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prismatic-bell · 1 year

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Anti-Racism In Glass Onion: It's A Whole Thing, Part One

So I wasn't going to write this, because I'm white and it felt like veering very far out of my lane. But I also haven't seen anyone else talking about it, and finally I decided I'd rather make an ass of myself by doing something well-meaning than I would to uphold a status quo that zips right by one of the most important things in this film (that doesn't get explored enough in media or fandom), so here we are. Please keep in mind this is going to be FULL of spoilers so if you're not about that life, you'll want to give this a pass for now. (I also expected it to be much shorter than it is. It’s, uh, nine pages long. So it will be multiple posts long. Sorry.)

I don't think I've yet seen anyone really touch in-depth on the fact that this is a movie with a pretty strong theme calling out antiblack racism and the overturning thereof. Indeed, I’ve only seen one post mentioning it at all.

So let’s analyze, yes?

First, let's look at "the disrupters." They include:

--an alt-right streamer who's openly mentioned as being just about every -ism in the book

--his blonde-haired, blue-eyed girlfriend who's with him for status

--a white politician who objects to Klear not on the basis that it could cost lives, but that it will lose her the progressive vote

--an absolute idiot of a white supermodel who's had two serious antiblack race-based scandals, and is about to have another that's just generally racist

--a Black scientist who repeatedly tries to speak up and gets shot down

--a Black woman, the actual brains of this entire outfit, who created the original business plan and a multibillion-dollar company and got first fired, then financially ousted, then murdered

Now let's look at some other Black characters and Black imagery in the story. These include:

--a mural of Kanye West depicted as a messiah

--Serena Williams, as Miles' personal trainer

--the phrase "sucking on his titties," spoken by a Black woman

--a cameo by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as one of Benoit Blanc's friends

—a Beatles song (yes, really)

--the lower-middle-class sister of the Black woman who was the actual brains, etc.

Before we move on, I want to address the Kanye thing, because Glass Onion was filmed in 2021, probably written in 2020, and the point where Kanye went absolutely batshit deep-end off-the-fucking-rails was in 2022. I do not believe Rian Johnson was making any kind of "go Kanye" statement here--I think it was an unfortunate confluence of timing. As I discuss Kanye further, I want it to be clear we're discussing already-gross-but-not-yet-gone-full-Nazi Kanye.

So let's go ahead and get him out of the way first, because he's an incredibly important figure in Black music but as a Jew I just. Really do not want to be discussing Kanye West longer than I have to, I'm sorry. West is the kind of figure Miles Bron would absolutely want to have in his life as a status symbol. First, if we look at Bron's definition of being "a disrupter" (first you break a small thing, then very quickly you break the system itself), Kanye absolutely qualifies. He started out as a small artist mostly producing beats for other musicians, then did some work for Jay-Z that led to an album Rolling Stone considered one of the best hip-hop albums of all time, and then he dropped The College Dropout. I knew his work was considered influential before I started looking into this imagery deeper, but I had no idea how influential--this was his debut album and it hit #2 on the charts, produced a single that debuted at #1, included a song called "Jesus Walks" that hit the top 20 even though it was predicted a Christian song would never land in hip-hop, and the album is still considered one of "the greats" by other artists--twenty years later. I'd say that pretty neatly fits Miles' definition of "disruption." He did, indeed, first break something small and then turn the hip-hop world on its head.

Where there's a second layer to this that I think would also speak to Miles is that in 2018, Kanye declared the chattel slavery of West African people in the Americas was "a choice"--as in, they chose to be enslaved. He later claimed he was referring to "mental enslavement," but no matter how you cut it, regardless of his own race, that's a pretty fucking racist antiblack statement (in addition to being wildly historically revisionist). While I doubt Miles would be like “hell yeah, racism!,” he’d absolutely buy 100% into the idea of choosing to be in hellish circumstances, because He Got Out All On His Own (even though he didn’t), So You Can Too.

Moving on, we have Serena Williams. She's another person who'd fit Miles' description of "a disrupter," but where Kanye would probably revel in that idea, I honestly don't think she'd like it very much, and her attitude in the movie really underlines that. Yes, she's taking his money to be his "personal trainer," but really, he's frittering her life away. She's sitting there reading a book waiting for him to decide he wants to get off his ass and work out today. She's not a slave, but she has been explicitly put in a role as a paid servant. I don't think it's out of the question to say Miles specifically picked her over, say, Jillian Michaels, because she is Black. Do I think he sat down and went "who's a Black athlete I can subjugate?" No. I think if you asked Miles he'd be the kind of person who'd unironically say "I'm not racist! The head scientist at Alpha is Black!" What I think happened--or to be more accurate, what I think the kind of train of thought Rian Johnson would attribute to him would have caused to happen--is that he picked someone he'd be comfortable ignoring. Did he consciously decide he'd be more comfortable ignoring a Black woman and telling her to put up or shut up if she complained he was wasting her time? No. But do I think we should attribute unconscious biases and prejudices to him that aided him in the decision that he'd be comfortable ignoring her? Yes.

Incidentally, while we’re here, let’s discuss how the two of them stack up to Miles’ other “status symbol” name-drops. First, let’s discard Banksy. He’s a special case here and we’ll discuss him later. But now let’s look at the others. We’ve got Jeremy Renner, whose personal I-make-this-for-my-inner-circle food Miles proudly eats and hands out; Jared Leto, whose personal I-make-this-for-my-inner-circle drink Miles proudly offers to friends (although if memory serves me, he himself is drinking beer); Gillian Flynn, who he’s hired to write a mystery game for his own inner circle; Philip Glass, who he hired to write the music for the Glass Onion’s clock, which is there to impress guests; and Anderson Cooper, whose party he supposedly attended. Notice something about all the celebrities whose products he actively engages with? Yeah. They’re all white. Serena is relegated to a private room and not interacted with, while Kanye doesn’t even get a mention—and as I noted above, this movie would have gone through post far too late for Rian Johnson to have been able to say “let’s…remove praising the dude who’s declared himself a Nazi, please,” which means if Kanye was ever mentioned at all, it was cut long before real!Kanye’s final downward spiral. The Black “status symbols” have literally been relegated to being Miles’ props and “the help.”

Now let's talk about Helen's turn of phrase when she's reading "the disrupters" for absolute filth. She tells all of them what they want is Miles' (and, by extension, Andi's) money, and that they're "sucking on his titties." Putting the line in the mouth of a Black woman puts me instantly in mind of the "mammy" stereotype, where the Black woman is expected to nurture and nourish and care for all of the (implied or outright stated to be white) children and have no personality outside this. Technically it's Miles' money, but it's Miles' money specifically because of the shit he pulled with Andi--he sucked her dry and now is being fed upon in turn. The thing is, the way Black women are further treated throughout the narrative doesn't make this a faux-cutesy little image like those godawful racist vintage ads; it's horrifying. It is horrifying and it should be horrifying; it’s disgusting and the narrative wants you to be disgusted at this.

To continue, we have that cameo by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It's really only noteworthy because he's the one who's giving Blanc shit for failing at Among Us and refusing to get out of the bathtub. This is important for reasons I'll come back to (put a pin in this), but for now suffice it to say it's important because Blanc is white and Southern and we'll get back to that.

Next up, it’s “Blackbird,” the song Miles was playing on guitar when the ship lands. Other posts have noted that for all Blackbird sounds very pretty and impressive, it’s actually very simple to play, and that this reflects Miles’ relationship with the world in general—pretending he’s bigger, better, smarter, more, than he actually is. This is probably true. I’ve also seen it mentioned that it, like Glass Onion, is a Beatles song from the White Album, and this is also true. What you may not know if you’re not a Beatles nerd is that “Blackbird” isn’t about a bird at all. Paul McCartney has stated several times over the years that the song had a dual inspiration—the sound of blackbirds, but also news reports about the American Black civil rights movement, and that when he says “blackbird” you should be thinking “black girl.” Birdie is excited and immediately declares it’s “her song,” which in her mind probably has to do with her name, but I strongly suspect that for Rian Johnson, this was another way to tie in how absolutely wildly Birdie is willing to appropriate Black experiences and culture. This is particularly true because of the exact part of Black history the song references—Birdie tells us she’s done blackface to dress as Beyoncé (a modern Black feminist who strongly pushes for empowerment) and has compared herself to Harriet Tubman (an escaped slave who proceeded, during Reconstruction, to become part of the women’s suffrage movement). Blackbird links these two together, with our nameless 1960s Black civil rights protestor falling squarely between the two named women. Also worth noting here is that “Blackbird” was released in 1968; while the Black Power movement was getting underway and “Black” or “African-American” would become the accepted terms over the next decade, “Negro” and “colored” were still the polite ways to refer to a Black person in the US. McCartney has since gone on the record apologizing for some pretty serious racism during his time with the Beatles, and I’m choosing for simplicity’s sake here to assume he was sincere, but this makes the song itself another example of appropropriation—“Black” wasn’t really a word McCartney, as a white man, had the right to use when the song came out. That makes “Blackbird” an even more apt double-metaphor—Birdie the appropriator of Black culture calling it “her” song, and Miles “I steal everything not nailed down and say I did it” Bron using it to look like he’s more than he is.

The second half of this (admittedly extremely messy) essay is here.

#glass onion #racism #media analysis

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ourladyofomega · 5 months

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I was getting deeper and deeper into everything electronic and industrial, all during my one-year break in-between the Brentwood era and community college. The UK electronics invasion, MTV's Amp, and Wipeout XL were the major influences that led me to that point. I was starting to have an endless appetite for music, and one thing I learned about myself that I could be interested in anything and everything. I already had an affinity to golden-era hip-hop / rap and alternative. The seeds of hardcore started to grow, so there would be no stopping me at this point. There were so many genres, artists, and sounds I was getting into, and I wanted to keep up. I had a position at a department store in the shopping mall, then later at a movie rental store, so I could afford to buy titles for whatever cash I had in hand.

I didn't have a desktop with internet to find independent stores. I had yellow pages instead: thick phone-books listing hundreds upon hundreds of pages of local businesses, their addresses, and their phone numbers all in minuscule print. That's how I discovered them back then. It was a year after visiting my first-ever independent record store, Commack's Mr. Cheapo's. Then came West Babylon's Looney Tunes before the holidays. Still enthusiastic in discovering the vast unknown, I wanted to find more. Port Jefferson's Music Den would be the next destination.

I already felt like an outsider when I arrived on campus. It was a different type of demographic I was used to. I looked around and I'd still see cliques, circles, and other "exclusive" groups of students that I felt I wouldn't be included in. I'd meet newfound friends who'd introduce me to their friends, but it felt forced, and they didn't seem to care. I was crazy for Atari Teenage Riot because they showed me exactly what techno always should've been: deafening loud, criminally high-speed, and maniacally all over the place. I tried looking for people who were in them, and observed what types of music the majority were into. Simplistic, manufactured, predictable dance hits. Boring weekend club-mashers. Formulaic radio chart-toppers. I wasn't impressed. The people who were into that were shallow, superficial, judgmental, needlessly competitive, and at times just unnecessarily mean. Drama artists and attitude jockeys all over the place. That's why they called community college "13th Grade". Now you'd see the disgusting distaste of the late-Nineties music scene I had. But, I did have a couple of good cards given to me. I joined the campus newspaper which I'd write music reviews for. An attractive brunette, Sandra, randomly stopped me to strike up a conversation, and wanted to get to know me better. She was also a Jesus freak. I also made another friend I met on campus who decided to set me up with an Irish blonde acquaintance of his, and we hit it off right away. Even then, I'd deal with constant games, rudeness, and random acts of ego during my time there.

The newspaper meeting ended one late October Thursday night. I finally had the opportunity to drive out eight miles from campus to the Port Jefferson Music Den for some shopping. I walked right in, and started digging. I'm not even there for two minutes and I already find gold: the import version of Alec Empire’s The Destroyer for only $9.00 used ($22.00 brand new otherwise). That was a huge deal for me because (once again) I was an Atari Teenage Riot / DHR fanatic. Right after that? Another label release, this time from EC8OR. I'd finally discover all those artists I heard about on the internet; thirty-minute download times of grainy 480P-resolution video and all. I was really starting to like this place. I start scouring the used CD bins, and I’d stumble upon KMFDM’s banned version of Naive for $8.00 - back when used copies on eBay were selling for…$80.00 each! Then came Pigface’s Washingmachinemouth and Ministry’s The Land Of Rape And Honey for a few dollars used. I copped Fluke’s Risotto because of Wipeout XL, and I’d snatch Skinny Puppy’s Back & Forth Volume 2 and Cleopatra’s Industrial Revolution: Third Edition, all for regular price. Finally, Coldcut’s "Atomic Moog 2000" / "Reboot The System": the first-ever multimedia CD I'd ever own.

Minute-by-minute, I'd slowly discover all sorts of wild and unusual sounds and artists they had on the racks. The Port Jeff- Music Den carried all the rare, unusual, and obscure stuff no other store on the island did. Sure, there were plenty of used CDs and vinyl bins in pop, metal, alternative, shoegaze, indie, hip-hop, and jazz. It was their industrial, noise, electronic, and experimental selections, however, that would be the all-important tie-breaker. They had all what I was looking for. I remembered seeing titles like Gescom’s Minidisc on the racks, Coil’s “Autumn Equinox: Amethyst Deceivers” 7", tons of Clock DVA, Controlled Bleeding, plus some Oval and Microstoria albums. It was wild. I felt stimulated because I found plenty of abnormalities that I never knew existed, instead of the expected, typical, calculated fare that did absolutely nothing for me.

90 minutes later, I took my short stack of CDs, placed them on the counter to be rung up, cashed out, and wrapped up what would be my first visit to The -Den. $82.00 later, I leave fucking satisfied.

With each visit after, I’d continue to score big victories where I’d find them. They were Phil Western’s debut album The Escapist, Muslimgauze’s Hamas Arc, Mike & Rich’s Expert Knob Twiddlers, Aphex Twin’s Analogue Bubblebath 3, Merzbow’s Pulse Demon, and Sam & Valley. I’d nab more DHR albums from 16-17, Shizuo on vinyl, Fuck Step '98, Give Up on 12", and Alec Empire’s Squeeze The Trigger. The best? Autechre / Gescom’s “Keynell” 12" that I found under the vinyl bins and hidden inside the cabinet underneath. It was stickered for $17.00 - another record where second-hand copies sold on eBay for $125.00. I also managed to pick up a few of their 12" EPs, mainly Chiclisuite and Envane.

All these finds made The -Music Den the most unforgettable store I had the privilege to visit. They were like nothing else on the island. Sadly, they closed down after the turn of the millennium, and no store that came after was half-as-good enough to fill the hole they left behind. Believe me, if any of you reading this would’ve shopped there, you’d feel amazed and blown away like I was. I’d still have a tough time dealing with all the constant, petty drama on campus over the next couple of years. At the Port Jefferson Music Den, however, I knew that was a place where I felt like I’d belong.

#omega #our lady omega #personal #Long Island #Alec Empire #EC8OR #Pigface #KMFDM #Ministry #industrial #electronic #techno #Cleopatra #Skinny Puppy #Fluke

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deadl · 10 days

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headcannons (that nobody asked for) about the ons characters and what kind of music they would have listened to (realistic version)

First, let's focus on the fact that many people in this fandom choose to ignore when giving headcannons to characters in ons. Let's not forget that the apocalypse came in 2012 and they no longer have technology (except for the vampires), that means that they no longer can hear newer songs.

So, they would perhaps still have old records or only listen to Japanese artists.

Let's start with the humans!!

Yuichiro Hyakuya:

He would most likely listen to popular japanese artists, perhaps he would listen to pop songs. I don't think that he's that interested in music, but I can't leave him out of this. He would listen to AKB48, Arashi and EXILE. They're great japanese artists who were very popular in 2012, their albums being sold the most in Japan.

Mikaela Hyakuya:

The same as Yuu, he wouldn't be interested in music too much. But, since he's close to Krul, (or he was) she most definitely kept some albums and records with music on it. He probably listened to some of her kept records. He wasn't interested at first, but as he got more bored, he probably started to listen more often to those albums. I feel like he would obviously listen to japanese songs, but some sad slow ones. He would definitely listen to 'one more time, one more chance' by Masayoshi Yamazaki, Fukai Mori by Do as infinity and Utakata Hanabi by SuperCell. I don't think that Krul would have many japanese albums, but he's pleased with the ones that she has.

Ferid Báthory:

He's an ancient vampire, so it makes sense that he would prefer old songs. Unlike other vampires, he would be interested in music since music can make him less bored. Even in the light novels it says that he owns antique things like books, desks, etc. It's off topic, but I think that he would immediately buy something that interests him, so he probably has collected a variety of useless things over time, that includes albums. He would listen to Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, The mamas & the papas and other old artists that interested him. He would obviously also listen to classic music. He definitely has a collection with classic music. He may seem like he only likes songs that attract him with the rhythm or beat, but he actually pays attention to everything, including the rhythm,beat,lyrics,artist,etc and then he would decide if he likes it or not. You would be tricked by him, assuming that he only bought albums that sound good, but if you listen to the lyrics, you would realize how they somehow reasonate to him deeply.

Crowley Eusford:

Let's be honest here, he wouldn't listen to music. He would have only listened to music when he heard it in public. He would prefer slower songs though, and he would hate loud songs with no meaningful lyrics. I think that he's the type of person that listens very carefully to the lyrics, then he decides if he likes that song or not. He doesn't care about the rhythm, popularity or the artist who sings it, he would pay attention to the lyrics.

Shinoa Hiiragi:

Her preferred music type couldn't be described just as one genre, she would have listened to a variety of artists, including: Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Lana Del Rey, LazyGunsBrisky, Marina, Scandal, BABYMETAL, SILENT SIREN, AKB48, etc. She would have definitely liked Marina and Taylor Swift.

René Simm:

He would definitely listen to alternative or metal music. I MEAN JUST LOOK AT HIM. Even his fade cut (or whatever that design is in his hair😭) reminds me Type O Negative's album 'October Rust'. The cover of it has almost the same design as his hair. He would definitely listen to Type O Negative, Mayhem, AC/DC, Slipknot, Rammstein and Black Sabbath.

Lacus Welt:

Also a fan of metal music, but he reminds me of the 90s. I know that we don't have his backstory yet but I think that he got turned into a vampire in the 90s. He would have listened to 90s music, especially Nirvana.

I'll probably make a part two with the other characters

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #ons #sote #yuichiro hyakuya #mikaela hyakuya #ferid bathory #rene simm #lacus welt #shinoa hiiragi #crowley eusford #crowley

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lovesongbracket · 1 year

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Reminder: Vote based on the song, not the artist or specific recording! The tracks referenced are the original artist, aside from a few rare cases where a cover is the most widely known.

Lyrics, videos, info, and notable covers under the cut. (Spotify playlist available in pinned post)

Dancing in the Dark

Written By: Bruce Springsteen

Artist: Bruce Springsteen

Released: 1984

The first single off of Springsteen’s seminal album Born In The U.S.A., this track was written two years after most of the other songs on the album. Producer Jon Landau thought the new album lacked a guaranteed hit and pushed Springsteen to draft one more song. The two men got into a brief altercation, after which Bruce wrote “Dancing in the Dark” about his ‘difficulty writing a hit single and his frustration trying to write songs that will please people’. Its music video contains an early appearance by actress Courtney Cox. It also helped introduce Springsteen to a younger audience, setting the stage for a seven-single run of top 10 hits from the album. “Dancing In The Dark” became Springsteen’s highest charting single the Boss has ever had, spending four weeks in the #2 position of the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1984, held from the top spot by Duran Duran “The Reflex” and Prince “When Doves Cry”. It also spent six weeks at #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart. This single is also Springsteen’s only to be certified platinum.

[Verse 1] I get up in the evening And I ain't got nothing to say I come home in the morning I go to bed feeling the same way I ain't nothing but tired Man, I'm just tired and bored with myself Hey there, baby I could use just a little help [Chorus] You can't start a fire You can't start a fire without a spark This gun's for hire Even if we're just dancing in the dark [Verse 2] Messages keep getting clearer Radio's on, and I'm moving 'round my place I check my look in the mirror I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face Man, I ain't getting nowhere I'm just living in a dump like this There's something happening somewhere Baby, I just know that there is [Chorus] You can't start a fire You can't start a fire without a spark This gun's for hire Even if we're just dancing in the dark [Bridge] You sit around getting older There's a joke here somewhere, and it's on me I'll shake this world off my shoulders Come on, baby, the laugh's on me [Verse 3] Stay on the streets of this town And they'll be carving you up all right They say, "You gotta stay hungry" Hey, baby, I'm just about starving tonight I'm dying for some action I'm sick of sitting around here trying to write this book I need a love reaction Come on now, baby, give me just one look [Chorus] You can't start a fire Sitting 'round crying over a broken heart This gun's for hire Even if we're just dancing in the dark You can't start a fire Worrying about your little world falling apart This gun's for hire Even if we're just dancing in the dark [Outro] Even if we're just dancing in the dark Even if we're just dancing in the dark Even if we're just dancing in the dark Hey, baby [Outro Saxophone Solo]

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Monster

Written By: Half Shy

Artist: Olivia Olson & Half Shy for Adventure Time (alternate version by King Princess)

Released: 2020

Cover included: King Princess, 2020

“Monster” is a song from the second episode of Adventure Time: Distant Lands, “Obsidian”. This love song was composed by Marceline while living with Bubblegum and sung to her while they were stuck in a cave in the Glass Kingdom.

[Verse] I know we'll never grow old together 'Cause you'll never grow old to me You're the pink in my cheeks And I'm scared 'cause that means I'm a little bit soft [Pre-Chorus] But don't beat yourself up, Bonnie It wasn't just the sun that I was hiding from We were messed up kids who taught ourselves how to live And I'm still scared that I'm not good enough [Chorus] I've always felt like a monster Long before I was bit But only seen as a monster Let's just say I'm used to it And I grew tough 'cause love, it only hurt me back But loving you's a good problеm to have And I'm used to that, but I could get usеd to this Yeah, I'm used to that, but I could get used to this [Outro] And I know we'll never grow old together 'Cause you'll never grow old to me You're the pink in my cheeks And I love that it means I'm a little bit soft You're the pink in my cheeks And I love that it means I'm a little bit soft

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#bruce springsteen #dancing in the dark #adventure time #monster #olivia olson #half shy #king princess #polls #poll tournament #poll bracket #tournament #bracket #lovesongbracket #round1

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ricelikesnow · 2 days

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initially posted to main blog but i wanted to expand so

i think a good rule of thumb is artists don't need to disclose their medical history to "prove" their credentials. i understand how the fortnight MV and suicidal lyrics throughout ttpd can read as careless; i had some initial hesitation because i haven't stopped thinking of britney spears' memoir since i read it, and the lineage of women in her family being institutionalized against their will by and pumped full of lithium. but just because one blond pop star publicizes this doesn't mean every other should follow.

however, strong reactions to fortnight, in particular, must come from the discomfort of taylor's proud ownership of her songs as "about her life" (miss americana doc), but this wasn't even true of her discography at that point in time, before folklore; they've been about friends' lives, the kennedys, characters from books and film and tv, like she says about "death by a thousand cuts" and much of her older songs at NPR tiny desk. but taylor hasn't framed her music as narrated by characters since folklore and evermore, and she's never not appeared in a self-directed music video; i think she's only been a supporting role twice, in the ATW "film" and "i can see you."

i wonder if some more obvious buffer between her and the material might help its reception infinitesimally, like having an actor in the fortnight MV. then again, i'm reminded of pj harvey:

'Some critics have taken my writing so literally to the point that they’ll listen to 'Down by the Water' and believe I have actually given birth to a child and drowned her,' scoffed Harvey to Spin in 2005. It’s a curious trend: unlike her old pal Nick Cave, a man always left free to slip into the skins of murderers, sleazebags or demonic preachers because he’s playing characters, Harvey has often been shackled by folk desperate to bolt autobiographical meaning to her every song. 'It can be very frustrating, particularly when it seems almost preposterous that it could be autobiographical,' she told me in an interview for the Quietus in 2011, just before the release of Let England Shake. 'People don’t allow the metaphor, the imagery, all the things that you work with as a writer … standing completely outside, as the narrator of a story.' (The Guardian, 2015)

i don't bring in pj harvey for no reason. her late career has included incidental music for ivo van hove's west end productions, including all about eve starring gillian anderson and lily james. a few years prior, gillian anderson played blanche dubois in a streetcar named desire at st. ann's warehouse dir. benedict andrews. the ending of "hits different" (feeding into beginning of "fortnight") made me think of a streetcar named desire on first listen, which ends with blanche involuntarily committed after her brother-in-law assults her, her sister helpless to intervene. you might recognize the line "i have always depended on the kindness of strangers" that lana quotes somewhere on born to die, said by blanche to the nurses taking her away. i suppose early lana's midcentury nostalgia successfully separated lana from lizzy, and pj harvey did not start her career claming her lyrics as autobiography. unfortunately, taylor swift may never be allowed such estrangement because she doesn't seem to want it ("i hate it here"), even if her next directorial outing is something vastly more "period" than fortnight, even if she doesn't appear onscreen.

as much as people fantasize about her writing a musical one day, 1) "beautiful ghosts" was redundant to an already nonsense libretto and really just the ingenue version of "memory," so you're back to a ybwm madonna/whore binary, groundbreaking and 2) based on her music video treatments, i question her interest in writing in someone else's voice, as in a flesh-and-blood character with material context, not loosely-defined devices like betty and james

#♄#taylor swift #ttpd #the tortured poets department #pj harvey #tennessee williams #lmao?????#long post #a streetcar named desire #fortnight #hits different

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gg-carboxylase · 11 months

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GMMTV is really doubling down on dudes that are very mildly talented with GMMTV Musicon. The trailer for the thing is taking itself very seriously.

This is no offense to any of the lads included in the thing. They are all lovely for the most part, and they're fine, just not especially talented enough for like, "Hey let's have a concert."

This is two fold here.

GMMTV could just have a fan meet with some singing as usual, and that would be fine.

The main issue I see here is that they have SIZZY, which while not my cup of tea, are actually really talented. They get no love from GMMTV, which is ridiculous because girl groups are so popular right now and they have the talent to get somewhat big.

Alas, misogyny in the management structure is preventing this and it's sad. We're lucky we got GAP. These mediocre men are getting an unnecessary career boost.

If you held a taser to me and asked me who out of the GMMTV stable of lads has real talent and potential when it comes to singing:

Book

Earth

Mix

That's about it. Even Khaotung — his voice is beautiful, but his range is v v small. Everyone else has an even more limited range that they can cover and has to sing songs that are written to their strengths.

Book is probably the most talented out of the bunch (listen to A Boss and A Babe OST, that's a technically difficult song), followed by Earth (his part in The Moon Represents My Heart is very good). Mix was in the same boy band as Book.

Supposedly Louis can sing really well, but I can't find solo live stuff, but he's another possibility. His cover of PS5 is legit, but you can't tell when things are recorded. (I really like him and would love to see him get more acting work, as an aside. He was fun in Midnight Motel.)

These are my thoughts from listening to their OSTs, listening to them sing ad hoc, and knowing my music stuff.

So, GMMTV, no matter how much I love the stuff you do for BL, this just sucks. These lads already have a hell of a career. They don't need this. You'll make money from it, but if you promoted SIZZY, and had been this entire time, you'd have a huge cash cow. Thai girls would have Thai women to look up to, how neat would that be?

At least the KPWT wasn't serious about itself at all. It wasn't out to make a music career for anyone. Jeff already had his. Ping's band is getting a boost, but again, they already had their fans. Pong might be getting work? Bas got some exposure, but still. None of these guys are using it like that. It was just great fun and hard work with their best friends, not solo acts.

I'm not here to fight over my opinions on talent. I love the GMMTV lads, I just honestly don't think they're gifted musicians. There's no shame in that. Not everyone can be a multi-talented artist. It's just as amazing to be just a great actor.

Anyhow. That's my 2 Kongbucks.

#gmmtv #sizzy #nanon korapat #krist perawat #perth tanapon #phuwin tangsakyuen #joong archen #gemini norawit #gawin caskey #Lykn #ployphach phatchatorn #jane ramida #ciize apichaya #aye sarunchana

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okchijt · 2 years

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Author's Note: HEY @michu-writeses I ACCIDENTALLY POSTED YOUR REQUEST BUT IT WASN'T READY YET SO I HAD TO DELETE IT, SCREENSHOTED IT, AND PUT IT HERE, SO SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE!😖 Hope you like it though, I'm looking forward to your feedback later!😉 I don't cosplay at all, so please forgive me if this is inaccurate in any way. You might also notice a pattern in this one that I used for all of the ninjas, so sorry if it gets repetitive and boring after a while😖 Also, I THINK YOUR SUPER COOL AS WELL! And lastly, go ahead and check out my masterlist if you want to request anything yourself, thank you, and enjoy!❤ OH AND ILY TOO! >w<

Cole

🪨 Cole would honestly be the most supportive out of the four. He'd be both surprised and confused at first. But the longer he stares at the outfits, the faster he starts to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, he may not know what it is yet, but he sure is familiar with it!

🪨 Any form of insecurity or embarrassment you feel about it, Cole will make sure to get rid of by giving you tons of praise as well as telling you how he used to wear stuff like this for shows his father practically forced him to do. He never liked doing them, but he won't lie by saying he's always admired the costumes, so this would very much remained him of that. This would be his way of soothing you about it, in a way that he kind of gets it and doesn't think ill of you because of it.

🪨 Cole will have no problem getting used to your hobby. Each cosplay will be treated with special care and respect, just like he was taught while still doing shows. And because of that, he won't even bat an eye at seeing you in one, ever. If anything he'll get excited when he sees you in one because during his childhood it was the only thing he looked forward to while doing shows. So expect a very excited Cole always jumping around you asking you lots of questions about said cosplay, wanting to know the character and purpose of the outfit, not to mention tons of compliments after every sentence!

🪨 Cole would for sure help you make some cosplay if you let him! He'd be horrible at it though, at first. He's a quick learner and would start sewing as good as you in a matter of hours! If you don't trust him with that, that's okay! Just please let him design or draw some of these cosplays for you! Cole is confirmed to be a talented artist, so at least let him do that! He'd be even more thrilled if you let him draw you in them, you'll essentially become his modal. And don't worry, the drawings would be of the highest quality, all of them hanging all over the walls of his rooms. He's just really proud of them and most importantly you!

🪨 If any of the ninjas teases or makes fun of you for it, they are met with the scariest death stare to date and even worse tasting food than they had ever before, that will shut them up real quick. Cole is the strongest ninja physically and the others have no doubt in their minds that he will become violent for you if they don't stop. Plus there's also the fact that the probability of them dying from food poisoning is pretty high, so yeah.

🪨 If any cosplay is from a media you enjoy, he suddenly likes it too! Like genuinely though, he'll want to be included in the said media! He'll watch the show/movie with you, read the comic/manga/book, play the game with you, listen to the music with you, etc. Just about anything that the cosplay is from he'll want to be knowledgeable about it too. Even if he isn't into the media itself as much as you, he'll still do it with you cause your happiness is his happiness, plus now he has an excuse to call these moments mini-dates.

🪨 If your someone who's cosplaying is a job, he'll 100% want you to bring him with you every time. If you let him come to work he'll be on his best behavior, constantly looking for ways to be useful to your team. Whatever task you or your team give him is a-okay with him! Being a water boy? Check. Holding up all of the wires? Check. Helping with the camera? Check. He just wants the job experience to be as easy as it can be for everyone, and you and the team would really appreciate that! And if he isn't doing that and is just sitting on his chair, his eyes won't leave your frame once. No matter what you're cosplaying as his attention is fully on you as well as him spouting compliments every chance he gets! Your team would honestly encourage you to bring him with you every time! Even if he eats all of the souvenirs they have.

🪨 The same can be said if your social media is all about cosplay. This man will get the whole ninja team to help with a video or photo shoot. No one dares to complain because they're all too scared of Cole, so they just stay quiet and help in the best way they can. Cole would forcibly make himself the manager of all of your social media, because yes. He'd report to you about the feedback and your schedule 24/7, it can get overwhelming sometimes so let him know and he'll turn it down a bit. It's just that if he wasn't a ninja he'd honestly want his job to be your manager, that's how much he loves it and you.

🪨 Cole 100% would be into couple cosplay! Any media couple is fine with him and he'd be more than happy to do it, especially if you have to make a shoot for it. He still has some of that theater kid from back then left in him, so it'll be easy for him to get into character, especially if it's a character he knows. But if you just want him to do it with you just because, he'd be silently hesitant, he only likes/wants to dress up when there's a purpose to it, so he'll be very nervous to do it without a reason, but a quick kiss and some encouragement would do the trick.

🪨 If you were to make a cosplay for him, he'd be over the moon! He'll probably get a little emotional when you give it to him, quickly wiping his tears away, saying something got into his eye. That being said, he has a hidden insecurity about stuff like this, mainly because of the amount of stress his dad put him through. So even if he has a deep love for costumes, there's that voice in the back of his head that reminds him of all of the mistakes he did back then and the disappointed looks he got from his dad when he wore them. If you are able to catch on, a good long talk of reassurance will do the trick, give him some time and he'll be wearing that cosplay like it's his everyday clothing!

🪨 If you were to cosplay him, he'll literally get a heart attack from the amount of love he'd be feeling at the moment! He'll probably get a little emotional from it, after years of pretending to be other people while trying so hard not to disappoint his father, just seeing you dressed like him made him kind of accept his past and embrace it. That would be the reason why he'd treat you like royalty for the rest of the day, doing everything for you whether you ask him or not, but that wouldn't be enough for him. Don't be surprised if you see him try and make a cosplay of you as a thank you back. Depending on how you look and dress, it could either be an okay/great-looking cosplay, or a complete disaster, you still love him though.

🪨 Overall I'd say that Cole would be the best out of the 4 to have In this situation. He'd be able to relate on a personal level, which would make reassurance from him hit way deeper than from someone who's never done dressing up or cosplaying before. He'll be always ready to help with whatever cosplay you need, will always want to be included, and just generally wants to be there for you whenever he can. The only problem would be his hidden emotional baggage, which he'll try to not show. But that's an easy problem to fix with the amount of time he's spending on cosplays with you, so just a kiss and reassurance here and there, and the problem would be a thing anymore. Gotta say a 10/10 for sure.

Jay

⚡The minute he finds out, he won't shut up about it. Asking you constant questions like, "How many cosplays do you have!? Can I touch your wig!? Why does this one look like that but the other doesn't? Aren't they the same thing!? Did you make it or did you buy it!? How and why!?" He doesn't mean to offend you by any means of course! He just doesn't think before he talks so if you take offense to anything he says he will immediately zip it and apologize while explaining himself.

⚡If you were nervous or insecure before and Jay's questions made it worse, he'll be devastated. He'll immediately start reassuring you that your hobby is nothing to feel ashamed of and that he shouldn't have opened his mouth in the first place. He'll try to distract you by asking if you can wear some for him. When you come out and show him expect nothing but praise and a drooling Jay.

⚡It would admittedly take Jay a while to get used to your hobby, especially if you do it a lot. Jay didn't grow up in an environment that exposed him to stuff like this, so he did think it was kind of weird at first. But the more he learned the more he grew to like it, linking it with costumes that actors would wear in a show. So don't be surprised when he slowly starts to get better at being nicer and more appreciative about it.

⚡Jay, being a gamer, a comic fan, and almost every other media fan would 100% be able to name almost all of your cosplay's from what media they are and which character. It would turn into a game between you two, that whenever he would see you in a cosplay he'd have 3 guesses each for every category: What character, what media, and what season/version of it if it matters. The game itself would quickly grow on him, impatiently waiting for you to come out of your room anytime you announce another cosplay coming.

⚡If you'd need any help with completing your cosplay in the makeup or mecha department, he's your guy! Jay canonically knows how to apply make-up, so he'd be down if you ask him to do it for you! Just be sure to not ask him in front of the team, he gets really embarrassed remembering that he used to be a show host. Mecha though? You'd give him such an ego boost if you ask him in front of the others. He'd happily make every part of your cosplay that is mecha-related. Outside of that, Jay wouldn't be too excited if you ask him to help with a normal cosplay. Sure it's a cute bonding moment between you, it's kind of relaxing and he's a quick learner, but it's just not his thing. He'd never say "no" to you though, anything to make you happy!

⚡If any of the other ninjas think they have the right to tease you because of your interest, think again! Cause Jay is the only one allowed to do that (not in a mean way of course)! He may be the least intimidating when it comes to physical physic, but he sure as hell makes up for it in the personality department! He'd just harass them all day with various pranks, jokes, and teasing until they stop and leave you alone. It is a fact of nature that you are the only one that can handle his annoying side and still love him.

⚡If cosplaying is a job for you, he won't admittedly be into it at all. He won't disapprove or anything like that, he's just not interested in it. He will automatically assume it's boring since you only take pictures while being surrounded by some random people. Don't ever bring him to work unless you want to see him whine like a child, "(Y/NNNNNNNN) when can we go home?" "Hey, are you done yet?" "How much longer until you're done?". Yeah no, bad idea. Don't ever do that. But if on the rare occasions he is actually well behaved, expect him to have his eyes on you the whole time, him not being able to even mutter a word because of how taken aback he'll be from seeing you in whatever cosplay you have on mostly the revealing ones. His face would be red all throughout the session, as well as not being able to leave his sitting spot, tunning everything out but you.

⚡If it's just a social media thing, I can see him being more bearable to handle. Jay would see you as his little personal project. He'd do your make-up, help set up the equipment and even manage it, and maybe help out with the wig and clothes if you let him or he feels like it. The reason as to why in this scenario he would be more tolerable than in the job one is that everything can be done at whatever pace the both of you want! Not only that but there are longer breaks and he's also managing everything, which means he has something to do instead of watching you from the sidelines.

⚡I feel like Jay would only be somewhat into couple cosplaying. It would depend on which fictional couple you'd like to cosplay with him. If they're from something he really enjoys or just likes the ship then he's more than happy to do it! But If it's the opposite of that, he'd protest immediately. But if you plead or bargain hard enough he'd do it just for you. But don't expect him to be happy about it or even act in a decent way. He'd be very sarcastic to everyone around him, you being the person he tones down his behavior too. He'd basically become a brat, that's it.

⚡If you'd made him a cosplay, it just couldn't be any type of cosplay, I'd have to be someone he likes, no exception. He could care less about the quality of the cosplay, in a sense that if it's bad or good he won't notice it. This man is just a certified brat, no questions asked. He will compliment it, but he won't wear it. Only if it's something he likes would he wear it, but only in private or in front of you. He loves you, but this man does not have the temper to deal with the teasing the other ninja will give him. That said, if he's alone in his room he'd wear it all the time and even reenact a few scenes as the character, he would never admit to doing that to anyone though.

⚡Cosplay him and except to give him the biggest ego boost ever. If Jay was even a little insecure before, he sure isn't anymore! He'd be as red as a tomato while stuttering compliments, he would not handle the amount of love you'd give him at that moment. His face will be red for the rest of the day, he won't be able to leave your side for the rest of the day, and he'd be begging for cuddles constantly. And if you let him, he'll do it while drowning you in kisses for the rest of the day. He'd definitely push you into wearing it more often, it's the quickest way to raise his confidence and it shows. So even if it turns him smug after a while, just please never stop for his sake. As a thank you, he'd definitely try to improve on some of his aspects regarding your hobby/job. He'd try to be less bratty and more open to the things you want him to try, even if he doesn't want to or like it, though just showing some form of affection will quickly remind him why he's trying so hard.

⚡I'd rank Jay as the 3rd best boyfriend to have in this situation. Even if he's low, I won't necessarily call him a bad partner to have when in regards to your hobby. He's honestly just a big baby and a picky one at that, he'd just need time to get better at supporting you. He wouldn't be the best boyfriend at the beginning, but he does try to be respectful about it, any negative remarks would honestly slip out because of his personality, but he'll regret it and apologize immediately. He'll grow to like it eventually by you boosting his confidence and making cosplay also a fun thing for him as well. So basically like I said, he acts like a child, so if you present it in a way as you would to a kid in a matter that wouldn't look down on him or be condescending then you're good to go! I'd give Jay a 6/10, not the worst but could be better.

Kai

🔥 Sorry to say but Kai's definitely confused, the worst-case scenario is him being weirded out by it. You will have to give him a few minutes before he finally snaps out of scanning every piece of cosplay and wig you have, and go "Explain."

🔥 After feeding him with some knowledge, he'd still stand there with his same weirded-out expression until he'll glance up at you and noticed you getting embarrassed and worried. He'll immediately break out of his close-minded mind, rush to you, and start comforting you. Lots of apologies, kisses, and hugs are to be expected, he may not understand your hobby right now, but he'd never forgive himself if he made you upset over it.

🔥 Kai would have the longest and hardest time out of the 4 to get used to your hobby. Just like Jay, he didn't grow up in an environment that exposed him to stuff like this. Except it was way worse for him in a sense he never went to shows with actors so he wouldn't be able to link/justify your hobby by thinning of actors with costumes on. He'll try not to give you weird stares when he sees you in one, instead, he'd try to give you compliments, thinking it will make him get over his close-mindedness faster. He doesn't judge you for it, of course, he just doesn't get it yet.

🔥 It doesn't matter when or how long he's known about your hobby, the bottom line is that he's extremely overprotective about it. He may not get it or even like it, but if he witnesses someone whether on purpose or not mistreating your craft all hell breaks loose. Like, if you were in your cosplay outside for whatever reason and someone says something wrong to you, you'll have to hold him back cause not only is he being aggressive vocally but also tries to get physical too. Like I said, he may not be that into your hobby, but he sure as hell respects the effort you put into it and won't allow anyone to insult you for it.

🔥 If you ask Kai to help, expect him to be very hesitant and against it, but if you press hard enough, he'll do it. You'd have to give him simple tasks though, if you tell him to sow or stylize a wig of yours, the finished product would be an unrecognizable mess. You'd have to give him the job of ironing or washing them because that's a task he already knows how to do. Though the tasks he enjoys the most are the ones he can do with you helping him or just being near you It would make the work more bearable for him and in rare instances even fun!

🔥 Kai may have not been that into your hobby at first but he'd be damned if any of the ninjas tease or make fun of you for it. He'd be very vocally threatening to the others if they dare speak ill of your craft. Everyone knows that an angry Kai is not someone to mess with so they all immediately back off. The only good thing about this is that Kai will grow to appreciate your hobby because of the number of times he had to defend you for it. It will start to slowly ease into his mind that maybe cosplay isn't as weird as he thought it was and he'd make that apparent by giving you more compliments as well as being more willing to help out with the said cosplay.

🔥 If you'd cosplay as a job he'd be pretty indifferent to it. He doesn't really care honestly. But if you did suggest he comes with you he will, you know, for the experience. The whole time he'll just be sitting on a chair on the other side of the room, eyes either glued to his phone or you. If you or someone from your team asks him for help/assistance he'll do it in a heartbeat and then immediately go back to his seat. He'll only stare at you the whole session if you have a revealing outfit on, to make sure no one around is a pervert towards you and also because he's a little pervert himself, so why deny the chance of seeing his s/o in something he doesn't see every day. In short, he's like a dad waiting for his child in the waiting room, impatient/annoyed but not vocal about it.

🔥 He'd pretty much have the same attitude if instead of working your just doing it for social media, but he'll definitely make himself more present in it. Kai would be more willing to help out with anything you ask of him really. He'd wash and iron your cosplay before the shoot, help set up the equipment, and even get Nya or Lloyd to help because he trusts them the most with helping you and not judging you for it. Once everything is set and done he'll either leave you to it or stay and sit on the bean bag in your room, looking at his phone or you for the rest of the shoot.

🔥 Kai wouldn't be into couple cosplay at all. Dressing up into anything that isn't his gi or street clothes is something he's not happy about. He'll give it a try once and that's it, doesn't matter if he doesn't mind the couple from the media, it's just not his thing. He'll only make an exception if you seriously need a partner to cosplay and start considering someone else to replace him. He wouldn't be happy about it, but he sure as hell isn't going to let anyone get intimate with his s/o in or out of the cosplay, no way!

🔥 If you made him a cosplay he honest to God won't know what to do with it. Don't get him wrong, he loves it and really appreciates it, no matter the quality! But even still, he'll probably never wear it, at least not around the others that is. It's the same with Jay except his temper would do way more than Jay could ever do. So for the sake of everyone's safety, please do understand that it's another reason why he won't wear it except for him getting embarrassed about it. If he's 100% sure you two will be alone for the day or you've been in a bad mood, he'll wear it just this once for the sake of your happiness. Better reward him with a bunch of praise and kisses, it'll only make him consider wearing it more often.

🔥 If all your previous efforts with swaying him to your side about cosplay didn't work, you cosplaying him would be what just might make him rethink everything. Not only would you rise his ego to an egregious amount, but he'll become the biggest prick in the world, to others that is. He'd show you off to just about anyone he can, praising you the whole time until the other person gets annoyed and leaves the oblivious Kai still talking. Unlike Jay, Kai would be very vocal about you wearing his cosplay constantly. As a thank you, he'll try to change his attitude about your hobby as best as he can, he'll definitely be less indifferent about it and more supportive that's for sure! Though he has other things he has to work on, that's still a good start!

🔥 Kai most definitely has the lowest spot out of the 4 of them as a boyfriend with a cosplaying s/o. I wouldn't call him a bad partner to have in this situation, he is weirded out at the start, sure, but it'll later turn into indifference about it. While still not the best, the more you push him lightly into it he'll be more supportive and just better about it. I'd describe him as a parent with a child that they know has an interest in something they don't understand or finds weird but still loves them for it and if they saw the said interest out in public they'd point to it or buy it for them. Definitely a 5/10, there's always room for improvement though, so don't give up on him!

Zane

🧊 Another ninja that is supportive! Zane is one of those people who almost never judge anyone, so at most he would be very confused about the whole thing. But don't let his expression fool you, because in actuality he's extremely eager to hear and learn more because he just finds the whole concept fascinating!

🧊 If you'd express any form of insecurity or embarrassment from it, he'd try his best to comfort you about it. Zane isn't exactly the best with emotions, let alone understanding them, but he won't let you feel bad about having an interest. Even if he doesn't know the process of making a cosplay or designing a wig, he'll point at all of them and identify every good thing about them. No matter if it's big or small, or what quality it is, Zane will only have nothing but good things to say about it.

🧊 Zane will have no problem getting used to the whole thing, at most, it'll take him a day of processing it, learning about it, and just getting his feelings sorted out about it. Once that's over with, he'll be the most loving boyfriend ever, sending you warm smiles and pointing out all of the things he likes in your cosplay. Sometimes if he finds the character you are cosplaying as interesting, he'll ask questions about them so he can understand and appreciate the cosplay better.

🧊 Zane's naturally curious about anything that he doesn't know or doesn't have much knowledge about and will ask you a lot of questions about your hobby. Once you answer all of his questions, expect him to remember all of them and become just as much of an expert as you on it. After a few days, he'll start asking you questions again but in a different way. They will be all personal like, "What is the next cosplay you're planning?", "How did you get into cosplay?" etc. He'd pop them out once in a while and it would be a cute bonding between you two, it's also how he shows his support.

🧊 If you ever need help with anything, Zane is your guy! Zane is an extremely quick learner and will get the gist of any task you give him in a matter of minutes! Sowing, styling, drawing, cutting, etc. Anything is possible with Zane by your side! Heck, this man will even approach you himself about helping you because he actually wants to or you were visible struggling with it. And of course, it would be a huge bonding moment between you two and something Zane would like to do often with you just because of how much he found himself liking it as well as just spending time with you!

🧊 Unfortunately for you, Zane gets teased by the other ninja's a lot and does nothing about it. Fortunately for you though, if you're in that position, he is reacting to it immediately. He doesn't have the advantage like Cole or Kai in being naturally intimidating or Jay's out there annoying personality. The only thing he can do is scold everyone as if he was their parent, what Zane doesn't know is that he can go too far sometimes with his lectures (by that I mean being unintentionally intimidating). He doesn't know about it though, so a few of them are enough to shake the others up a bit to the point where they're scared of even saying anything about your hobby, whether good or not.

🧊 If you do cosplay as a job, Zane is another ninja that would be very well behaved during your shoot. He'd be more than happy to help if anyone needs it as well as bring whatever is needed. But most of the time when he doesn't do that except him to just be sitting in one spot staring off into space as you and your team work. Whenever you'd walked out in a different outfit, he'd smile to himself, sending you silent compliments from his spot, not wanting to disturb the session. He'll 100% ask your team for copies of your pictures and just have them on him 24/7 as his little good luck charms. Before every mission, he'd find himself kissing them and whispering promises that he was going to be okay and will come back to you as soon as the mission was done.

🧊 You doing it just for social media is a-okay with him too! He'll help you set up and everything! Get your outfit and wig ready, turn on the lights, get the background, take your pictures, etc. Just ask him for any of it and he'll do it in a heartbeat, and he'll be happy all the way through it! He'd never do any of it if you don't ask him to or doesn't see you struggling with it though, why? Because this man thinks it'll be rude for him to just barge in your business when you are visibly caught up and busy with it. He just doesn't want to mess anything up for you, but like I said, just ask him and he's already on it!

🧊 Zane isn't opposed to couple cosplay, but I don't see him being that into it either. I feel like Zane just isn't into "dressing" up, preferably staying in the usual clothes he usually wears. That being said he'd never tell you "no" if you ask him. Zane has no preference in whatever couple you decide to cosplay with him, but be sure to start out slow. Make him get comfortable with it at the beginning, give him cosplay's that are more fit with his style and you can go up from there. He won't even notice it, so he'd find himself very surprised by how enjoyable the experience has been from the start and will no longer be silently hesitant about whatever couple cosplay you throw at him.

🧊 Make Zane a cosplay and he'd wear it like it's everyday clothing. He won't show it off, but if someone asked him about it, he'd proudly proclaim that his s/o made it for him and proceed to point out all of the things on his outfit and what he likes about them. Upon receiving it, this man will feel so warm inside, that he'd give you tons of affection and praise immediately after receiving it. But that would only happen if you made a cosplay that was more like his style. Don't get me wrong, he'd love it and shower you with love just as much even if it wasn't something he would wear every day. He's just more comfortable with clothes he's already used to.

🧊 The amount of wholesomeness you'd throw at this man the moment he sees you cosplaying as him is astonishing. He'd have to leave the room for a little bit to collect himself because the poor lad cannot handle these many emotions at once. Once he's done he'd dedicate the rest of his day to you and just you, just hanging out doing whatever you want to do no matter what it is. As a thank you, he'd make you a cosplay himself! With the skills you've taught him, he'd manage to make just about anything! Admittedly, the quality would be lesser than your cosplay, but it still would hold up immensely either way!

🧊 The 2nd best boyfriend to have in this situation! The only thing that is holding him back from being on Cole's level is that Cole is always openly out there to help you 24/7. Whereas Zane is hesitant to approach you about the fact and he won't ever help you unless you tell him so (in the social media department that is). Ignoring that though cause that isn't such a huge issue, he's practically almost just as in love with your hobby as Cole is. He'd never judge you once for it, is always happy to be there for you whenever you need it, and just treats the whole thing like he always knew about it, viewing it as just a normal part of you, 9.5/10.

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theheadlesscrow · 2 years

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Settling the Score: 10 Murder Ballads by Women

There's a trail of dead bodies in the centuries worth of works songwriters have left behind: tales of countless victims who were drowned, stabbed, bludgeoned, and poisoned, set to music and passed on through the years via memorable sing-alongs. These murder ballads, an oral tradition with its roots in a number of European countries, proved so popular, they migrated across countries. England's "Hanged I Shall Be" morphed into "The Wexford Girl" in Ireland, which turned into "The Knoxville Girl" in the United States.

A common theme among murder ballads, including those mentioned above, is that they are very often populated by women who, come song's end, are no longer breathing. Adding another macabre layer to an already grisly genre, these songs are sometimes inspired by real life events. To put it simply, today's abundance of true crime podcasts is certainly not the first time humans have proven themselves intrigued by blood-soaked folklore.

For Part I of the Headless Crow's murder ballad series, we'll shift away from the usual lyrical content and instead focus on songs specifically sung by female voices. In the songs below, it's the women who are trigger-happy and the men who are dropping like flies.

Hurray for the Riff Raff - "The Body Electric" Our jumping off point isn't a typical murder ballad like those that will follow, but rather the song that inspired this article in the first place. Written, produced and sung by frontwoman Alynda Segarra, Hurray for the Riff Raff's "The Body Electric" is a powerful contemplation on the history of real life crimes against women being turned into entertainment: written, performed, and covered through generations "while the whole world sings" along. Striking images throughout the song's music video intensify the message even further: what appears to be a baby in the arms of a woman is in fact hundreds of bullet casings, cradled adoringly. Deservingly described as NPR's Political Folk Song of the Year in 2014, it's a thoughtful way to kick things off before we launch headlong into gleeful murder.

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Ella Fitzgerald - "To Keep My Love Alive" Speaking of gleeful murder, nobody in these songs is having more fun disclosing their nefarious deeds than Ella Fitzgerald is on "To Keep My Love Alive." Originally composed for the 1943 Broadway revival of the musical A Connecticut Yankee, she covered the song over a decade later for her record Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Song Book. Though shortened for the album (there's twice as many dead husbands in the theatrical version), that still gives her three and a half minutes to reel off an extensive list of murdered men and her imaginative methods for offing them. Who knew serial killing could be so charmingly whimsical?

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Bessie Smith - "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair" Released in the late 1920s, Bessie Smith's "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair" features some of the most giddily gruesome lyrics you'll find here. Describing in vivid detail what she did to her man after catching him cheating, she implores the judge to sentence her to death because she's ready to "take a journey to the devil down below." Understandably covered dozens of times since its debut a century ago, it's a wickedly jaw-dropping addition to any murder-themed playlist.

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Wanda Jackson - "The Box It Came In" A hit single for country star Wanda Jackson, "The Box It Came In" busts out of the heartbreak ballad mold with one sinister line. After being abandoned and left destitute by the husband who "took everything with him that wasn't nailed down," she fantasizes about committing the ultimate revenge. For a woman who spends most of the song mournful, she sure finds some, ahem, killer closure.

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Bonnie Dobson - "Winter's Going" The closing track on her self-titled 1969 record, Canadian folk artist Bonnie Dobson's "Winter's Going" is a vindictive masterpiece. Distraught over being deserted, while pregnant no less, she plots her retribution. Unnervingly calm at first, the track's unhinged psychedelia escalates to an eye-popping crescendo. "Jarvis Cocker liked that song," she would later say. "He seemed a nice boy otherwise."

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Rachel Brooke - "The Barnyard" Don't let the deceptively sweet sound fool you: something incredibly dark lurks behind that carefree delivery. "The Barnyard," the 6-minute opening cut from Rachel Brooke's 2011 release Down in the Barnyard, begins innocently with the exhilaration of new love. But things unravel quickly when a kiss inadvertently reveals infidelity, and before long there's a hammer, a gun, two dead bodies, and a psychiatric hospital sentence.

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The Andrews Sisters - "I Didn't Know the Gun Was Loaded" A song with several renditions released over the years, The Andrews Sisters recorded a particularly noteworthy version of "I Didn't Know the Gun Was Loaded." Published in 1949, this catchy ditty follows a woman whose empty gun has a peculiar tendency of firing bullets into people. By song's end, the tables have turned and the conveniently ditsy murderess receives some ironic comeuppance.

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Reba McEntire - "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" has been covered repeatedly over the years, but none have made it more thrilling than Reba McEntire when she recorded it for her 1991 album For My Broken Heart. Its suspenseful storytelling is jam-packed with drama: a two-timing spouse, a crooked justice system, an innocent hanged for a crime they didn't commit, and a twist ending reveal where we find out exactly who pulled the trigger.

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The Chicks - "Goodbye Earl" Perhaps the most joyful of all the songs here, The Chicks' "Goodbye Earl" is a devilishly good time. After a restraining order fails to protect her from her abusive husband, a woman and her best friend come up with a solution for finally ridding themselves of him: "Earl had to die." The darkly comedic, star-studded music video, complete with clumsy corpse flinging and celebratory dancing (including from a deceased Earl himself), helps drive home the point that "he was a missing person who nobody missed at all." It was the first of the Chicks' singles to not reach the top 10 on country radio, when some stations balked at playing the song. Lead singer Natalie Maines came to a blunt conclusion: "We always figured whoever was complaining must be beating their wife."

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Meiko - "Maybe Next Year (X-Mas Song)" "I don't think Santa's coming this year" Meiko announces stoically at the beginning of "Maybe Next Year (X-Mas Song)," nary a hint of emotion in her voice to suggest that what's she just said is quite the understatement. While gradually revealing the magnitude of the actions that surely earned her a place on the naughty list, what began as remorseless resignation builds to impassioned indignation before she comes to an unconvincing conclusion: "Maybe next year I'll be better." Maybe.

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To listen to these and more woman-sung murder ballads, stream The Headless Crow's Settling the Score: Murder Ballads by Women playlist.

Follow me: Instagram / TikTok / Amazon

#music #murder ballads #murder ballad #murder #true crime #hurray for the riff raff #ella fitzgerald #bessie smith #wanda jackson #bonnie dobson #rachel brook #the andrews sisters #reba mcentire #the chicks #meiko #spotify #playlist #Youtube

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misguided-madness · 7 months

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This is the 65 year old “Queen Of Pop”: Madonna has performed on eleven concert tours, she starts her 12th tour to celebrate 40+ Years in music this weekend in London, I will see it in February, she has also done nineteen one-off concerts, nine benefit concerts, and three music festivals. She is the best-selling female recording artist of all time, a Guinness, book of world records honoree, a record breaker, more awards than can be named, with a net worth in 2023 of over 850 million dollars!

Selling more than 300 million albums worldwide, (By the way - most before streaming and social media) Her 14 studio albums have spawned 12 No. 1s and 63 top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, and counting and she earned a spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. Her music in streaming numbers are growing fast including lots of her previous hits. This past year or so and this summer she has had collaborations with Sam Smith, Dua Lupa, and most recently the summer hit “Popular” with The Weeknd and Playboi Carti which is still climbing and maintaining high positions on a various world charts, some even in the top 10 or 20 it’s becoming another successful hit for her.

Madonna's legacy is more than her music, The seven-time GRAMMY-winner has empowered several generations to own their sexuality and call their own shots; she dared to be different and bending the rules on and off stage, particularly with the merging of sexual freedom and religion. Her fearlessness helped open doors for individuality in pop music, and the other female singers who came after her and beyond, have been influenced by her. Others of her legendary status, like David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Prince, Whitney Houston, and George Michael are gone, She was the first woman in that status to rule in a very man’s dominated music world! Others like Janet Jackson and Cyndi Lauper have maintained their careers but not like Madonna! On top of being a music artist, she’s been a music mogul, a Director, an actress, an author a fashion and beauty designer and mogul and so much more.

Madonna became a megastar that didn't just rule the world — she changed culture.

This weekend when she makes her glorious return to the stage again, she'll remind the world of her relentless, fight, spirit and fearlessness that made her the standard for nearly every female entertainer on the charts today and in the music scene, regardless of genre.

Madonna has supported gay rights, before it was trendy, pushed sexual freedom, implemented religious imagery, and reshaped feminism at a time when it wasn't trendy to do so. She was cancelled numerous times before that was a thing, banned, censored and beat up and written off by society multiple times - All the while, she never has apologized for her "rebel heart" — solidifying her legacy as the true and original Queen of Pop.

She’s a single mother of 6 kids, she has built a Hospital an Academy for girls, and more. She has raised millions of dollars for a variety of organizations and charities throughout the world including AIDS and HIV organizations, this even in the very beginning of the fight when celebrities did not want to be associated or help in the crisis that was HIV/AIDS - she did!

She continues to have her ray of light foundation and Raising Malawi charities and their programs.

Madonna is a global citizen, an original, there will never be another like her! She continues to show us all how to love, be compassionate, be brave, be ourselves, fight for what is right, and how to reign as queen of pop!

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sinceileftyoublog · 6 months

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Oxbow Interview: Falsely Simple

Photo by Phil Sharp

BY JORDAN MAINZER

I get the sense that after all these years, the artistic collaboration among members of Oxbow is all but intuitive. The San Francisco experimental rock band, started as an offshoot from Palo Alto hardcore band Whipping Boy, has been making genre-averse noise music since 1989. Starting with the abrasive and bleak Fuckfest and culminating with the comparatively subdued and soulful Love's Holiday (Ipecac) released earlier this year, the Eugene Robinson-fronted band have developed an artistic voice over eight records that's cohesive in spirit and approach even if not always in sound. Whether they're working with no wave poets like Lydia Lunch, legendary vocalists like Marianne Faithfull, or full-on orchestras, Oxbow toys with space and raw emotion, focusing on the oft-uncomfortable relationship between silence and screams. All the while, Robinson sings about life, love, addiction, death, suicide, and violence, inspired by moments in his life but left ambiguous enough for listener interpretation.

Yet, it's that second in the list--love--that upon a surface listen, you might not hear on many Oxbow records. Sure, you can't really understand what Robinson is saying at all on early albums, let alone singing about. The band's longtime label Hydra Head did not, in their early pre-Internet days, send lyrics books along with the records themselves. But according to Robinson, love's always been a key component of Oxbow. What's new on Love's Holiday is the sonic and thematic clarity with which Robinson and the band dive in. "It's falsely simple sounding stuff," bassist Dan Adams told me over the phone earlier this year, "especially for people expecting Oxbow to be dirty and grimy and noisy." At the time of our conversation, before the album was released, Adams was unsure how fans and critics would receive it. It's gotten rave reviews from both per usual, and it seems like it could even be a gateway record for people not used to Oxbow or abrasive music in general.

The band put together and recorded the basic tracks for Love's Holiday just before the pandemic; they wouldn't see each other for a year and a half before returning to the record. During the pandemic, guitarist Niko Wenner suffered an injury, joblessness, and the death of multiple family members, including his father. He also had his second child. While Love's Holiday is by no means about these events or even directly inspired by them, you can hear the confused interplay between grief and joy throughout, as manifested by the instrumentation. Robinson's quintessentially pained bellows, Wenner's slurred blues guitars, and Greg Davis' pummeling drums rub elbows with elements with traditionally lighter timbres, like orchestral instrumentation and choral vocals. Kristin Hayter (fka Lingua Ignota) lends her voice to "Lovely Murk", embedding itself among Davis' deliberations, Adams' wiry bass, and shimmering synthesizers. A 15-person choir features on piano ballad "All Gone" and "Gunwale", the perfect juxtaposition to Robinson's baritone and Wenner's distortion, respectively. Don't get me wrong: Love's Holiday is an Oxbow album through and through, with a song like "The Second Talk" and its choppy rhythms and back-and-forth vocalizations reminiscent of back catalog highlights. But it feels like by being forthright, Robinson and company have become the truest versions of themselves.

Oxbow are in the middle of a West Coast tour celebrating Love's Holiday, playing San Francisco's Great American Music Hall tonight and finishing Sunday at Mohawk in Austin. When I spoke to Adams earlier this year, the band was rehearsing, figuring out how they'd adopt the songs to the stage. Their approach wasn't much different this time around: "Practice them a bunch, get on stage, and play them," Adams quipped. In reality, the challenge is stripping down the songs, "taking advantage of the space and sparsity," according to Adams. "It really is a fairly stripped down record in terms of what's going on," Adams said. In essence, they're doing to the studio recordings what Love's Holiday built on from previous Oxbow records: emphasizing the subtleties and the depth of Robinson's voice.

Below, read my conversation with Adams, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: How do you think Love's Holiday is unique as compared to your previous albums, and how do think it's a continuation of them?

Dan Adams: We were freer to give in to the sparsity and simplicity more than we have ever in the past. Yesterday, I listened to a couple of more recent records, and these are cleaner, simpler songs. One thing I really enjoy about that is they put the voice so far up front in terms of the quality of voice and the timbre and emotional content. It's much more exposed than the records have been in the past. I think that's a great thing.

It's very consistent with what we've done in terms of being a fairly transparent expression of emotional material. It's intense. It's complex, I guess, but...in ways that are much more subtle. It's a sensible trajectory from The Narcotic Story and Thin Black Duke. I don't think any of us in the band feel like our trajectories are a one-way pass. [laughs] I think we've always enjoyed doing what feels right at the time we made the music and following our whims and where we are in life, and so on. It's the music we were making at the time, as Niko was writing songs and we were hashing them out in the practice room. It's impossible to predict what the next round of material will be like, although in this particular session, we recorded a whole bunch more music at the same time, so we probably have another record using the material from the same process, which will also be pretty fun. Some of those songs are kind of similar, and some are very different even though they come from the same genesis.

SILY: Does the voice being more upfront on Love's Holiday place a greater emphasis on the lyrics?

DA: That's an interesting question. I think the lyrical content has always been extremely important and a driving factor. I also know Eugene has said quite a bit that he's intentionally written much less, much sparser lyrics for this record. In a way, you could say that's emphasizing what is there. On the other hand, I think it comes down to how the lyrics are delivered, and how well you can hear them. How clearly they're delivered by Eugene [and] how much space the band leaves for those lyrics. I think it's really up to the listener how much work they want to do to find out what the lyrics are about. In some of the older records, it was hard to figure out. In some cases, there were records that came out years before our lyrics books were published where people couldn't figure out what the lyrics were. In this case, they're both available and easier to hear.

SILY: In the lead up to the release of Love's Holiday, Eugene has talked about how the band has always written "love songs," so these themes shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. But in the context of what you just said, that the lyrics in the past were less physically accessible, it might seem like a newfound theme to a lot of folks.

DA: Yes. I think that's right. Eugene's described it as trying to lay it out there and make it obvious after so many years of people not getting it. My interpretation is that because the music has at times been pretty strong, noisy, loud, big, and dissonant, things we've enjoyed and continue to enjoy folding into it, it's almost like typecasting. People hear that and assume that's the element being conveyed in the lyrics. There's complexity and subtlety. These are not simple topics, and Eugene [was frustrated] that people weren't doing the work to understand and find it. So this is a time to make it a little bit more obvious and tell people in advance what we're doing. That's what Thin Black Duke was about as well: short-circuiting people's assumptions about what our record was going to be like and explaining to people what we're doing rather than having people use the old simplistic interpretations of what we're about.

SILY: During the making of Love's Holiday, Niko had a child but also suffered the loss of multiple family members. Can you recall a time when something familial that has happened in a band member's life has contextualized a record as much as his life changes did for this one?

DA: I think so. We've been at this a long time. Everybody's had major things happening in their lives that have directly affected records. First marriages for several people before the seconds, kids at various stages showing up, parents dying, and so on. What's probably more important is how as everybody's gone through this and gotten older, we've interpreted [life events] as they come. Similar [events] might mean different things to you at different phases of your life. It's a continuum.

Certainly, if you hear Eugene talk about the first record, that was very much about very intense things going on in his life. That was part of the whole reason for the existence of the band. It shows where our heads are at the time: If we're in a different place, we're going to make different music.

SILY: You've talked about how working with Joe Chiccarelli for the third record in a row has provided a consistency to allow you to be freer. Do you have specific examples of where the continuity allows for that freedom?

DA: We've felt the freedom to trust Joe more to make decisions and follow his lead. On the first record with him, there was a lot more tension. We weren't as comfortable relinquishing control of certain things. We've always had a pretty heavy hand on everything we make. It's been a great thing to allow what we make to be shaped more by his reaction to it, to allow him to be contributing ideas and getting the hell out of the control room and letting him do his thing. [laughs] He's learned a lot more about what we're about. For some reason, he's been very interested in what we do and very respectful of it. He's internalized it more and been able to take it and run with it. That doesn't mean he's written half the songs and done a whole bunch of stuff like a lot of producers do. If you listen to our rehearsal recordings as we've figured stuff out, it's fairly similar. But some of his little ideas about what sounds [good] here and what sounds [good] there, where to change the mix or drop a beat or cut a section out, he's got great sensibilities. We were very happy to follow his lead in a lot of cases.

SILY: At what point during the process did you decide to hone in on what I hear as one of the main sonic trends in the record, the choral singing?

DA: Our drummer Greg suggested we use voices instead of the orchestration we had been using on some of the earlier records. It was after a show we played at Supersonic Festival in Birmingham in 2017, where the promoters had talked with Niko and had the idea. They've always liked Oxbow doing special things for that festival. Niko had been thinking about choir stuff, and they asked us to put one together and perform with a choir. It was very difficult but very fun: a really great experience and interesting show. I think it made it clear that would be something very fun to explore. It wasn't a huge leap to decide to put choir back in the songs. It had been brewing for the past 4-5 years.

SILY: How did you come to work with Kristin Hayter on "Lovely Murk"?

DA: That's a good question. I don't know who got in touch with her or don't remember. Either Niko or Eugene, I think. [Maybe] Joe suggested it.

SILY: Were you aware of her before working with her?

DA: I was not. I find myself disappointingly out of touch with a lot of great music happening right now. I need new avenues to find this stuff. I don't search for music a lot on the Internet. When I explore, I usually listen to a couple really good local radio stations, but it's up to what they play and what I hear.

SILY: The band includes many instruments on "Dead Ahead" that contain interpersonal context or tributes to people that have since passed: instruments from loved ones who have passed, guitars Niko uses to play for his kids, even a toy piano you gave to Niko's kids. Were these inclusions a conscious starting point for that song, or was it something you decided on after the fact?

DA: I don't think there was any conscious thought. I'm guessing [Niko] was just playing around with it and happened to be using it at the time and went back to it. It's very consistent with how we've approached sounds we make: immediate inspiration, not too deeply thought out, grab something that's there because it seems like the right thing. If I had to guess--I'm interpreting how Niko works, since we haven't talked exclusively about this stuff ever--he envisions a lot of sounds in his head, sound qualities, timbre. He might be consciously aware there's a certain instrument he has in mind he wants to use, or it might be a subconscious thing to pick up the same instrument. He has a couple guitars he's had for years he still uses when playing in his house and working on new ideas. Nothing new there, I think.

SILY: Can you talk about the visual identity of the record?

DA: It's been a great process. The last record was the first for which we made any videos, because it seemed like they were getting more important for how people consume and find music. In that case, we contacted a few people and basically said, "We'll buy you a plane ticket to come over, we don't have much other money to support it, but pitch us an idea, and if we like it, we'll make a video." That worked with the videos with Chris Purdie. This time around, Eugene or Niko--I can't remember--felt it would be important to make videos for everything. We needed to figure out how to do it without bankrupting ourselves more than we usually do. We sent enquiries out to a bunch of people and asked them to propose what they might do for songs, and if we thought there was a chance it would turn out well, we said, "You're on." We paid people what we could, which wasn't a lot, but we let the directors drive [the entirety of] the content. They're very different. As all of them come out, it will be apparent how different they are. It was a great experience to see people give us finished products that were really surprising. It's been a really wonderful added creative process to participate in, to get that kind of feedback from others to see their visions.

SILY: What about the cover art? Did you give Aaron Turner the same leeway?

DA: Yes. He's worked with us enough where he understands our process and is willing to keep us in the process. In this case, he developed quite a few proposals, and there was too much back and forth as we tried to settle on what we wanted to use. He was extremely patient. Sometimes, our process is convoluted, inefficient, and painful. But he hung in there and developed a bunch of ideas till there was something we all thought was cool. All of his ideas are great. He's a very broad thinker as a visual artist and comes up with great artwork. In this case, the variety in ways made it harder to choose, so it took us a long time to settle on one piece of art.

SILY: What's next for the band?

DA: Trying to stay alive and keep doing what we do. We're always working in the now even if the now is a span of five years. We're focusing on what's on our plates. There's no grand elaborate scheme for where it's all going to go. Time changes all of our lives enough between records that it's probably good that way. Following, rather than leading, I guess, is a good way to put that. Circumstances drive what we do rather than setting a path.

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esparafuso · 1 year

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Monday, November 7th, 2022

Dear Diary, where do I even begin. Perhaps saying I still can't believe I saw my favourite band performing live for the first time.

I'm an anxious person and shows always seemed so far away from me, from where I lived and from what I thought I'd have the guts of attending. If it wasn't for my friend Lya (@/sorethpid) I'd perhaps still be dreaming about how cool it would be if I lived the same experience I keep seeing others have for years and years.

In an impulse, we bought tickets for Primavera Sound 2022 happening in São Paulo. It wasn't cheap, but both of us had savings and were crazy enough to spend it on a ticket and flight tickets and a hotel room.

We live in different states, so it was thrilling to meet her again (third time personally), as we met on the internet 6 years ago here on tumblr, two artists drawing Arctic Monkeys fanart and rambling to the other about our favourite things about them, and our favourite album, and how much we wish we had the chance of hearing them live.

It happened on Saturday, November 5th. Her first festival, my first show ever in life, we got to the place and tried to keep it cool among all the stylish people around. It was okay though, we were just happy to be there. We decided to buy two donuts (we admittedly didn't plan food very well, too anxious to get to the place already) and after a couple stops we headed to the stage to take a look, but decided to stay there already when we saw the narrow place and the realisation that soon the whole thing would be packed w ppl hit us (later on, we saw we would better had stopped by a nearby bathroom for Lya, but okay)

The gig would start at 10pm, and we were there at 4:30pm. We got to know the music of a sweet artist called Helado Negro, which we supported and danced along even not knowing the lyrics. One hour and a half break, and then came Interpol. I personally didn't listen to the band much, but they kicked ass and made everyone super pumped and jumpy (myself included). Another one hour and a half before AM.

Gigs aren't kind to shorter ppl, we learned that. We tried our best to adjust and see the stage (which was actually way closer than we expected to get) and managed with some struggle. Our boots were also a literal pain, and I don't remember feeling my feet hurting this bad in my life, to the point I had to keep dancing to keep the pain manageable - only forgotten when an artist was performing. Especially the ones we were dying to see more.

Seeing the stage being set up made us already excited. Matt's golden drumkit, Nick's bass, Alex's and Jamie's guitars going through the soundproof, curtains being set on the back of the stage - we saw THREE regular sized disco balls being brought up when Interpol's stage was being set, and we knew who they belonged to, and yet they didn't make it to the final thing for AM.

After 3 false alarms, here they come. Screams ringing in my ear, I saw those four men (plus two) walk into my sight of vision and I can't even describe how I felt. They quickly assumed positions and the heavy synth of Sculptures resonated from the speakers - the The Car song we were more hopeful they would perform (we didn't even know they had played it before in Rio).

the photos really aren't the strongest bcs of how overwhelmed I was and the little space in my phone (another thing I forgot to prepare properly, like an idiot)... some recordings didn't go through, like Potion approaching, which made me sad but at least I got some :'D

I wish I could put here what my eyes saw, because I could see their FACIAL FEATURES from where I was, which was unbelievable close in my book. I managed to save the recording of Pretty Visitors, really hoping to get my beloved Agile Beast's crazy good drumming

I recorded another for Do Me a Favour, my favourite Arctic Monkeys song, where I kept shaking from crying but can't upload here pls of Tumblr's limit of videos in a post.

The whole time I sang and danced and screamed and cried, I just kept repeating in my head that they were real people, they existed, they weren't a fever dream or a gif or a video I saw on the internet, they were living humans right in front of me, and up until now I can't wrap my head around the fact I stood so close to them. I listened to them sing and play a few meters away from me, I could feel Matt's drums resonating in my heart, I saw Nick on the side looking SO soft, Jamie being the closest one, doing his little quirks and hops, Alex singing and dancing and. being a goofie, Matt playing and singing and making me absolutely lose it.

Even now typing all this makes me cry becasue I know I will never forget this experience. I just love and appreciate this band so much. I'm not the fan that knows all the lyrics of ALL songs yet, and I don't have their physical merch and albums, and this was only the first time I saw them live, but they hold a very special and meaningful place in my life that I will never forget.

The crowd overall was amazing, we sang everything they put out, screamed our lungs out and clapped and threw our hands in the air and pleaded them to come back. They waved to everyone and Alex threw us many kisses, and I hope they enjoyed their night as much as we basked in their presence.

Leaving the festival was very difficult due to bad logistics, my feet were incredibly sore, it was super cold outside and hundreds of ppl couldn't get a ride back home for the life of us - but we managed. And even then, when we arrived at the hotel, the only memory in our minds was their presence and their music still buzzing in our heads and hearts.

I hope we will have the chance of going to another one - we sure are thirsty for more now that we saw that it IS possible to see them live - but until then: Thank you Monkeys for this unforgettable night, and for existing and making us feel such strong emotions with your amazing music and journey as a band overall.

P.s.: thank you also whoever recorded the gig properly, because then we can see everything we lived in another, high definition angle, for the rest of our lives.

#arctic monkeys #the car #the car era #AM7 #Primavera Sound #long posts #my memories #my first gig!!!#Arctic Monkeys exist and are living breathing people #I'm still so fucking emotional and stunned #thank you for everything

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