which (surprise surprise!) is my top artist of 2020.

I only made the new album discovery late last night, so I haven’t listened yet. It’s possible I’ve just hyped myself up for disappointment, because I don’t like their whole back catalog equally (aside from “Feel Good Drag,” New Surrender is probably my least favorite album, for example. Toss up for best is probably Lowborn and Dark is the Way, Light is a Place, depending on what mood I’m in, because they’re very different albums.) Maybe it’s brilliant, maybe it’s not, but either way, I’M SO FREAKING EXCITED. (Is this how Swifties felt earlier this year? Because I respect Taylor Swift but I’m not a diehard fan, and I actually haven’t listened to the new album yet, I keep meaning to but I’m busy and also obsessed by other artists...)

So basically, at the end of all of this, when the book comes out and you see the cover songs I included, they’re all at least somewhat important to the story or I wouldn’t have written them in, but if you want the uncredited sound of the band itself, I am begging you to give Anberlin a try. I love them. They are fantastic.

#writeblr #music #anberlin #fifty-five days #anchor & braille #about me

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: 01 Mar 2020 (Make Mordor great again, N95 Mask of the Red Death, Medicare for All with Covid, Necessity Defense)

Today's links

Trump's rhetoric fits eerily well into the Tolkien canon: AR Moxon makes Mordor great again.

The wealthy are chartering jets to avoid coronavirus: The Masque of the Red Death takes to the skies.

The US already has Medicare for All: The day that Trump declares a national health emergency.

America's uninsured will turn a covid crisis into a covid disaster: Our shared microbial destiny cannot be denied.

Jury refuses to convict Extinction Rebellion activists: Long live the "necessity defense" and the human race it protects.

This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Trump's rhetoric fits eerily well into the Tolkien canon (permalink)

AR Moxon's satirical riff on how Trump would play as a Tolkien villain is not only hilarious, it's also exactly the kind of thing the Tolkien estate used to threaten to sue people over.

https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1233207274992263168?s=19

(which is why Pat Murphy's astoundingly great genderswapped retelling of The Hobbit, "There and Back Again," is no longer in print.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_and_Back_Again_(novel)

Especially good is how Moxon digs into the way that Tolkien's concept of "races" was uncomfortably close to "racism" (especially orcs, who, honestly, have no conceivable basis for subsisting as a species, let alone a society).

https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1233682097463873536

"While I was here, this orc came up —a big guy, very tough, like out of central casting, handsome, could've been a fighting Uruk-hai—and he's crying, weeping, he says 'sir, thank you for the meat.' Incredible. He hadn't had nothing but maggoty bread for three stinking days."

Other Trumpland rhetoric fits in eerily well. Just like Murphy, Moxon claims Hobbits: "We have Hobbits coming in folks, and they're smoking the pipe-weed, and eating second breakfasts, third breakfasts, your breakfasts, your children's breakfasts."

https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1233221682309083137

And just as with Murphy, Moxon's satire is full of deep, Silmarillion cuts that demonstrate that his work is coming from a place of deep, if conflicted, affection.

https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1233328631734206475

"Fëanor, son of Finwë, King of the Noldor, is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more. We all appreciate his contributions, and we're looking into him, and we're looking very strongly. Nobody was talking about him before me."

(Image: Cornel Zueger, CC BY-SA)

The wealthy are chartering jets to avoid coronavirus (permalink)

Plutes are chartering private jets in the hopes of avoiding #coronavirus, assuming that if they only fly in fart-tubes that other wealthy people have farted in, they won't get sick.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-29/wealthy-jump-to-private-jets-to-duck-airlines-and-cut-virus-risk

To make this pay, you really need to fill that Gulfstream. NYC-London is $140k for a 12-seater — flying those 12 buttery soft asses from JFK to Heathrow in BA First will run you $120K.

So you're basically assuming that if you use the plute-only terminal at LAX (whose management company once threatened to sue me for criticizing it in print!), and LHR (originally royals-only, now open to any oligarch), you'll avoid covid. Presumably because the Better People have Better Masks and the Luxury Decontam Wipes and that will keep the bad stuff at bay. Nevermind that we're finding covid in people who've been in psych ward lockdown for TEN YEARS.

https://twitter.com/AskAKorean/status/1233046896719126533

Elite Panic is definitely a killer. I mean, people have been pointing this out since Poe wrote "Masque of the Red Death" in 1842. You can't shoot germs.

https://www.poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death

Humanity has a shared microbial destiny. Crises get resolved by people running TOWARD the problem, not cowering in luxury bunkers while better people do the work. This is the point of my own take on "Masque."

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250242334

Public health crises show that reality has a well-known collectivist bias, and this challenges right wing orthodoxy, which is why the right has only two responses to epidemiology: "It's a hoax" and (later) "Exterminate the dirty poors!"

"The Reactionary Mind," Corey Robin's magnificent 2011 book (updated 2017), traces the history of right-wing thought to find the factor that unites Dominionists, imperialists, white nationalists, libertarians and other strains of right-wing thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reactionary_Mind

Robin's conclusion: the thing that unites these different strains is a belief that humanity is naturally arrayed in hierarchies, with some people simply born better than the rest of us, and the world is best when the best people are in charge. It's an idea as old as Plato's Republic. Dominionists want Christian men in charge of women and children. Racists want white people in charge of racialized people. Libertarians want bosses in charge of workers. Imperialists want America in charge of the world.

It explains why right-wing movements hang together (because they all agree that the "wrong people" are running things) and why they splinter (once they take power, they can't agree who the "right people" are).

This "divine right of kings/bosses/America/whites/men/Christians" philosophy is coterminal with the idea of the natural leaders having special stuff that makes them better: just as the touch of a king will heal leprosy, so too can you expect that a plute won't have covid. It's wrong, of course — lethally so.

The US already has Medicare for All (permalink)

Did you know the US already has "Medicare for All"? But only under very specific circumstances: under the National Disaster Medical System, if the President declares a public health emergency, the federal government steps in to pay all out-of-pockets.

https://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/responders/ndms/definitive-care/Pages/coverage-guidelines.aspx

Any medically necessary service which is authorized for reimbursement as long as the patient sustained:

Injuries or illnesses resulting directly from a specified public health emergency;"

("If you have covid symptoms, you're covered")

Injuries, illnesses and conditions requiring medical services necessary to maintain a reasonable level of health temporarily not available as a result of the health emergency

("if you have any other problem and can't get treatment due to covid chaos, you're covered")

As Carlos Mucha points out, Trump declaring a national health emergency would create "Medicare for All with Covid-19," which could easily become just plain Medicare for All, "as surely as the UK's Emergency Hospital Service morphed into the NHS."

America's uninsured will turn a covid crisis into a covid disaster (permalink)

The last time Carl Gibson saw a doctor was 2013, when an arm-sling and an Rx for painkillers ran him $4000, creating a permanent blot on his credit report. He hasn't been since.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/28/coronavirus-millions-of-americans-uninsured

He's not alone. 44% of Americans do not see doctors despite medical necessity, because of cost. About a third of Americans do not fill their prescriptions because they can't afford them.

27.5m Americans don't have health insurance, thanks to a mix of Republican state-houses blocking Medicare expansion and Obamacare's intrinsic shortcomings, which invite price-gouging and under-coverage from America's sociopathic health-insurance industry.

This is terrible under the best of circumstances, but it's the thing that turns a coronavirus emergency into a coronavirus catastrophe. Because Carl Gibson is sneezing into the same air you're breathing.

("All the common people breathing filthy air" -The Pointer Sisters)

Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar, is a former pharma lobbyist who has ruled out price controls for a Covid-19 vaccine.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/27/pluralistic-your-daily-link-dose-27-feb-2020/#pandemiccapitalism

And Nancy Pelosi has said that treatment must be "affordable" – not free. What's "affordable" when 61% of Americans don't even have $1,000 saved to cover a medical emergency?

It's hardly a novel observation to say that we have a shared microbial destiny: "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'"

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/few-americans-have-enough-savings-to-cover-a-1000-emergency.html

Jury refuses to convict Extinction Rebellion activists (permalink)

An Oregon jury has refused to convict a group of climate activists who blocked a rail line that Zenith Energy used to transport tar sands crude. The Extinction Rebellion activists presented a "necessity defense" for their actions.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/28/landmark-win-fight-habitable-future-jury-refuses-convict-climate-activists-who

The activists were charged with trespassing for planting a "victory garden" that blocked the track. There was video. 5 of 6 jurors decided that maintaining the habitability of the only planet in the known universe capable of sustaining human life justified the action.

"We need to take note of the lessons learned by the labor movement—mass civil disobedience works. The climate crisis is a workers' issue, we need to unite to shut down business as usual. Right now." -Margaret Butler

The result was a mistrial, and now the local prosecutors have to decide whether to haul the activists back into court again.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Deluded Sony music exec can't read his own study https://constitutionalcode.blogspot.com/2005/02/us-market-not-antagonistic-towards-drm.html

#15yrsago Euro software patents reanimated through corrupt officials 0wned by Microsoft https://yro.slashdot.org/story/05/02/28/2223232/eu-commission-declines-patent-debate-restart

#15yrsago Comp sci profs smackdown the movie studios https://web.archive.org/web/20050303023425/http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000776.html

#10yrsago Architectural fan-drawings of classic sitcom houses http://origin.www.markmoorefineart.com/artists/mark-bennett

#10yrsago Petition to make "Hella" the prefix for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 https://www.facebook.com/The-Official-Petition-to-Establish-Hella-as-the-SI-Prefix-for-1027-277479937276/

#10yrsago Cyberwar hype was cooked up to sell Internet-breaking garbage to the military https://www.wired.com/2010/03/cyber-war-hype/

#5yrsago North Korean defectors undermine totalitarianism with smuggled pirate sitcoms https://www.wired.com/2015/03/north-korea/

#1yrago Oakland teachers' union declares total victory after seven-day strike https://oaklandea.org/updates/oea-reaches-tentative-agreement-with-ousd/

#1yrago German Data Privacy Commissioner warns at new Copyright Directive will increase the tech oligopoly, make EU companies dependent on US filter vendors, and subject Europeans to surveillance by US companies https://torrentfreak.com/german-data-privacy-commissioner-sounds-alarm-over-upload-filter-oligopoly-190301/

#1yrago University of California system libraries break off negotiations with Elsevier, will no longer order their journals https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open

#1yrago Satanic Panic 2.0: The Momo Challenge hoax https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/02/momo-challenge-hoax/583825/

#1yrago Striking West Virginia teachers won swift and decisive victory; Oakland next? https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/28/rapid-victory-west-virginia-teacher-strike-shows-what-happens-when-progressives

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/)

Hugo nominators! My story "Unauthorized Bread" is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Upcoming appearances:

Canada Reads Kelowna: March 5, 6PM, Kelowna Library, 1380 Ellis Street, with CBC's Sarah Penton https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cbc-radio-presents-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-96154415445

Currently writing: I just finished a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel now, though the timing is going to depend on another pending commission (I've been solicited by an NGO) to write a short story set in the world's prehistory.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Gopher: When Adversarial Interoperability Burrowed Under the Gatekeepers' Fortresses: https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/02/24/gopher-when-adversarial-interoperability-burrowed-under-the-gatekeepers-fortresses/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a very special, s00per s33kr1t intro.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 290 - 286

290. Stella Mwangi - “Haba haba” Norway 2011

Good heavens, the live rendition of “Haba haba” was RUBBISH 😬 One of 2011′s many disappointments. It’s a damn’ shame Stella was off during the *entire* performance because her song kicks ass tbh. It’s impossible to dislike this big ball of cheer and jubilation!! “Cute blackgirl regaling her grandmother’s life lessons in Swahili” should become a Eurovision trope, BRING HER BACK!!!

________________________________________________________________

289. Jüri Pootsmann - “Play” Estonia 2016

Is there a word for ’negative charisma’? Because we might call it Pootsmannia. 😬 I’m not sure WHY Estonia chose to bring a non-act that made their already awkward singer look like a rapist-slash-murderer. That PLAY CARD GIMMICK  🤦‍♂️ oh god that sucked!! 

Leave just the audio component of the entry, however and there’s nothing wrong with “Play”. It’s a great, moody song and Jüri sings it well. A shame the visuals completely Sennek it into whateverness.

________________________________________________________________

288.  Vukašin Brajić - “Thunder and lightning” Bosnia & Herzegovina 2010

Another song from the Eurovision Uncanny Valley. “Thunder and Lightning” promises EPIC rock song and comes up average and therefore, boring. 🤦‍♂️ I think it’s mostly the act, though? Like, the song itself has pretty gruff, empowering demeanor, which I like (especially in sings with charity angle) but the act does nothing with it, so it becomes wash of electric guitar noise. Oh well. PS: indefinite articles are thing in the English language: you would be well advised to make use of them. Otherwise you look like idiot. 

________________________________________________________________

287. Salvador Sobral - “Amar pelos dois” Portugal 2017

[2017 Review here]

Apparently 287th is the highest my cognitive dissonnance allows me to rank the fuckin’ anti-Christ. Time hasn’t been kind to my opinion of Salvador, whom I had mixed feelings on before and now full on HATE. He may be my least favourite person to ever to do Eurovision? 

It really speaks for how much Salvador sucks as an entity that I don’t need to elaborate why I hate him. We’ve heard his “Real Music is Emotion” speech, and some of us have heard him compare doing Eurovision to actual prostitution. It’s not so much his personality, as much as his attitude which stinks.

The Salvador Sobral -and yes, ‘the Salvador’ because we all are aware they are a type of human, of which Salvador is the posterchild to us, residents of the Eurovision bubble- represents a toxic, regressive, shockingly narrow-minded ideal of music, in which songs can only be considered real when stripped down of all the embellishments that make music entertaining, innovative and exciting, leaving only it’s base form of Emotion. It’s the same vintage-addicted, man-bunned, counter-conformist hipster hoohah that has infected creative environments all over the globe (such as eateries that serve deconstructed spaghetti bolognese in mason jars) with its pretentious GOBSHITE. I find it despicable and I will forever oppose it!!

HOWEVER, 

Does that make “Amar pelos dois” a bad entry? 

Well, no, not quite. It’s true that my overwhelmingly negative opinion of Salvabrat has bled into my opinion of his song. That does not make “Amar pelos dois” bad, however. Music’s main purposes are (1) to provide entertainment and (2) to tell a compelling story, and Amar pelos dois NAILS the latter pretty hard. You can feel the pathos, the denial, the saudade in the music. It’s far from the type of music I like, but I can respect Luisa Sobral for her excellent penmanship. Additionally, “Amar pelos dois” proved another very important creed: that any country, no matter how shit their track record, no matter how often Europe spits out their entries, has the power to win Eurovision. Macedonia, Switzerland and Czechia have reached the top 10 since (and I *think* Czechia are going to win VERY soon actually, within the next five years). The Netherlands, a country that completely gave up on Eurovision 8 years ago (after the longest NQ streak in the history of ESC) has turned everything around and topped it off with a deserved victory. It has truly become anyone’s game and this can only benefit Eurovision for future contests to come. “Amar pelos dois” played its part in giving these countries the drive to never give up and that’s worth the price of having Salvabrat as a winner.

So overall, where does that take me? To a spot of mixed feelings, where my negative feelings for Salvador & his posse of freak fans take precedence over the positive ones I feel for Luisa and her song, but don’t override them entirely. 287th is a pretty arbitrary position, but to me it’s a suitable slot. Salvador is only one, and we, dear Eurovision fans that keep the contest alive with our dedication, are the many.

________________________________________________________________

286. Netta - “Toy” Israel 2018

[2018 Review here]

So remember when Salvador HAAAAATED “Toy” the most out of all the 2018 contestants and called it an affront to music? Well, guess what:

Ever since that moment I have VOWED to always rank Netta exactly *ONE* spot above Salvador!!! Suck it Salvabrat!!! This also works out well for determining Netta’s position because, as with Salvador, my opinion of "Toy” has curdled into borderline dislike lol. It’s only a matter of time before A Haha Joke Entry gets old and instead becomes a permanent source of irritation and "Toy” is well past that expiration date for me.

Even worse, Netta herself kind of pisses me off now. 😬 Deliberately presenting yourself as in-yo-face obnoxious is one thing, but combining that with acting like you’re ~The Shit~, cf.: NANA BANANA I DO WHAT I WANNA *SMUGSMUGSMUG* nope, fucking NOPE SIS!!!!!! Sit down you...you... lol i’d say “you cow” but that would be racist against cows, tbh~

However, like “Amar pelos dois”, there are elements of “Toy” that I like just enough to display some generosity. I care negatively for all the ~chicken noises and hammy eyerolls~, but I still respect its empowerment and pop culture references. “Toy” remains a capable party banger, even after a full year of being terrorized by its omnipresence. It also fits in with the theme of “anyone can win Eurovision”, although this applies more to the type of person (a shy, vulnerable, plus-sized girl who overcame bullying and fat-shaming), than the country, but it’s still counts as a net win for inclusion. “Toy” may be an annoying experience that I no longer enjoy, but its impact on the contest has overall been a positive one and, no matter how acerbic I can express my feelings sometimes, major props for making it work in spite of the many naysayers. K this update gone on MUCH longer than normal, I’m out!  

#Eurovision #Eurovision Song Contest #Israel #netta #Toy #Portugal #Salvador Sobral #Amar Pelos Dois #Bosnia & Herzegovina #Vukasin Brajic #Thunder and lightning #Estonia #Jüri Pootsmann #Play #Norway #Stella Mwangi #Haba Haba

[benvantasopinions-blog]

I Have An Opinion On - Prequelle by Ghost (2018) Prequelle is the fourth full-length studio album by Swedish heavy metal band Ghost. Originally formed in 2006, Ghost released their first studio album Opus Eponymous in 2010, and since then have risen to metal mainstream fame, especially after the release of their third studio album Meliora in 2015, which included the Grammy-winning single “Cirice”. In the time since Meliora’s release, the band has released some small batches of material, including the Popestar EP (which would then be bundled with Meliora as Meliora Redux) and the He Is digital EP / vinyl single, and the band’s first live album, titled Ceremony and Devotion. Alongside all of these releases have come some major changes in Ghost’s canon with the arrival of new vocalist Cardinal Copia, the reveal of Papa Nihil, and the deaths of all previous vocalists, Papa Emeritus I, II, and III. However, by far the biggest change to the band is the reveal of Tobias Forge’s identity, being revealed as all of Ghost’s vocalists due to a lawsuit filed by former members of the band. Due to this, Prequelle is the first Ghost album to be recorded with the knowledge of Tobias Forge’s identity. Prequelle is a loose concept album (although it may be generous to call it as such) about death, destruction, and doom, with nods to historical periods such as medieval times and the Black Death / Great Plague, the latter especially being shown in the album’s first two tracks, the opener, “Ashes”, a short minute and a half piece beginning with an eerie organ and the recital of a version of the old nursery rhyme “Ring a Ring o’ Roses”, performed by Forge’s daughter, which then opens into some slow, heavy guitars and drums, which become accompanied by some melodic synths that lead into the second track, the album’s lead single, “Rats”, a song with lyrics about a disease spreading like wildfire, wiping out entire cities and leaving them destroyed. I absolutely love the drum intro on here, and the rest of the song’s instrumentation and overall sound is great too. I love the “Them rats” refrain after every verse, as it gives the song a darker feelings, and the dual melodic guitar solo from the Nameless Ghouls that starts slow and picks up in pace is fucking gorgeous. It all wraps up in a nice bow with a nice little heavy instrumental outro segment. The next track, “Faith”, starts with a few quick and melodic guitar riffs, but then drops the melody and goes for straight up heavy and slow, with the exception of the melodic, midtempo solo. The low growl of the chorus after the solo, as well as the “Because faith is mine” line after every chorus adds to the song’s written perspective of the Devil and how he watches people suffer and pass during the Plague, with the chorus reading “I am all eyes, I am all ears, I am the wall, and I’m watching you fall”, however, there are also some subtle jabs at Ghosts’ previous members and Forge’s feelings towards them, with lyrics such as “Although it stinks, feels, and looks identical, a pack of fools can take the stand” being nods towards the band Priest, started by former Ghost members that looks extremely identical to Ghost, with religious imagery and masks to hide identities. Overall, it’s a very sinister track, and it helps solidify the album’s overall darker themes and sound, but this changes with the piano-lead outro that ties directly into the following track, “See The Light”, a piano and synth lead ballad that serves as a huge contrast to the previous songs on the album. The choruses always bring in the rest of the instrumentation, which has a very melancholic feel to it, especially in the slow-paced guitar solo, with the song being about the Devil’s strength growing with hate, with some nods towards transubstantiation (the belief that communion water turns directly into the body of Christ), and as with the previous song, there are some jabs towards Ghost’s former members, especially with the line “Many a rat I’ve befriended”. It’s a nice little ballad. The next track, “Miasma”, is the first of two instrumentals on the album, and has some really nice synth layering, with the main synths on the track being layered directly over the guitar work, giving it an almost 8-bit-style that I really enjoy. However, the structuring of the song bothers me a bit, and is the first actual problem I have regarding any song on the album. While it is an instrumental, it follows the same Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Solo-Chorus structure that rock/metal songs usually follow, making it feel like it should have vocals on it, but they were forgotten or just left off at the last second. With that being said, however, the tasty saxophone on the last section of the track kinda makes up for the weird missing vocals feel the song has. “Dance Macabre” comes afterwards, as is also the album’s second single. It feels much like an arena-rock style anthem, but it also blends in some 80′s disco, giving it a slight glam metal style. The main drum rhythm is very simple, but the rest of instrumentation adds to it and helps make it a song that really makes you want to move, and the slow but high note guitar solo definitely adds to it’s upbeat sound. The lyrics keep with the theme of the Plague, as it goes over the feeling of people dancing and enjoying themselves as death creeps up on them. There’s actually some really nice wordplay in here, with parts of the chorus reading as “wanna bewitch you in the moonlight” and��“I wanna bewitch you all night” sounding like “wanna be with you in the moonlight” and “I wanna be with you all night”. It’s something small, but I like it as it goes with the themes of the band themselves. The following track, “Pro Memoria”, has a gospel and orchestral sound to it, and it feels very much like the song “He Is” off of the band’s previous album Meliora. With lyrics about not fearing death, as it is inevitable, it’s very much a saddening and melancholic track, but it still has an easy-going confidence to it that I enjoy. I love the chorus of “Don’t you forget about dying, don’t you forget about your friend Death, don’t you forget that you will die”, and the haunting choir and organ combo that closes the track is a nice touch. The next track, “Witch Image”, is written directly from the perspective of the Reaper, the personification of Death itself, and references the Four Horsemen, with the line “I am riding in the shadows behind you on a pale white horse” directly referencing Pestilence, keeping in theme with the Plague. As far as it’s sound goes, it’s another anthem-style song, but is noticeably more upbeat than the others. “Helvetesfönster” is the second instrumental track on the album, and definitely my favorite of the two, as this one feels more like an instrumental than it’s counterpart. The first half of the track is powerful, with slow, low guitars riffs alongside pounding drums and a nice blend of piano and synths, but the second half is a lot more subdued, with a really mellow acoustic guitar and flute combo that really add towards the album’s medieval times feeling. The subdued feeling that this song closes off on leads into the album’s closing track, “Life Eternal”, which asks the listener, would be better to die as a mortal or to live forever with immortality? The piano, organ, and choir gives it that feeling of finality, and while the final section of the song kinda hurts it a little in my eyes, as I feel the repetition of the word “Forever” drags on a bit too long, there’s definitely more good than bad, and it’s a nice track to close off on. Prequelle is overall a very enjoyable album, and while it may or may not top albums like Meliora and Opus Eponymous (depending on the type of person you are), it definitely shows why Ghost is as popular as they are. I get that they’re very much an “entry-level” metal band, but that doesn’t make them any less enjoyable within the genre. This is a great album, and a great way to follow up an extremely successful album like Meliora. Joke about Ghost being “Scooby Doo chase music” all you want, this is a great album, and the fact that it’s accessible to non-metal fans while still being very much a metal album is pretty cool. Definitely check it out if you’re interested. FINAL SCORE - 9/10 BEST TRACKS - Rats, Faith, See The Light, Dance Macabre, Pro Memoria, Witch Image, and Helvetesfönster. WORST TRACKS - Miasma, just for the weird ‘missing vocal’ feeling it has. If it wasn’t for that, this would probably be a perfect 10 for me.

#ghost #ghost bc #cardinal copia #tobias forge #prequelle #opus eponymous #meliora #nameless ghouls #heavy metal #doom metal #hard rock #rats #dance macabre #review #music #opinion

[mr-kamiyama]

Judging by the fact that I knew circa-2010 university kids were smoking non-weed e-cigarettes (I was friends with a family, and obviously, the daughter had friends in college), I don't think cigarettes are gonna die out.

I actually see smoking being the 2020's New Prohibition target. I mean, the moral panic is totally there. Alcohol is a toxin, too.

Look how all alcohol consumption ended, right?

Seriously, though, people *died* of unregulated, unchecked bathtub moonshine. People who were otherwise stand-up citizens had to get black market connections.

I do not like drugs, marijuana included. I couldn't be prouder to work in a shelter that doesn't kick people out for taking a hit. Because I don't believe in forcing people to be me. I also don't get nasty about passing people smoking weed, even if I think it stinks and really, really do not want a contact high. Because I'm bloody *nice.* I'm not a crummy person who tries to make people feel bad for being different than me. I'll also go ahead and mention that I've had wonderful, amazing clients that could've died on the streets for being heroin users, and I'm super proud to be part of the agency that kept that from happening, and was super happy to have met them.

Remember that the black market is pouring fentanyl into other stuff and not telling consumers, who then don't know to dose with less, and just die, because somehow, the black market doesn't worry about loss of customers through quick and sudden mass death (where slow death can still render decades of profit, if 30 customers in your territory die overnight, you'd think that'd be a problem, but it somehow isn't)

I mean, moral handwringing over "gin makes you evil and lazy, but mead makes you smart and productive and good" was a thing, too. Just like "alcohol is evil and this must be a dry country" and "now cigarettes make you evil but getting high makes you pure and smart"

If we wanna gó outside harmful substances, the same can be said about "rock music played backwards is messages from Satan" and "the waltz is salacious and the Devil's handiwork" and "certain chords/instruments are demonic."

This is nothing new, and there are so many Euro-American/Puritanical/church-related examples, but I'm assuming you got it by now.

Accept that you can't make everyone around you do what you would do. Stop acting like a 1800s pearl-clutching noble freaking out over the Waltz or a G.I. Generationer having a moral crisis over the way Elvis dances.

Stop trying to force/shame everyone into being like you.

#prohibition #smoking #1920s #2020s #drinking #moral panics

[pip-personalispolitical]

GROUPIE LOVE.

I am a self-proclaimed witch, part-time poet and groupie. I say that with a meta affectation; the pretension lies in my self-awareness as opposed to my actions. For those of you that know me, you probably know I enjoy sleeping with musicians. Musicians to me are - without fail - the most interesting people I sleep with  and nine times out of ten are really good in bed. They tend to think outside of the monogamous, penetrative box of heterosexual sex. And while interesting isn't always a good thing, sleeping with musicians gives me an experience I otherwise would never have access to. It’s an insight into a world just out of reach.

In this essay I explore the concept of a groupie and what is given to both parties in an exchange that is ultimately one based on sexuality and erotic capitol. I will examine what I think groupies really do, sociologically, personally and sexually. I also address that this particular definition of being a groupie is one of sleeping with musicians, rather than being a dedicated fan of one. This follows the definition outlined by Pamela Des Barres (the worlds most famous groupie) who states that a groupie is someone who is simply “with the group” or “with the band.”

What we do.

From the perspective of a female groupie to that of a male band, I believe that groupies have historically provided performers with validation. This validation comes in the reaffirmation of their heterosexuality, masculinity and success. If they're not playing for the women, who are they playing for? The men in a homosocial context, or a homosexual one? They deflect the objectified performers’ anxieties of being under  another male gaze - groupies deflect emasculation (Crawford: 2014: 50). Thereby, they validate the performers sexuality and masculinity by existing within a context where they are desired and viewed as a sign of success. Why else would we turn up to your shows if we didn’t think you were talented and beautiful?

That being said, this validation lies within the grounds of heteronormativity and the heterosexual matrix (Butler:  2007: 4, 8). It is therefore assumptive and reductive to those outside of this sphere. The majority of the music industry is a tiresome ground of patriarchy and misogyny, so those who aim to strike bargains with it must do so within those means provided; while I believe this isn’t a bargain with patriarchy due to the context, it is a bargain nonetheless. This exchange is a confirmation of masculinity and femininity within the heterosexual matrix - a bargain well struck.

The Erotic Capital.

This exchange employs the erotic capital, as defined by Catherine Hakim wherein attractive women use their looks and sex appeal to their advantage for financial, political or personal gain; it is a “fourth asset very different from economic, social, and cultural capitol”  that is rising in social importance and gives women an advantage where they otherwise may not have had it (2010: 512). While this is not exclusive to the phenomenon of groupies, it is an important concept I believe is employed in modern ideology of the groupie. As Hakim explains it may have more significance with regards to the entertainment industry and requires a set of social skills based on initial talent and ability (2010: 512). That is to say, groupies already possess or acquire a level of charisma or appeal that makes them desirable to musicians.

Breaking monogamy, sexual assertion and self-awareness.

While groupies provide confirmation within rock ’n’ roll and heterosexuality, they also break the institution of monogamy: groupies exist as a sexually assertive and liberated woman that follows strands of the second wave of feminism (Crawford: 2014: 50).  Being a groupie, then, aligns with the movement of sex positivity. Again, with reference to Hakim, the moral ideologies of society tend to discourage women from “exploiting their erotic capital” (2010: 499). The groupie does not shy away from this, the groupie disregards such stigmas in favour of attaining the poet/god/rockstar.

On this note, Crawford argues that groupies take the phallus worship that lies within the heart of rock ’n’ roll (which could be extended to most genres of music, I think) to it’s logical conclusion by sleeping with the artists (2014: 49-50). As Courtney Love (I know, she’s problematic but she has a point here) once said “we invented rock n’ roll to sexualise men.” What is the height of this sexualisation other than sleeping with them?

“Such savviness provokes hostility,” Crawford notes, “women aren’t supposed to plan for and pursue sexual activity” - more to the point they’re not supposed to know how to do it either (2014: 49-50). As a groupie you play to or adhere to the mood of the music, you dress to be a part of the scene to add to your desirability. It is unsettling for musicians to think that a woman can be so cunning - yet so desired and necessary to their personal masculinity, and, by extension, the reputation of the band.

This brings me to my next point, that some groupies possess a level of self-awareness in regards to their actions, both personally and socially; to be labelled as such is to know your power as well as to be aware of the potential downsides. There is power in the namer; when reclaiming the term - akin to the word slut - acknowledges the connotations of the trope. It demonstrates passion, ambition and desire to occupy a pragmatic standpoint within a situation that is ultimately boiled down to one of a sexual exchange. If both parties enjoy the exchange where both have something to offer, it can be beneficial in terms of personal gain and satisfaction. This, it could be argued, is where the concept of the erotic capitol is epitomised.

I am very aware of this exchange, I have what you want and I know that even if you don’t choose to have sex with me, I am a form of validation that is crucial. I add credibility to their band simply by turning up. Perhaps, this sentiment is epitomised in Lana Del Rey’s song Groupie Love. She coo’s “every time that you look up, I know what you’re thinking of, you want my groupie love,” and she’s right. Groupies want to be desired and they are. The question is, does being a groupie in a modern context require a self-awareness and political connotations of these actions to make them effective in their result, or can the liberal morals of the 60’s still be applicable in a modern context?

Misogyny, power dynamics and exploitation.

One of the main issues is that groupies, to directly quote Crawford, give the musician a means to “connect with a male audience through the objectification and denigration of women,” (2014: 50). The position of a groupie is one amidst a field of misogyny: the groupie sits on a thin fence of second wave, choice feminism. You can play up to these images or utilise them, bargain with patriarchal tropes and power structures, but ultimately do these choices not just further patriarchal and misogynistic tropes within institutions?

Moreover, from my positionality (that of a white, cis-gender, able-bodied female) it serves my purpose and my purpose only; I am running in a playground that stinks of choice feminism and out-dated liberal morals reminiscent of the 60s sexual revolution.

Additionally, I believe that due to the fact that groupies are also caught up in a web of sexual liberation, repression and the long standing virgin/whore dichotomy we are easy targets to be labelled as “too obsessive” or “insane”, we are easily dismissed as objects, tropes, not as human beings. Further manipulation or attempt to disband this adds to such a label and your power is all at once lost to the trope.

Perhaps in a modern context, personal gain requires more rigid and well-analysed political intention - however, that is not to say it cannot be a mutually satisfying interaction. Using my education and personal feelings towards sexuality, I feel as though its more of an exchange - I have no doubt that is due to my positionality. Being a groupie lies in a strange river of dynamics on an interpersonal level and a larger, structural level.

The power dynamics of a musician to that of a groupie are, to say the least, troubling: exploitation is likely, particularly with younger or more naive fans. Lori Maddix is a prime example of this, being one of the most desired within the “baby groupies”; she was only thirteen when she became involved with musicians. This is nothing less than statutory rape despite the fact that Maddix gave consent (Tolentino: 2016). The problematic history of groupies and their rockstar lovers can’t be ignored. I can't defend these actions, nor should I. I’m trying to argue for choice feminism and sexual liberation; the fault lies with the men in rock ’n’ roll who abuse their power. Moreover, sexuality in girlhood isn’t anything to be ashamed of and should be explored - they just happened to explore it with rockstars.

Returning to my main point, in regards to second wave feminism and sexual liberation: to what extent is the exchange about liberation or empowerment? Is this not simply an exchange or a play on the erotic capitol? Can this not simply be a consensual, mutual hook up based on sexuality and satisfaction? Furthermore, empowerment  and liberation are two highly subjective concepts (as I've previously stated in other essays) what is empowering or liberating to one woman may not be to another.

Conclusion.

It is clear that female sexuality is still widely policed and politicised, widely held accountable and impaled on a fence of second wave feminism - it seems we can never win. That being said the groupie validates masculinities and femininities, they offer a break from monogamy and disregard any morals implemented on sexuality; the groupie is a savvy, sex positive, self-aware agent.

Additionally, in analysing the phenomenon historically it’s problematic elements weigh heavy on its positive potential. I feel that we are, however, utilising feminist discourses and sexual liberation to some gain, be it personal, political or economical. And even if groupies aren’t, isn't it still an expression of sexuality that shouldn't be policed? In the earlier concept the positionality of a groupie allowed for the sexuality of girlhood to experience liberation and exploration.

Being a groupie also holds greater potential to gain a foothold into a notoriously misogynistic industry. Given the interaction stays within the laws and age of legal consent, the erotic capital - if acknowledged by the groupie or not - is still at play and in that sense it is effective.

Not to sound like Penny Lane but I’m here for the music, man. I’m here to gain insight into a creative world just outside of my reach, I want to see how you do it, what inspires you. The fact that you have access to members’ only clubs and D-minor celebrities is a bonus.

I revel in the debauchery and hedonism of rock ’n’ roll; I enjoy seeing and being seen, I enjoy the connection to another creative individual - particularly in a way I’ve never been or haven't had the means to be. Mostly, I enjoy knowing that I have something they want, I enjoy knowing that I am desired - particularly by rockstars.

References. 

Butler, Judith (2007): “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire“. In: Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. pp. 4, 8.   Crawford, Anwen (2014). Hole's Live Through This . London: Bloomsbury . 49, 50. Hakim, Catherine . (2010). Erotic Capitol . European Sociological Review. 26 (5), pp. 512. Kandiyoti, D. (1988). Bargaining with Patriarchy. Gender and Society. 2 (3). 
 Nina De Koning. (2017). VHS1'S LETS SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER. [Online Video]. 20 May 2013. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnViqstGsYs&t=311s. [Accessed: 4 October 2017]. Tolentino, Jia. (2016). What Should We Say About David Bowie and Lori Maddox?. Available: https://jezebel.com/what-should-we-say-about-david-bowie-and-lori-maddox-1754533894. Last accessed 2/10/2017.

[popofventi]

May Song 1: "I Ain't Been Nowhere" by Chuck Mead

“I Ain’t Been Nowhere” by Chuck Mead

Launching my May playlist is the official song of quarantine, “I Ain’t Been Nowhere” by Chuck Mead is a play on Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere, Man”. It’s funny but also quite complex, accurate and well thought out. Made me actually laugh so that in and of itself makes it worthy of a listen.

“I Ain’t Been No Where” Lyrics

I was traveling along, playing anywhere I could When along came a virus and took away my livelihood Somebody picked it up and spread it worldwide And now for a while, we have to all stay inside You ask me how I’m doing and if I’ve washed my hands And I say, “Listen Bud I’ve had about as much as I can stand” I ain’t been nowhere man, I ain’t been nowhere man Been sittin’ in my chair man, growin’ out my hair man Sleepin’ I’ve done my share man, I ain’t been nowhere I’m in the bedroom, bathroom, living room, dining room attic, basement, just to find an old broom Hallway, driveway, same place as yesterday Go cook, read a book, jog around the breakfast nook Glass clink, get a drink straight from the kitchen sink Can’t think, eyes blink, man do my clothes stink

I ain’t been nowhere man, I ain’t been nowhere man Been sittin’ in my chair man, growin’ out my hair man Sleepin’ I’ve done my share man, I ain’t been nowhere I’m playin’ Yahtzee, Jigsaw, Scrabble, and Monopoly Jenga, Checkers, Cards Against Humanity Fortnight, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto 5 Battleground, Pac Man, Black Ops stay alive Obstacle course with your daddy’s old golf ball Mousetrap, Ping Pong, Happy Hour Zoom call

I ain’t been nowhere man, I ain’t been nowhere man Been sittin’ in my chair man, growin’ out my hair man Sleepin’ I’ve done my share man, I ain’t been nowhere I’m watchin’ Netflix, Apple, Disney and Amazon YouTube, Roku, Hulu with my jammies on Tiger King, Schitt’s Creek, Maisel and South Park Star Wars, Star Trek, Ozark’s gettin’ dark Porn Hub, bathtub, dirty old magazines Lysol, quarantine, see what I mean now

I ain’t been nowhere man, I ain’t been nowhere man Been sittin’ in my chair man, growin’ out my hair man Sleepin’ I’ve done my share man, I ain’t been nowhere I know some place you used to go I ain’t been no where -xxx-

CHUCK MEAD BIO

One of the founding members of the celebrated alt-country quintet BR5-49, Chuck Mead brings together vintage country, rockabilly, and no-frills rock & roll, creating a sound that generates a swing all its own. While Mead has also made a name for himself as a producer and musical director, his work as a solo artist suggests a tougher, wilder version of the nervy traditionalist sound of BR5-49, especially on 2009's Journeyman's Wager and 2014's Free State Serenade.

Born in Nevada, Missouri and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, Chuck Mead cut his teeth musically playing in a roots rock band called Homestead Grays before he left home and relocated to Nashville. After meeting fellow musician Gary Bennett, he discovered they shared a passion for traditional country sounds of the '40s and '50s. In 1993, the two decided to form a band that evolved into BR5-49, the name drawn from a recurring sketch on the country music variety show Hee Haw. BR5-49 became regulars at a Nashville club called Robert's Western World, and their marathon sets (where they played for tips and regularly took requests for obscure honky tonk numbers) earned them a serious regional reputation and a deal with Arista Nashville Records. Despite enthusiastic press and respectable sales, country radio didn't warm to BR5-49, and after jumping from Arista to Sony to the independent Dualtone label, the band broke up in 2006.

Prior to the breakup, Mead began dabbling in production, and coordinated a pair of tribute albums to iconic country artists, Johnny Cash (2002's Dressed in Black: A Tribute to Johnny Cash) and Waylon Jennings (2003's Lonesome, On'ry and Mean: A Tribute to Waylon Jennings). After the band ended their run, Mead became a staff writer at one of Nashville's leading song publishers and toured with the group the Hillbilly All-Stars, featuring members of the Mavericks. Mead was also musical director and arranger for the Broadway hit Million Dollar Quartet (based on the true story of the day Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash had a spontaneous studio jam session), from its workshop productions in Daytona (in 2006) and Seattle (2007) to its runs in Chicago, New York, and London (in 2010 and 2011). In 2009, Mead released his first solo album with his backing group the Grassy Knoll Boys, Journeyman's Wager. Back at the Quonset Hut, a collection of vintage country classics he recorded at Nashville's namesake studio with original BR5-49 producer Mike Janas, Old Crow Medicine Show, Bobby Bare, and Jamie Johnson, arrived in 2012.

In 2014, Mead released his third solo effort, Free State Serenade, which featured a stronger rock & roll edge as well as guest appearances from former BR5-49 multi-instrumentalist Don Herron and Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome (the latter on Theremin). After his success with Million Dollar Quartet, Mead was hired as the musical director for the cable TV series Sun Records, set against the backdrop of the groundbreaking rockabilly and blues label, which debuted in 2017. Mead let his rockabilly influences take center stage on the rollicking 2019 release Close to Home. ~ Heather Phares & Mark Deming, Rovi

Upcoming Chuck Mead Shows

Ventipop May 2020 Playlist

#Find New Music #Music Recommendations #Chuck Mead #I Ain't Been Nowhere Lyrics

[disappearingground]

Jenny Lewis Is Still Figuring It Out

The Cut March 19, 2019

The singer-songwriter’s new album follows a major breakup and her mother’s death.

By Gabriella Paiella

“I feel like I’m living the Laurel Canyon version of the movie Big,” Jenny Lewis says, as she fires up her pinball machine and puts on a hot pink trucker cap that reads “BEST FRIENDS” in black lettering.

The comparison to the 1988 Tom Hanks film — in which a seventh-grader wakes up one day in the body of a 30-year-old man — feels apt when it comes to her décor. Her house, affectionately nicknamed “Mint Chip” for its brown and green exterior, has a full drum kit and a pink girl’s bike (a recent eBay purchase) set up in the entryway to the living room. She’s projecting The Adventures of Mark Twain, an obscure claymation fantasy film from the ’80s, onto a blank white wall. Across from the pinball machine, in her guest room, hangs a oversized promotional cutout for The Wizard, featuring Lewis’s beaming 13-year-old face next to Fred Savage — her thick, red bangs unchanged in the 30 years since the movie came out.

The distinct vibe of kids’ clubhouse–meets–bachelorette pad is most pronounced on her bedroom walls, which a friend recently convinced Lewis to paint a pale, blush pink. The 43-year-old singer-songwriter was so pleased with the color — Benjamin Moore Teacup Rose 2170-50 — that she plans to use it as her stage backdrop when she hits the road this spring to promote On the Line, her fourth solo album.

Lewis has spent decades in the public eye, or at least in its peripheral vision. Her child-actor days gave way to a musical career in 1998, when she formed the band Rilo Kiley alongside fellow former child actor (and then-boyfriend) Blake Sennett. The couple broke up, but the band stayed together, making a handful of moody, memorable records. As Rilo Kiley’s front woman, she sang with an assertive candor, revealing her deepest vulnerabilities around sex and heartbreak and familial relationships through soaring, irresistible power-pop choruses. Her personal style, comprised of vintage baby-doll dresses and an array of rompers, landed on the enviable side of mid-aughts twee. She reclaimed elements of a male-dominated rock scene and made them accessible for openhearted young women. Lewis released her first solo album, the country-tinged Rabbit Fur Coat, in 2006, giving her credibility with millennial indie fans as a stand-alone artist.

Her influence from that era is best summed up by the actress Kristen Stewart, a paragon of blasé self-presentation, who told James Corden that Lewis was the one celebrity she was most nervous to meet. “I couldn’t breathe,” Stewart said of her now-friend. “I literally just completely caved in front of her.” Lewis is touched by this sort of sentiment from early fans, women who heard her music, she says, “just at the perfect age.” It’s an intense fandom, if limited to a certain demographic.

“I get recognized at Whole Foods,” she concedes. “A lot.”

Lewis has always maintained an outward image of alluring self-sufficiency, repeatedly reinventing herself — from child star to alternative front woman to thriving solo act. Now, the indie rocker is figuring out what this new version of independence looks like. Inside her charmed house, underneath her cheerful exterior, she’s working through a heavier chapter in life. That bedroom paint color, the one that she likes so much that she’s hauling it with her across the country, was introduced after her boyfriend of 12 years, musician Johnathan Rice, moved out. Shortly after her breakup, she was dealt another seismic blow: Her long-estranged mother, who frequently appeared in Lewis’s songs, died of liver cancer.

As far as cathartic albums go, On the Line is pretty upbeat. It has a more robust and straightforward rock sound than her previous work, but still hews to her signature style of combining gentle melodies and syrupy, shining vocals with accounts of darkness and desperation, all topped off with a reckless shrug. The new songs are thrillingly unfettered. On one track, she sings about getting “wired on Red Bull and Hennessy,” on another, she sits “in a black Corvette, getting head in the shadows.” Today we’re in for a far more wholesome, laid-back scene: On Lewis’s suggestion, we’re going for a nature hike.

As the two of us trudge up the dusty canyon trail near her house, I’m struck by how much Jenny Lewis looks like Jenny Lewis, even when she’s hiking. Her trademark long red hair is set in soft waves, and her bangs — the bangs that launched a thousand trims — are swept slightly to the side. Before I have the chance to mention it, she calls herself out for wearing “truly the weirdest hiking outfit.” Her tight, ’70s-era burgundy track pants, John and Yoko T-shirt, snug navy fleece, and electric blue sneakers are decidedly out of place among the slew of sweatpants and practical Merrell boots. A miniature gold pot-leaf necklace that she bought on tour dangles at the collar of her T-shirt. Lewis loves weed. “I didn’t smoke weed for two weeks, which was really good,” she tells me. “And then, I did smoke weed. Honestly, I prefer being stoned.” A typical day for her involves waking up around 8:30 a.m., going for a hike or to yoga class, getting some work done, and then getting stoned and playing music, before she settles in to FaceTime her friends, whom she’s leaned on heavily during these past few years. (I’ve caught Lewis in the afternoon, so, do the math.)

Lewis typically divides her time between Los Angeles and Nashville, but took off for the East Village in 2016 to crash with one of those friends — the musician Annie Clark, better known as St. Vincent — after her breakup with Rice. The separation wasn’t dramatic or antagonistic, but after more than a decade the relationship had run its course. “It’s a trip coming out of that,” she tells me. “I was with someone for the second half of my 20s and my entire 30s, so to reemerge in a dating context … ” Lewis trails off, before clarifying that she’s not in any sort of rush to end her relatively new singlehood. She tells me she refuses to get on Raya, the preferred dating app for celebrities, mostly because she doesn’t feel like making the required video for her profile (which is actually just a slideshow of photos set to music). On her last album, 2014’s The Voyager, she sang teasingly about her biological clock and being “just another lady without a baby”; but as we amble along, she admits that she’s experienced a pull toward motherhood. Still, she’s leaving that up to fate, too. “There is this biological pressure that I have felt. Certainly it’s on my mind,” Lewis says matter-of-factly. “I’m not going to freeze my eggs, which is something that I’ve had a lot of talks about with a lot of friends. That’s just not my style. So, I guess we’ll see what happens.”

Right around the time she was reevaluating her feelings about partnership and parenthood, Lewis had to start dealing with other heavy family matters — the kind that make you think deeply about your choices around partnership and parenthood. “People wonder why you take so much time between records,” she says of the five-year lapse since The Voyager. “It’s like, people fucking die.” We stop to sit at a small outdoor amphitheater nestled in a shaded area off the hiking trail, where she tells me about her mother’s death.

Lewis had been more or less estranged from her parents, who were also musicians, since she was 16. Her father left the family when she was a toddler, but with the support of Rice and other musician friends, Lewis invited him to play harmonica on her 2008 album Acid Tongue. Their reconciliation happened shortly before he died in 2010. Her relationship with her mother, who raised her, was more complicated. In 2014, she told the New York Times that her family had lost all the money she earned from her acting career; her songs about mother figures frequently reference drug abuse and mental illness. (She recently revealed to Rolling Stone that her mother was a heroin addict.) They weren’t in contact for years, but Lewis says that her mother was her biggest fan. “She really got me. And that’s why we couldn’t be together, because it was just not healthy for me,” Lewis reflects, tearing up slightly. “It was not a good thing. She thought every song was about her.” This new album does devote a soulful, slow-burning song to “a mother-and-child emergency” in a hospital, which ends “under a cool white sheet.”

By the time Lewis found out about her mother’s liver cancer, it was terminal. She wouldn’t describe their reunion and reconciliation as giving her closure but, rather, “open-sure.” Lewis spent the last two months of her mother’s life visiting her at the hospital every day, until she passed in October 2017. “I would bring a smoothie that I made from home, like a health smoothie. And my sister would bring a Slurpee,” she tells me. “And we’d have a fight about it.” Whose beverage triumphed?

“The Slurpee won, duh! No one wants a stinking smoothie if they’re dying!”

Finding herself alone for the first time in years, Lewis says she’s “really open to experiences and adventure.” She’s comfortable talking about her parents, in a way she never was when they were still alive. She’s traveling more than she ever has — Lewis eagerly shares stories about a solo trip to watch Manny Pacquiao and Adrien Broner box in Vegas, about meeting a Catholic priest backstage at a Grateful Dead concert in New York City and a voodoo priest who spit rum in her eyeballs while she was on mushrooms in Haiti.

She’s experimenting with a sexier look onstage, replacing her 2014 tour wardrobe of rainbow, Nudie Cohn–esque suits with tight jumpsuits and ample cleavage. “I wanted to wear things that were a little more body-conscious,” she explains. “I feel like I’ve always covered up.” And she’s collaborating with people she hasn’t worked with before, including heavy hitters like Ringo Starr, who plays drums on On the Line. (The album also features contributions from Ryan Adams, whom several women accused of emotional abuse and sexual misconduct, including sending explicit texts to an underage fan. This news broke a few weeks after our hike, and when asked for comment, Lewis sent me the same statement she’d tweeted days after the news: “I am deeply troubled by Ryan Adams’s alleged behavior. Although he and I had a working professional relationship, I stand in solidarity with the women who have come forward.”)

All this openness has been healing and even a little transcendent. The night before our meeting, there was a much-anticipated lunar eclipse of the year’s first full moon — the Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse. Lewis tells me earnestly that it was important for her to look at the moon that night, to take in something that felt bigger than herself. “You see something like that and it’s just like, some force outside of yourself that illuminates the unknown factor,” she says, sitting cross-legged in the empty amphitheater. “Because when you see someone pass — or your parents, which, we all go through that — it’s a beautiful mystery. It’s such a psychedelic experience. And I guess you don’t know how that feels until you know how that feels.” And how, exactly, did that feel? “It’s a trip, man. A fucking trip.”

#publication: the cut #album: on the line #year: 2019 #mention: mother's death #mention: rilo kiley #person: kristen stewart #person: johnathan rice #mention: breakup #mention: hospital #mention: father #mention: boxing #song: little white dove

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The 500 greatest video games of all time: 500-401

New Post has been published on https://takenews.net/the-500-greatest-video-games-of-all-time-500-401/

The 500 greatest video games of all time: 500-401

As Polygon’s latest fifth birthday approached, we began interested by what we might do to have fun it. And what’s extra enjoyable than rating the 100 greatest video games of all time? 500? So we did.

We began by setting guidelines upfront.

We requested everybody to vote primarily based on innovation, polish and sturdiness, fairly than merely private style. We lower video games launched in 2017 to remove recency bias. And we ignored sequels that we deemed too much like the video games that got here earlier than them.

Then we voted, however we knew we had gaps in our data on workers. So along with gathering votes from the Polygon workforce, we labored with a gaggle of exterior and freelance writers to tug of their enter: Kahlief Adams, Susan Arendt, Katherine Cross, Jon-Paul Dyson, Benj Edwards, Cara Ellison, JC Fletcher, Jenn Frank, Harold Goldberg, Janine Hawkins, Blake Hester, Laura Hudson, Henry Lowood, Jeremy Parish, Carolyn Petit, Andrea Rene, Jaz Rignall and Gary Whitta.

Gathering all these votes collectively, we then combed by way of the information for anomalies and got here up with the ultimate order you see right here, with private decisions for every voter’s favourite recreation sprinkled all through as sidebars — together with, as you’ll see under, just a few decisions that didn’t even make the general record.

Over the course of this week, we’re posting 100 video games every day. Scroll down for the primary 100.

(1984, Atari Eight-bit, others)

Ballblazer pushed each inch of the Atari 400 and 800 farther than anybody knew they might go. A one-on-one sports activities recreation combining components of basketball and soccer, although it wasn’t primarily based on an actual sport per se, Ballblazer was a trailblazer in early sports activities sims with a sensible strategy to gameplay and physics.

(1986, Arcade, others)

Arkanoid is like Breakout, however immensely higher. Taking the blockbuster’s gameplay, however including power-ups and new degree layouts, Arkanoid is a real check of talent. Cloned and ported all over since, Arkanoid continues to be among the best arcade video games on the market.

(2003, Sport Boy Advance, others)

Advance Wars 2: Black Gap Rising pushed the Sport Boy Advance to its limits with its strategy-game components and long-lasting classes. Comparatively an identical to the primary Advance Wars by way of gameplay, Black Gap Rising discovered favor from critics when taking part in towards different gamers, with some saying it was one of many “meatiest handheld video games on the market.”

Dragon Age: Inquisition felt just like the end result of one thing the sequence had been constructing to for years. By means of the earlier two video games, gamers got here to know and perceive the world of Thedas; its folks, politics, threats and historical past. However in Inquisition it’s as if a curtain lifted. What as soon as felt like the entire story shifted into the background of a bigger story, making the actual stakes that rather more significant.

The early Dragon Age video games made me care about their world in a manner no different sequence ever has — and even so, Inquisition confirmed me simply how little of it I’d actually seen.

– Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart)

(2014, PC, PlayStation three, Xbox 360, others)

Individuals nonetheless discuss Dragon Age: Inquisition’s depth and mature strategy to romance choices, permitting gamers to decide on their sexual orientation. We gave Inquisition our 2014 recreation of the 12 months award, with author Colin Campbell noting the sport was “a sufficiently convincing universe of otherness that consumed my time after I was taking part in, and my consideration after I was not.”

(2010, PC, Xbox 360, others)

Extremely-hard, ultra-violent and form of cute, Tremendous Meat Boy helped change the best way we take into consideration independently created video games and the way video games needs to be launched. Initially launched digitally on the Xbox 360 in 2010, the sport’s intense important reward helped convey a brand new wave of unbiased launched video games to shore.

(1990, Tremendous Nintendo, others)

F-Zero’s insistence in pushing technological boundaries to be the quickest recreation ever seen helped encourage video games like Wipeout and Daytona USA. Giving gamers solely moments to react earlier than crashing, F-Zero continues to be one of many tightest, tensest racing video games obtainable.

(1995, PC, PlayStation, others)

Taking affect from F-Zero, Wipeout was a technical tour-de-force when it launched on the unique PlayStation. Praised for its superior techno soundtrack and anti-gravity racing, Wipeout was geared toward a unique form of viewers — one on the chopping fringe of artwork, music and trend. This strategy gave the sport and its distinctive — although typically controversial — advertising and marketing marketing campaign its glossy, fashionable look.

(2006, PlayStation 2, others)

Happening on the New England non-public college Bullworth Academy, Bully invitations gamers to rise the ranks of highschool archetypes, all of the whereas residing within the rebellious sneakers of protagonist James “Jimmy” Hopkins. Whether or not you are kissing suitors or making stink bombs, Bully is an ideal allegory for rising up on the fringes and looking for your personal place on the earth.

(2011, PlayStation three, Xbox 360)

Relationships are exhausting. Lusting after one other is straightforward. Catherine is aware of this and leaves the choice to have interaction in protagonist Vincent’s affair with Catherine as much as the participant. Even with its bizarre, dream-like puzzle sections stuffed with sheep and monstrous infants, Catherine is a surprisingly nuanced tackle intercourse and grownup relationship, exploring the causes of lust, love and guilt.

(1991, Sport Boy)

A sequence recognized for its emphasis on meticulous exploration, Metroid’s soar to handheld with Metroid 2: Return of Samus looks like an ideal match. Regardless of its small bodily measurement, Metroid 2’s steady massive world makes for a cohesive expertise, and the choice to take it wherever enable the sport to be explored wherever the participant goes.

(1992, PC, others)

Surprising and Lovecraftian, Alone within the Darkish’s distinctive strategy to horror and exploration spawned a style now a staple of the sport trade and birthed a few of the best video games of all time. Whereas it could not be part of the upper ranks of horror video games additional down the record, Alone within the Darkish was the primary of its sort.

(2004, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox)

Among the best superhero video games of all time, Spider-Man 2 got here remarkably near giving gamers the expertise they had been watching on screens and seeing in comics. Climbing to the highest of a constructing, diving off, solely to shoot an online and swing to security on the final second was exhilarating and anxiousness inducing.

(2000, Dreamcast, others)

Earlier than there was Simply Dance, there was Area Channel 5. Colourful and bizarre as hell, gamers assumed the position of TV reporter Ulala whereas she danced and shot to save lots of hostages, all of the whereas preventing for TV scores. Area Channel 5 was a standout of bizarre Dreamcast titles Sega launched within the late ’90s and early 2000s, emphasizing creativity and quirkiness.

(2004, PC, others)

A uncommon instance of a Japanese indie recreation receiving important acclaim within the west, Cave Story and its exploration-heavy gameplay helped pave the best way for different indies to experiment with the older style, resulting in a renaissance of unbiased Metroidvania video games.

(2015, PC, Xbox One)

Moon Studios’ debut recreation, Ori and the Blind Forest had gamers crying inside the first 5 minutes, after which gnashing their tooth in focus inside the subsequent 5. Emotional, colourful and intensely troublesome, Ori masterfully balanced the open, puzzle-like ranges of different Metroidvania video games with the uncooked, actual tales typically seen in smaller-scale indie video games.

(2008, Xbox 360)

Fable 2 let gamers select how they needed to stay their digital lives. Be that how they interacted with the phrase, what intercourse they needed to be, who they needed to marry or what breed of canine they needed, Fable 2 tried to not restrict the alternatives of how its gamers needed to work together with its world.

(1997, Nintendo 64, others)

Star Fox 64 was one of many landmark titles Nintendo launched because it made its technique to the 3D world. Sticking intently to the scrolling flight fight gameplay launched in Star Fox on the Tremendous Nintendo, Star Fox 64 was shortly praised for its strategy to the sequence, even changing into one among Guinness World Information’ greatest video games of all time in 2009.

(2006, Mac, PC)

Firm of Heroes is a much more grounded real-time technique recreation than its friends. Set throughout World Struggle 2, the sport places gamers accountable for strategic choices that may flip the occasions of considerably actual occasions — including a degree of weight to video games. It does not damage that, upon launch, gamers thought of it one of many most interesting real-time technique video games ever made.

(2011, PC, PlayStation three, Xbox 360, others)

Batman: Arkham Metropolis took the critically-praised open degree construction of Batman: Arkham Asylum and expanded it to a whole metropolis. Whereas not as revolutionary as its predecessor, Arkham Metropolis refined the traversal and fight of Asylum, altering the best way sequence like Shadow of Mordor and Murderer’s Creed approached third-person fight going ahead.

(2004, PC, others)

Garry’s Mod takes the perfect a part of Half-Life 2’s gameplay, the gravity gun, and throws away the whole lot else. Initially a mod, now a full-blown recreation, Garry’s Mod permits gamers to do no matter they need inside the physics of the Supply Engine. An ingenious recreation of creativity, Garry’s Mod helped pioneer the concept video games might be bizarre, with no course, and gamers might be the artistic pressure behind a recreation’s success.

(2008, PC, others)

For each recreation sparking conversations about video games as excessive artwork, one other’s there to remind us they are often bizarre. Performed with solely the Q, W, O and P keys of a keyboard, every transferring a unique a part of a runner’s physique, QWOP normally ends in horribly distorted animations. However who’s to say video games cannot be each, as QWOP was displayed in New York’s Museum of Fashionable Artwork?

(2015, Wii U)

Splatoon has all of the conventions of a third-person shooter, however strips away the violence and replaces it with cuteness, creating an accessible recreation for kids unfamiliar with an often-gory style. It is a shooter solely Nintendo would make, one mixing the mechanics of one of the well-liked recreation genres round with the acquainted stylings that preserve Nintendo a family-friendly firm.

(1984, Arcade, others)

The primary main success by grasp programmer Mark Cerny, Marble Insanity helped popularize issue as a promoting level. Past that, the sport’s use of of true-stereo sound gave it a way of identification. Its improvements in these camps helped catapult Cerny’s profession; he went on to work on Crash Bandicoot and lead the design of the PlayStation four

(2010, Nintendo DS, others)

Type of like Noticed, but when it had been satisfying, 9 Hours, 9 Individuals, 9 Doorways, duties gamers with fixing puzzles in an effort to flee a murderous recreation known as the “Nonary Sport.” Terrifying in its execution, 999 helped popularize the visible novel style in America, which now has a robust cult following.

(2012, Vita, others)

Consistently altering, continuously rotating, Gravity Rush was a mind-bending exploration of a weird metropolis and what many critics felt was a nonsensical story. The sport maintains a cult following and spawned a 2017 sequel iterating on the weird strategy to degree design and conventional gravity that made Gravity Rush a memorable journey.

Having been launched within the Quake period of 3D video games, Blood stands as an nearly criminally neglected title within the MS-DOS gaming pantheon. Many avid gamers simply missed this campy horror basic, which makes use of the identical Construct recreation engine as Duke Nukem 3D. Regardless of its old-school technological base, Blood eclipsed Quake in character, design and gameplay.

Blood derives its power from its excessive core manufacturing values. The sport feels flawless in management and design: Its detailed graphics kind a cohesive, horrifying complete, and its vocal and sound results stand alone within the DOS period. Higher but, Blood sports activities essentially the most artistic and various degree design of any DOS first-person shooter, bar none (remember to strive the extent the place you battle your manner by way of a transferring practice).

The number of Blood‘s monsters, gadgets and weapons (every with an alternate hearth mode) present the participant with 1,000,000 methods to assault the identical drawback, giving the sport a depth and replayability that many fashionable shooters sorely lack. These qualities, together with stellar co-op and deathmatch choices, preserve Blood followers taking part in to at the present time.

– Benj Edwards (@benjedwards)

(2009, PC, PlayStation three, Xbox 360)

Borderlands’ combination of first-person taking pictures, role-playing mechanics and loot-based upgrades, in quite a lot of methods, helped pave the best way for video games like Future. That includes a then-novel idea, Borderlands let gamers select the character they needed to be and the way they needed to play, all of the whereas sustaining the sensibilities of the fashionable first-person shooter.

(2014, iOS, Android, others)

Monument Valley is a puzzle recreation that does not fixate itself on stumping the participant. Not that the puzzles are dangerous — they’re nice. However the recreation succeeds in its pure means to place the participant in a “trance.” Practically hypnotic, the sport’s attractive art-style and intelligent puzzles make for a recreation as a lot a pleasure to take a look at as it’s to play.

(2016, PC, PlayStation four, Xbox One, others)

Firewatch mixes the mundanity of boring jobs with the exhilaration of assembly a brand new romantic curiosity, even when that romance is incorrect. Mixed with a conspiracy plot revolving across the Shoshone Nationwide Forest, Firewatch lets gamers select how essential constancy is to them, all of the whereas giving them full freedom to let their relationships go up in flames.

(1993, Genesis)

Aladdin was, in some methods, the final hurrah on the Genesis. Although film tie-in video games have lengthy had a nasty fame, Aladdin’s tight gameplay, wonderful platforming and film-authentic graphics made it a standout of the then-aging Genesis, in addition to among the best film tie-in video games ever launched.

(2007, Xbox 360, others)

Earth Protection Pressure 2017 is absolute chaos. Pitting gamers towards a race of huge aliens and providing them over 100 weapons to take the beasts down, the world is a playground. Buildings crumble, more and more massive enemies come at you and also you blow all of them up. It is nice dumb enjoyable.

(2007, PC, others)

Peggle’s mastery is in its near-instantaneous reward loop. A recreation simple to select up and immediately discover satisfaction with, Peggle continuously tempts you into taking part in it just a bit longer with dangerously addictive gameplay.

(1989, Nintendo Leisure System)

Ninja Gaiden could very properly be the magnum opus of ultra-difficult action-platformers. Requiring talent, quick responses and zen-like endurance, Ninja Gaiden’s fun-but-precise gameplay makes it simple to select up and play, however a process to grasp. Fortunately, that process is rooted in one of many most interesting NES platformers of all time.

(2002, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox)

TimeSplitters 2 carried on the legacy of GoldenEye 007. One of many all time greatest split-screen co-op video games, TimeSplitters is straightforward dumb enjoyable. Between 4 and 16 gamers might assume the roles of assorted absurd characters — like a dinosaur or a duck — partaking in an all-out assault towards different gamers.

(1990, PC, others)

Although not the designer’s first recreation or his first sim-game, Railroad Tycoon helped flip Sid Meier from profitable online game maker to one of many all-time nice recreation auteurs. Unparalleled in its depth and complexity, Railroad Tycoon established early on what a Sid Meier recreation could be, all of the whereas elevating the mark for all different simulation video games.

(2013, PC, others)

Video games typically lack nuance, understanding of human feelings and psychological sicknesses. Melancholy Quest nonetheless, doesn’t. Primarily based on actual accounts of melancholy and psychological sickness, the text-based Melancholy Quest is a really actual have a look at simply how exhausting it may be to stay daily with the boulder in your again known as melancholy.

(1999, PlayStation)

Designed and produced partly by movie auteur Steven Spielberg, Medal of Honor was bombastic, scary and gorgeous in its 1999 illustration of World Struggle 2, paving the best way for later sequence like Name of Responsibility to attempt to current battle precisely in gaming, all of the whereas sustaining some form of spectacle.

(2004, PC, Xbox, others)

Higher than its movie counterpart, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay is a notable exception to the consensus that film-based video games are unnecessary money tie-ins. Assuming the position of Richard Riddick, the sport featured no heads-up show as gamers had been tasked with breaking out of the utmost safety jail Butcher Bay by seemingly any means vital.

(1982, Arcade, others)

A comply with as much as one of the essential arcade video games of all time, Donkey Kong Jr. expanded the gameplay with new challenges and collectibles, in addition to new traversal choices, reminiscent of the flexibility to swing from vines whereas preventing a number of enemy sorts.

(1988, Nintendo Leisure System)

After the success of The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo determined to strive one thing completely different with its sequel: an action-role taking part in recreation. Whereas its predecessor is commonly famous for its sense of journey influencing the sequence going ahead, Journey of Hyperlink launched quite a lot of mechanics that grew to become staples, reminiscent of combining platforming and RPG mechanics and the enduring Triforce of Braveness.

(1990, Nintendo Leisure System, others)

The target of River Metropolis Ransom is fairly easy: battle the dangerous guys. As protagonists Alex and Ryan traverse the titular metropolis to save lots of their girlfriends, gamers repeatedly battle waves of “The Generic Dudes,” “The Frat Guys” and “The Squids.”

(2010, Nintendo DS)

One, maybe apparent change made Picross 3D vastly higher than the unique: the addition of a 3rd dimension. Constructing on an addicting premise — constructing photographs primarily based on transferring blocks — Picross 3D shined, including depth to puzzles and new methods to resolve them.

(2001, Nintendo 64)

It is uncommon for a 17-year-old recreation to nonetheless look nice, and but Paper Mario seems to be half its age. The second Mario RPG, Paper Mario is extensively considered among the best video games of the period and is famous for the stunning quantity of depth and technique required when taking part in by way of its 2D, paper worlds.

(2006, Nintendo DS, others)

Electroplankton is a tough recreation to explain. An interactive music expertise managed by taking part in with various kinds of plankton, the sport permits for the creation of some stunning melodies — even when there is no native technique to save them. This distinctive strategy to music-creation makes Electroplankton a standout in a style sometimes targeted on gimmicks.

(2009, PC, others)

When Vegetation vs. Zombies launched on cellular units in 2009, it differentiated itself from different cellular video games with its acclaimed presentation, depth and quantity of content material. In a saturated market, Vegetation vs. Zombies was additionally in a position to seize awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, in addition to nominations for its design from the Sport Builders Alternative Awards.

(2015, PC, others)

Cities: Skylines was a return to kind. After the fiasco that was SimCity (2003), Skylines had an opportunity to provide city-sim followers what they needed: to easily construct the cities of their goals. The sport’s affect even expanded past the sport trade. In Stockholm, the sport was just lately used to design and check city planning.

(1984, Atari Eight-bit, others)

Not talked about an excessive amount of nowadays, Boulder Sprint has been round for longer than most recreation sequence. In it, Rockford digs by way of caves searching for gems whereas attempting to keep away from falling rocks and being crushed. Boulder Sprint faucets into the a part of the mind craving “only one extra go,” resulting in quite a few misplaced days in its caves.

(1983, Apple Eight-bit, others)

One of many first video games printed by EA, Archon is a cross between a technique recreation and an arcade preventing recreation. Performed out kind of like chess, touchdown on one other participant’s piece ends in the 2 characters preventing to find out a victor. Virtually like two video games in a single, Archon requires gamers to be considerate and expert at its genre-bending format.

(2009, PC, PlayStation three, Xbox 360, others)

Dragon Age: Origins set quite a lot of the requirements folks now anticipate from open world role-playing video games. In a masterfully realized world stuffed with fully-fleshed out characters and missions, Origins’ unimaginable depth and a focus to element redefined a style all about residing in a unique world in a unique life.

(2009, iOS, others)

It is simple to see Offended Birds as a fad, one thing for retailers to slap on kids’s garments and backpacks. However Offended Birds discovered an addictive method and took it to the highest. Since its first launch, the sequence has crossed over with Star Wars, been plastered on hundreds of thousands of shirts and even acquired its personal function size movie.

(2011, PC, Xbox 360, others)

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings noticed developer CD Projekt Crimson start to develop into its personal. Increasing its storytelling, honing its fight and making its first engine from scratch, the workforce took a transparent step ahead, and Assassins of Kings set the cornerstones for what would make Projekt Crimson one of many high builders in video games.

Yu Suzuki’s Out Run could put you behind the wheel of a Testarossa cruising up the coast, however it’s way more involved with model than pace. The blissful tunes (with names like “Passing Breeze” and “Magical Sound Bathe”) and the indelibly vibrant colours conspire to conjure an expertise of paradise: hitting the open highway with the highest down, feeling the wind in your hair as you weave by way of the idealized California of your goals.

Suzuki knew the place he needed Out Run to take you, and 30 years later, it’s nonetheless uncommon to come across a recreation that so successfully transports you someplace so stunning.

– Carolyn Petit (@carolynmichelle)

(2010, Nintendo DS)

Undeniably charming and difficult in all the suitable methods, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future by no means double-dips with its puzzles. Requiring math abilities, logic and different abilities to progress, on paper the sport feels like a nightmare. In apply, Unwound Future is pleasant mind teasing, requiring simply the quantity of thought to really feel perplexing however not irritating.

(2014, iOS, others)

The Hitman sequence has at all times been about planning and preparation. Hitman Go took this concept and made it right into a puzzle recreation the place gamers needed to strategically plan each motion and motion by way of a turn-based system. Hitman Go looks like a recreation of chess, the place each transfer have to be calculated and considered.

(2001, PlayStation 2, others)

Closing Fantasy 10 got here out swinging on PlayStation 2. Apart from being the best-looking recreation within the sequence as much as that time, the sport’s introduction of key mechanics, like the flexibility to construct characters dynamically, introduced the sequence to the fashionable period. The sport made modifications that’d higher the sequence for years to come back.

(2010, PC, PlayStation three, Xbox 360)

BioShock 2 dug additional into the autumn of Rapture, giving context and depth to its inhabitants, all of the whereas honing the sequence’ fight. It additionally birthed what’s considered among the best DLC episodes of all time, Minerva’s Den, which partly led to the founding of indie success story The Fullbright Firm, the studio behind Gone Dwelling.

(2010, Wii)

For video games all about operating, Sonic entries typically have hassle discovering their footing. Sonic Colours, although, discovered a steadiness between the sequence’ emphasis on pace and platforming, making for a recreation that appealed to a bigger viewers than simply the Sonic neighborhood. Sonic Colours nonetheless stands out as one of many higher-rated video games within the sequence.

(2010, PlayStation three, Xbox 360, others)

Vanquish is all about motion and magnificence, and it has each in spades. Popping out on the top of canopy shooters, Vanquish helped revolutionize the method by penalizing gamers for spending time behind cowl, in addition to maintaining bullets and projectiles continuously coming at them from all instructions, additional emphasizing fixed motion.

(2014, PC, PlayStation four, Xbox One, others)

Flawed. Filled with coronary heart. Unafraid. Wolfenstein: The New Order took the ultra-gruff FPS protagonist archetype and tore it to shreds. B.J. Blazkowicz barely stops taking pictures, and but he does it figuring out the sense of weight of his actions. He does not kill to kill, just like the Doom Marine; he kills for a greater future, one the place the bullets stop and the dreamscape barbecues resume.

(2004, PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox)

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy forces gamers to assume exterior the field. Focusing much less on weapons and extra on the sport’s psychic and telekinesis mechanics, The Mindgate Conspiracy necessitates gamers be artistic when partaking in fight, making it stand out amongst different shooters launched on the time, and influencing builders to strive new concepts when dealing with fight.

(2011, iOS, others)

If cellular video games dangle their hats on addictive gameplay loops, then Jetpack Joyride is the magnum opus of cellular video games. Flying round and dodging fixed obstacles on this countless runner faucets into your mind, making placing the cellphone down far more durable and saying “another time” all the better.

(1992, Tremendous NES)

Mario video games are about creativity, however that is normally restricted to partaking within the creativity of the developer. Mario Paint, nonetheless, left the creativity as much as the participant, permitting them to make their very own customized artwork pixel by pixel and animation loops with customized music. It’s, as AllGame mentioned, “maybe essentially the most ingenious and impressed thought Nintendo ever got here up with for a product.”

(1991, Tremendous NES, others)

Already a preferred franchise by its 1991 launch, the Castlevania sequence acquired a modernization with Tremendous Castlevania four, increasing controls and bringing the sequence to 16-bit, all set to new preparations of older Castlevania songs.

(2012, PC, PlayStation three, Xbox 360, others)

9 video games deep within the sequence, Want for Pace: Most Needed did not actually change the method up, a lot because it refined it. Driving felt nice, the maps had been a pleasure to get round and the whole lot simply seemed so cool.

(2015, PC, others)

The last word simulation, Kerbal Area Program duties gamers with reaching the ultimate frontier. That includes life like orbital and flight physics, Kerbal is in no way a simple recreation, regardless of its cute look. Critically acclaimed and award-winning, Kerbal provides gamers the flexibility to have interaction in life like, simulated house flight with out ever truly leaving the bottom.

(2000, Nintendo 64)

Virtually each child, sooner or later of their lives, desires to be an expert wrestler. WWF No Mercy lets them stay out that dream. That includes the sequence’ most in depth create-a-wrestler as much as that time, gamers had been free to be artistic with their personas, giving them the possibility to roleplay what it would be like had they made it to the WWF.

(2001, PlayStation 2, others)

Nonetheless one of many coolest video games ever, Satan Might Cry put model first, rewarding gamers for being flashy and violent when killing its waves of enemies. Years earlier than PlatinumGames got here alongside and made a reputation for itself with fluid controls, Satan Might Cry revolutionized the best way hack-and-slash video games might appear and feel.

(1992, PC, others)

Some extent and click on journey placing gamers within the sneakers of the titular archeologist, Indiana Jones And The Destiny Of Atlantis helped, partly, popularize the point-and-click journey recreation style, paving the best way for later video games like Day of the Tentacle.

(2014, iOS, Android, others)

Do not chuckle. Regardless of a combined response, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is a pressure to be reckoned with. With 22.Eight million gamers making the sport $43.four million inside its first quarter of launch, Hollywood reached — and continues to succeed in — extra gamers than most critically acclaimed video games.

(1979, Arcade, others)

Designed to be a competitor to Area Invaders, Galaxian is notable for being the predecessor to Galaga and influencing different video games alongside the best way. However greater than that, Galaxian by no means left he aggressive gaming scene. With competitions nonetheless happening between high gamers, Galaxian’s loved a 38-year tail since its 1979 launch.

(1987, Arcade, others)

2D brawler Double Dragon was so well-liked upon launch that it has been persistently re-released and remade — and that does not even embrace sequels and spinoffs. The success of Double Dragon and its early sequels was so great that they had been tailored into different media like comics, tv and movie.

(2009, PC, PlayStation three, Xbox 360, others)

Road Fighter four, arriving a few years after the preliminary preventing recreation growth, was in a position to bridge the hole between outdated and new gamers, combining components, skills and characters from each camps right into a bundle acquired as among the best preventing video games of all time. Simply ignore the net points.

(2015, PC, PlayStation four, Xbox One)

Impossibly huge, Fallout four did what the Fallout sequence greatest: give gamers a world to lose themselves in. Although not as critically-acclaimed as a few of its predecessors, Fallout four continued the pedigree of open world role-playing and exploration set forth by Fallout three.

(2014, PC, others)

Nidhogg, inherently, creates an excellent taking part in subject. Pitting two gamers towards one another with solely a sword — and with the chance of one-hit deaths — success in Nidhogg depends equally on talent because it does luck.

(2001, PC, others)

Bejeweled is a recreation that perfects the suggestions loop, leaving a participant desirous to play only one extra spherical. Development depends merely on matching up tiles, making the sport appear deceptively easy, however its addictiveness made it a recreation, like many others on this record, that discovered its manner the fingers of hundreds of thousands who in any other case would not play video video games.

(1994, Sega CD, others)

Considered one of Hideo Kojima’s lesser-known video games, Snatcher offered poorly however maintains a cult-following because of its tackle the journey style. Snatcher mixed visible novel components to flesh out its lore and backstory, a transfer many noticed as groundbreaking for the style.

(1993, PC, others)

Sam & Max Hit the Street capitalized on LucasArts’ trademark humor and distinctive puzzle design, and introduced its personal improvements — reminiscent of being one of many first video games with full voice appearing. Letting gamers management the titular Sam and Max, Hit the Street is a extra cartoony journey than different LucasArts video games, one thing it leans into with its world and puzzle design.

After co-inventing the side-scrolling platformer with Ghosts ’N Goblins, designer Tokuro Fujiwara instantly determined to re-invent it. He did this by eradicating platforming’s major mechanic: Somewhat than leaping, gamers traversed levels with a grappling wire. Whereas tough in its authentic arcade incarnation, Bionic Commando achieved perfection on NES. Capcom refined the grappling ingredient, then designed dozens of levels that examined gamers’ mastery of the controls.

Capcom additionally added a story-driven framework together with a degree map construction, basically turning the sport into an motion RPG. It was cutting-edge for its time, however I preserve it in fixed rotation just because no different recreation has matched the fluid grace of its sensible grappling.

– Jeremy Parish (@gamespite)

(1981, Arcade, others)

By as we speak’s requirements, Qix is an easy wanting recreation. Nevertheless, it shortly grew to become a top-played arcade recreation within the early ’80s. When it launched, Digital Gaming Month-to-month mentioned the sport “grabbed the gaming world with its shade and imaginative design.” That recognition shortly declined, although, and as we speak Qix is famous as one of many most-cloned video games of all time.

(2000, Dreamcast, others)

Combating recreation Energy Stone 2 is seen as an innovator, a recreation pushing the boundaries set forth by its predecessor. Tasking as much as 4 gamers with breaking out of a fortress, gamers had been invited to make the most of the interactive setting and gadgets on the earth to progress — one thing notable and revolutionary within the early 2000s.

(2010, PC, PlayStation three, Xbox 360)

Thanks for what made Simply Trigger 2 successful should not solely go to developer Avalanche Video games. Simply Trigger 2’s modding neighborhood not solely made the gameplay higher, however in flip influenced Avalanche to incorporate a few of the greatest mods — such because the grappling hook — as official options in its sequel, successfully opening the door between official and nonofficial creators.

(1982, Arcade, others)

Pole Place is, as one author places it, “arguably an important racing recreation ever made.” Letting gamers race towards the clock in a Components One automotive, Pole Place was the primary recreation to function a monitor primarily based on an actual racing circuit, paving the best way for video games like Gran Turismo emphasizing simulation over arcade racing.

(1980, Arcade, others)

Missile Command is just not solely one of the essential arcade video games of all time, however an early instance of video games getting into popular culture. A pair years after its launch, Missile Command was referenced in Quick Occasions at Ridgemont Excessive. Nonetheless as we speak, the sport finds its manner into the mainstream. In 2016, Emmett/Furla/Oasis Movies secured the rights to make a Missle Command film.

(1989, TurboGrafx-16, others)

The place XCOM popularized the style, Navy Insanity helped create the turn-based technique style. Navy Insanity is cited as a key affect for different landmark video games reminiscent of Dune 2 and Command and Conquer.

(2010, PC, Xbox 360)

Happening primarily in Moscow’s run down Metro system, Metro 2033 is as a lot about survival horror as it’s survival within the wake of tragedy. Gamers had been inspired to discover their environments and study the tales of the Metro’s inhabitants, understanding how others received by after the tip of the fashionable world.

(2016, Nintendo 3DS)

Fireplace Emblem Fates is three completely different video games all making up one expertise. Tying its three tales into one product is its best power, making for a deep, significant story of battle and hardship.

(2010, PC, PlayStation three, others)

Closing Fantasy 14 is a uncommon instance of a recreation going from full catastrophe to near-universal acclaim. When this MMORPG launched in 2010, it was met with immense backlash and criticism, nonetheless Sq. Enix’s dedication to the venture led to a recreation that has accrued hundreds of thousands of devoted gamers.

(1999, PC, others)

Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri’s affect cannot be understated. Whereas it was an incredible recreation in its personal proper, lots of its builders additionally went on to assist out on the Civilization sequence, bringing alongside lots of the similar concepts. With out the affect of Alpha Centauri, it is exhausting to say whether or not or not the Civilization video games would’ve had the identical impression.

(1998, PC, others)

Grim Fandango’s legacy is a double-edged sword. Whereas it helped launch Tim Schafer’s profession to the auteur standing he holds now, and it refined the humor and storytelling point-and-click video games are well-known for, Grim Fandango’s poor gross sales additionally led to the decline of the now-cult style.

(2006, PC, Xbox 360)

It undoubtedly wasn’t the primary open-ended RPG, however The Elder Scrolls four: Oblivion was a vital stepping stone. The successor to Morrowind and the predecessor to Skyrim, Oblivion acquired a revamped AI system to make a extra plausible neighborhood, and continued the custom of Bethesda iterating its worlds into locations to be misplaced in.

(2009, Nintendo DS)

Rhythm Heaven is sort of a WarioWare recreation for the musically-inclined. Enjoying by way of a sequence of ranges with completely different guidelines, gamers should faucet in sync with the sport’s beat to progress. What outcomes is an addictive romp by way of a few of Nintendo’s weirdest ranges. Rhythm Heaven excels by asking little of gamers whereas nonetheless being sufficient of a problem to make for an interesting rhythm recreation.

(2009, iOS, Android)

Drop7 is a type of video games so easy in its design, you hardly ever notice how sensible it’s. Combining easy addition with a match three recreation, Drop7 takes seconds to grasp however hours to place down. It is an incredible instance of how cellular video games, carried out proper, rival the enjoyable and engagement of AAA, big-budget experiences.

(2011, iOS, Android, others)

Not not like Drop7, Kingdom Rush is one other instance of a cellular recreation carried out near-perfectly. Taking the tower protection style and including new layers of gameplay — reminiscent of the flexibility to ship footmen into battle to decelerate waves — Kingdom Rush seems to be acquainted at first, however is simply completely different sufficient to separate it from the remainder of the crowded tower protection style.

(1999, Dreamcast, others)

Energy Stone shortly grew to become a “should have” when it launched on the Sega Dreamcast. Like its sequel just a few spots up, Energy Stone ditched the primarily 2D style, went 3D and opened up interactivity on the earth. Earlier than most preventing video games had a number of levels and methods to strategy a battle, Energy Stone gave gamers the flexibility to strategize in a different way.

(1999, PC, PlayStation, others)

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is brooding. It is darkish. It is bloody. Soul Reaver had an environment forward of its time, one IGN mentioned was “saturated with a foreboding darkish wrath, intelligence, and plodding particulars.” Many critics praised the sport’s engine, which allowed Kain to journey between a number of dimensions, altering the look of the sport in actual time — a stunning feat on the time.

(1996, PC, others)

Command and Conquer: Crimson Alert streamlined the real-time technique recreation expertise. A superb user-interface allowed a number of components to be accessed directly, and the sport was one of many first within the style to function aggressive play. Crimson Alert was extra inviting and interesting than most different real-time technique video games.

(2014, PlayStation four, Xbox One, others)

Future is and was a promise of what is to come back. Pitched as Bungie’s bold follow-up to the Halo sequence, Future promised a narrative stuffed with planet-hopping and deep lore — and initially its execution various. Nevertheless, Future’s tight gameplay mixed with Bungie’s dedication to delivering on its authentic promise makes the sequence increasingly more attention-grabbing as time goes on.

(2010, PlayStation Transportable, others)

Overshadowed commercially by its console siblings, Metallic Gear Strong: Peace Walker is however one of the essential video games within the Metallic Gear sequence. Peace Walker set a few of the early cornerstones by way of story and design that may convey the sequence to the landmark Metallic Gear Strong 5: The Phantom Ache.

(1984, ZX Spectrum, others)

Deus Ex Machina is, as creator Mel Croucher calls it, “the perfect recreation you by no means performed in your life.” Hyperbole apart, Machina was the primary recreation to function a synchronized soundtrack, although that was not restricted to only music. The sport additionally had full narration and celebrities contributing voice and musical expertise.

(1998, PC)

Thief: The Darkish Challenge rests within the pantheon of basic Trying Glass video games. The primary within the Thief sequence, The Darkish Challenge helped popularize the concept of ethical ambiguity in video games, permitting gamers, in the event that they select, to forgo violence altogether in favor of merely reaching their goal. This concept could be adopted advert nauseum by video games that adopted.

(2004, PC, Xbox, others)

Just like The Darkish Challenge, Star Wars Knights of the Previous Republic 2: The Sith Lords offered gamers with an ethical grayness, permitting them to decide on whether or not to play on the sunshine or darkish facet. The Sith Lords was famous for its tight story, in addition to presenting a completely new Star Wars story influenced by the actions of the participant.

(2011, PlayStation three, Xbox 360, others)

One of many finer golf video games of all time, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 was the primary within the sequence to really function The Masters Event on the Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership in Augusta, Georgia. This inclusion gave gamers the possibility to stay out an actual golf season headlined by the game’s final real-world competitors.

(2008, PlayStation three, others)

Should you can dream it, likelihood is you are able to do it in LittleBigPlanet. All about creativity, LittleBigPlanet not solely emphasizes however encourages participant creativity. Due to that, it was warmly acquired for its openness for experimentation, permitting gamers to get bizarre and take a look at issues they assume will not work.

Click on right here to proceed to entries 400-301.

Story textual content: Blake Hester

[ricardosousalemos]

JJ DOOM: Bookhead EP

Key to the Kuffs has aged into excellence in the nearly five years since it first came out. It can still feel a little weird hearing MF DOOM with a couple MPH off his fastball, but that only puts more stink on his trick pitches—like his how’d-he-rhyme-that internals and a thematic villainy that’s never felt more at home on some off-the-grid corner of the Deep Web. And while Jneiro Jarel never went as far afield as Madlib or subverted classic hip-hop and R&B like DOOM’s own production did, his beats weren’t afraid to be at least a bit unnerving—just a notch below the potential to be an Organized Noize for the West Coast bass crowd.

It might’ve been the Butter Edition that made it a bit clearer: Released a year after the original August 2012 pressing of Key to the Kuffs, the limited edition expanded reissue tacked on a bonus disc with four outtake tracks and five remixes that brought in some serious indie-crossover star power. That disc got another limited run on its own as a 12” picture disc half a year after that, and while it wasn’t exactly impossible to find, it seems like it nearly slipped through the cracks. That release, the Bookhead EP, is getting another lease on life from Lex Records. It’s not really any different from the Butter Edition bonus/2013 12” that came out a few years back, but it deserves another go-round as one of the best releases to feature DOOM’s name this decade.

As a short but potent dose of hook-free haranguing, the title track has aged into a strong fan-favorite deep cut with one of the better JJ beats to come from that whole collection. DOOM rapping about escaping from the grind by losing himself in reading (”From the mean streets of the ‘Can I get a dollar, dude?’/Above measure, the singular pleasure of solitude”) would be a pretty good public library PSA if Jarel’s beat didn’t lurk like the synthesized soundtrack to leafing through the poetry books of Aleister Crowley. “Pause Tape” is a little less focused, featuring DOOM at his most thematically free-associative (“Quicker than a sleight of hand, like, damn/Telepathy and telekinesis, faster than Instagram”). It’s also one of two tracks (along with the quickie “The Signs”) where Jarel has enough time on the mic to turn his workmanlike voice around a few unlikely turns of phrase (”Never compromise, keep it real/Never peek at you/Rolling through the jungle/Glowing eyes like a kinkajou”). Then there’s “Viberian Son,” the counterpart to the “Part II” instrumental that showed up on Key to the Kuffs. DOOM’s verse is practically a cameo, but his lines about talking to your kids instead of hitting them register more memorable than Del the Funky Homosapien’s scattershot phrases.

”Bookhead” aside, and no slight to Jarel, the major draw here is the collection of remixes that fill out the EP’s later stretch. The indie/art-rock contributions ramp up DOOM’s griminess in oblique ways without losing sight of the fact that the tracks are supposed to knock. Dave Sitek collabed with Jarel on one of the better remixes on 2010’s Gazzillion Ear EP, and that formula pays off again with the Sitek remix of “Rhymin Slang.” More a customization than a transformation, it pares back the synth riff that made the original seethe and foregrounds the tape-hiss low end and adds some more expressive drum kicks and a brief Latin percussion breakdown that gives the UK-banished DOOM a postcard from New York. Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke turn the unlikely target “Retarded Fren” into a lurching chamber music nerve-rattler that toes the orchestral line between suspense-thriller score and “Looney Tunes” gag. And the plinky, clunky robot piano funk of Beck’s take on “Banished” is Exhibit Q of what he could do if he decided his Midnite Vultures mode was more worth resurrecting than Sea Change.

That said, the two most fascinating remixes are the ones that inspire what-ifs, coming from two acts known for putting distinctive fingerprints on their production work for rap artists. BADBADNOTGOOD have done more thrilling work in recent years than their remix for “Guv’nor,” but it still fits DOOM’s more diabolical side. And “Bookfiend,” the title cut reworked by Clams Casino, gives us a glimpse at the villain in Jack Kirby mechanized Day-Glo environs, cloud rap where the atmosphere’s laced with crackling cosmic rays. Either one of these acts could make for a revelatory full-length collab with DOOM, new frontiers for a vet who feels weathered by experience without necessarily feeling straight-up old. For now, we’ve got one-offs like the ones on this EP to keep us guessing—which is what DOOM does best, anyways.

#reviews-albums

[viralhottopics]

How Potentially Great Movies Got Derailed By Offscreen BS

Hollywood has proved that it’s willing to turn literally anything into a movie, from children’s toys, to Reddit posts, to E.L. James novels. So, if you ever notice a film-worthy property that has remained conspicuously un-adapted, you can bet your ass that it’s not for lack of trying. In fact, some of the stories behind these non-adaptations would make pretty good movies of their own (mostly comedies, with some hints of psychological horror).

5

Gore Verbinski’s R-Rated BioShock Movie Is Dead Due To Watchmen

Video game adaptations tend to be utter garbage for one simple reason: It’s hard to turn a plot like “portly Italian steps on hundreds of turtles” into a coherent screenplay. If there’s one game that could break the curse, though, it’s BioShock. Why? Because it already has a more cogent story than most movies.

2K Games Not to mention, way more diving suit-wearing mutants with giant drills on one hand.

The game’s critically acclaimed storyline (centered on a utopic underwater city created by a combination of Walt Disney and Ayn Rand) is ripe for the taking — and there’s one director willing to do it. Gore Verbinski of Pirates Of The Caribbean fame is a big fan of BioShock‘s “cinematic potential” and “strong narrative,” and we’ve already talked about why he would actually be perfect for this adaptation (assuming he doesn’t succumb to the Burton Syndrome and casts Johnny Depp for every part).

Verbinski was all set to shoot a BioShock movie in 2009, and fittingly for someone named “Gore,” he wasn’t planning to shy away from the game’s violence and general fucked-up-ness. In his own words, he “just really, really wanted to make it a movie where, four days later, you’re still shivering and going, ‘Jesus Christ!'” The movie’s concept art confirms that, at the very least, this thing would have been visually amazing:

2K Games

2K Games

But then, only eight weeks before shooting started, Universal Studios pulled the plug. What happened? Apparently, Watchmen did.

Verbinski wanted between $160 and $200 million to properly recreate the underwater city of Rapture, but after Zack Snyder’s dour superhero slo-mo-fest underperformed, Universal got nervous about financing such an expensive R-rated film. Verbinski wouldn’t budge on the rating or the budget, so that was it. The studio tried to keep going with another director, but the same problems came up again. Eventually, BioShock‘s creators decided they didn’t need a stinking movie anyways.

We’d love to end this entry telling you that the recent string of R-rated genre hits proved those cowardly producers wrong, but it’s not that simple: Deadpool cost only $58 million, Logan reportedly $97 million, and Mad Max: Fury Road didn’t exactly make it rain (by Hollywood standards). Shooting an underwater city probably won’t be affordable until we’re actually living in one, so cross your fingers for more climate change, gaming fans!

4

We’ll Never See Guillermo Del Toro’s At The Mountains Of Madness Because Of Freaking Prometheus

Like his creation Cthulhu, horror author H.P. Lovecraft has managed to indirectly wedge his face-tentacles into everything you love. He’s inspired such disparate works as Dungeons And Dragons, Evil Dead, and even Conan The Barbarian — and yet, very few of his works have been directly adapted into movies. For instance, there’s never been a film adaptation of his classic novella At The Mountains Of Madness, the lovely story of a bunch of scientists who stumble upon forgotten horrors during an Antarctic expedition, and end up getting slaughtered or losing their minds.

Guillermo Del Toro, no stranger to giant monsters from other dimensions, has been trying to adapt Mountains for decades, but the project has been cursed by the unthinkable evils that rule the universe: Hollywood executives. Del Toro had a script ready as early as 1998, and at various points the project managed to attract serious interest from Warner Bros., Universal, and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Pictures. In 2010, Del Toro even convinced James Cameron to join as producer and had Tom Cruise in advanced talks to star (yes, we might have finally found out what Cruise looks like as an insane person).

The studios always ended up wussing out over the budget and dark tone, but Del Toro kept plugging away, convinced that this was something audiences had never seen before. That is, until he heard about a little movie called Prometheus. You know, the one about a bunch of scientists who stumble upon forgotten horrors during a galactic expedition, and end up getting slaughtered or crushed by slow-moving space donuts.

The similarities don’t end there: Both Prometheus and Mountains involve the scientists discovering an ancient alien race responsible for creating humanity, as well some ugly-ass monsters hell-bent on destroying said humanity. Del Toro didn’t want to cover the same ground as that film, so he announced that his project was on hold or dead. In 2013, he said he would give it one more try … and that’s the last anyone’s heard of it. Oh, well, at least there’s always the new Hellbo– Whoops.

3

Hamilton Won’t Be A Movie For Decades Because The Creator Just Said So

Chances are that you’ve never seen Hamilton yourself (tickets go from $175 to $2000 and are still constantly sold out), but you sure as hell have heard about it. It’s a freaking cultural phenomenon. The Founding Father-themed hip-hop musical won 11 of its record-breaking 16 Tony Awards nominations, largely for its ability to achieve the impossible: making people pay “could have bought fairly high-quality cocaine” money to see something pertaining to Alexander “National Debt Ain’t Nothing But A Thing” Hamilton.

Since Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is all about making American history more accessible to the masses, a movie adaptation would make perfect sense, right? So thinks everyone, except Lin-Manuel Miranda. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Miranda stated that if a film adaptation happens, it probably wouldn’t be for at least 20 years. Partially, he wants to make sure people come see it in theaters now (even though 99 percent of us will never have the chance) … but he also claims that the only good play-to-film adaptations are “all 20 years after the fact,” giving examples like Cabaret or Chicago.

The thing is, Cabaret was only made eight years after the play. West Side Story, The Sound Of Music, Oliver!, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Guys And Dolls, Hairspray — all had acclaimed movies within five to eight years of the musical. The Grease movie was released only seven years later, and people love that retroactively creepy crap. Does Miranda think it was actually made in the ’50s because of the wardrobes?

At most, those suffering from Hamilust will have to settle for watching a filmed performance of the play, but there are two problems with that: 1) Miranda says he hasn’t decided what to do with the only recording of the original cast, joking (we think?) that he’d throw it in a vault, and 2) no one in the history of humanity has enjoyed a fixed-camera movie of a play. You might as well sneak into one of the inevitable rip-off productions that high school drama clubs will be putting on for years to come.

2

Steve Carell’s Real-Life Comedy About North Korea, Pyongyang, Was Shelved Because Of The Interview

North Korea has been responsible for a lot of terrible things over the years, but there was one time when they actually tried to save us from a lurking danger we ourselves didn’t fully understand: Seth Rogen’s The Interview. In what we naively thought would be the most bonkers international incident of this decade, Kim Jong-un’s regime took offense at something in the movie (presumably the part about Rogen and James Franco assassinating him, but maybe they’re just tired of stoner jokes) and allegedly hacked Sony Pictures in retaliation.

As a result, most screenings of the movie were cancelled and the film was banished to the wasteland of home video.

However, this Chinese food-fart of a movie wasn’t the most tragic casualty of the Sony hack clusterfuck: that would be Steve Carell’s Pyongyang, which was a story that actually deserved to be told.

Based on a 2004 autobiographical comic book, Pyongyang details author Guy Delisle’s experiences in the North Korean capital, where he worked as the liaison between a French animation company and a local studio. That studio’s signature creation, by the way, is an adorable propaganda series starring a squirrel and a hedgehog, imaginatively titled Squirrel And Hedgehog.

Because of his particular role, Delisle was given unprecedented access to parts of the country usually hidden from outsiders. His book is a retelling of all the bizarre things he saw and experienced in that crazy-ass regime — a concept that apparently made Gore Verbinski’s ears perk up when he heard about it. In 2013, New Regency announced Verbinski would direct a “dark comedy” based on the Delisle’s experiences, and eventually added Steve Carell as the lead. It would have been an intriguing combination of awkward situations …

… and the obligatory “creative liberties” Hollywood would have taken to make the story more like a spy thriller. Either way, expect a lot of Carell screaming in panic.

Unfortunately, thanks to Rogen shoving his dick jokes into the nuclear hornet’s nest, the movie was dead before it could really take off. New Regency didn’t think they could risk a controversial movie of their own, while Verbinski welcomed the possibility of World War III, stating, “I find it ironic that fear is eliminating the possibility to tell stories that depict our ability to overcome fear.” To which the studio probably responded: “Yeah, but nukes and shit. Right?”

1

The Catcher In The Rye Will Never Get A Movie Because Of A Terrible Version Of Another J.D. Salinger Story

J.D. Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye has long been considered by hipsters (and assassins) to be the greatest book against phonies ever written. Holden Caulfield’s story of self-discovery mirrors that of many a pissed-off, surly, uniquely rebellious teenager — so, all of them, basically. That probably explains why entire generations of actors, from Marlon Brando to Leonardo DiCaprio, have tried to get the movie done with themselves in the lead.

The problem is that, like his boy Caulfield, Salinger was on a bit of a crusade against the phonies of the world — and to him, no one was phonier than Hollywood (not sure how he got that impression).

Salinger didn’t always feel that way. Early in his career, he sold the rights to his short story Uncle Wiggily In Connecticut, a commentary on materialism in the post-WWII era. According to his assistant, Salinger “thought they would make a good movie,” which wasn’t an unreasonable assumption considering that the script would be written by the screenwriters of Casablanca, Julius and Philip Epstein.

So what did the Epsteins do? They changed the name to My Foolish Heart, ditched all the social commentary, and turned the story into a sappy romantic tale.

Even though the film was a commercial hit, Salinger hated it so much that he refused to allow any more adaptations of his work. Including Catcher In The Rye. Of course, there might be another reason why he turned down all those offers from famous actors: According to his one-time girlfriend, Salinger thought only he himself could play Caulfield. It’s probably a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

Anyway, if you excitedly thought that Salinger’s death might finally bring about a Catcher adaptation, then you’re 1) a shitty person, and 2) wrong. The people who manage his trust were fully aware of his aversion to licensing out any of his works, and will continue his crusade for generations to come. On the upside, think of all the murders from illiterate would-be killers we’re avoiding this way.

Jordan Breeding is a part-time writer, a full-time lover, and an all the time guitarist. Check out his band at Skywardband.com or on Spotify here.

Behind every awful movie is the idea for a good one. Old man Indiana Jones discovers aliens: Good in theory, bad in practice. Batman fights Superman: So simple, but so bad. Are there good versions of these movies hidden within the stinking turds that saw the light of day? Jack O’Brien hosts Soren Bowie, Daniel O’Brien, and Katie Willert of After Hours on our next live podcast to find an answer, as they discuss their ideal versions of flops, reboots, and remakes. Tickets are $7 and can be purchased here!

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