#also just relistening to 'i must be a loser' that one is so >>>> | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

queenmillymonkey · 3 months

Text

NPMD song tier list

Controversial

As cool as I think I am: I never really vibed with this song. I mean it's good but compared to every other song it just doesn't excite me as much. Although it does always make me laugh and cry.

If I loved you: I just started warming up to this song, but it's also like as cool as I think I am. And then also to sing this right after Ruth dies? If this was placed after they honored her a little more that'd be fine. The emotional whiplash from just for once to this song

The best of you: definitely an earworm. I love all the highschool characters we got from this one song (like brooke and rudolph) and also how this is like their up-town funk, that idea is absolutely adorable. But then, 3 kids died from murders (soon to be 4) in the course of one month and they just forget about it? I can't help but feel a little sour about that. But other than that I love it.

Cool as I think I am (reprise) this song brings me to tears every time I watch NPMD. LIKE joeys performance in this? Breathtaking. It's very sad but also very short

The summoning: I really want to put this song up higher but I do get second hand embarrassment for some parts. Other than that I love the LIB and was absolutely ecstatic we had something for them all together. I really love pokey after yellow jacket so I wish they evened out the lines throughout the song

Dirty Dudes must die: I love how batshit insane Grace became at the end. She is a true icon. And the vocals? CHEFS KISS! Her ending pose is everything. She is THE GIRLBOSS

Dirty girl: I'm going to be honest, I skipped this the first time I watched NPMD. But rewatching and relistening to it really made me appreciate the amazing harmonies in this song. I love them so much in this, although its extremely embarrassing watching with your friends

Literal monster: again, I would love to put this higher but it's hard to rate this. I love love love how max sings a verse in this. But also how the nerds sing too, god the choreography is just sjrjrntjng

Go Go Nighthawks! THE FUCK YOU CLIVESDALE VERSE HAS ME ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING. And Richie dancing in the mascot costume is so funny to me too. Especially cause Jon was battling to keep that on his head when he was in the play. Plus this song is the last time we'll see everyone happy together.

Bury the bully: this song is so funny. But also how everyones voices go together? Changing from bully the bully to bury the bully is GENIUS. the end when "I just cut off his nips" and grace screams "GIVE ME THOSE" is definitely an underrated line

Bully the bully: I know I keep on saying that these songs are hilarious, and that's because they are. Like, the chemistry all the nerds had in this scene? The spins? You can see how much more sure of this they are then in the 'reprise' and how they think this is going to solve all of their problems (it does for like two weeks)

Hatchettown: all the cameos in this made the hours of going through NMT so worth it. (I do recommend watching it. At least season two) even kn tje cast recording boy jerry is in it calls Jeri a dirty girl and I don't think many people know about that. And the bridge in this song? Heavenly. Actually a 10/10 song.

Nerdy prudes must die: this scene is heartbreaking but it was necessary for us to hear Jon's amazing voice. The little details where max uses his powers on him and he like flops to the floor? To good. And he thinks saying "I'm not a loser" will help his case like in all of his animes LMAO. This just really shows how far everyone in starkid has come.

Highschool is killing me: best opening number ever (totally not biased) the opening lines always give me chills how it always smoothly transitions. I think everything in this is perfect.

Just for once is one of the best songs of the hatchet field trilogy and here's why: it uses clever word play and shows how Ruth isn't just a throwaway character.

Jeff blim isn't really known outside of the fandom from having the best lyrics (I obviously love them but this is just some beliefs other people have) he really outshined with this. It just looks so dumb but when you really feel dive on what the double meaning for every lyric is you really start to appreciate it.(someone pointed this out once and I'm just obsessed:the joke of her brushing her hair with the grill brush is also funny because she doesn't have any hair from her chemo treatment)It's heartbreaking to see how Ruth longs for something people wouldn't consider a big deal; she wants to be a middle aged mom. That goal just to be found is so sad to see how much she wants it and then you see that she's never ever going to reach that goal because of Max jagerman. Ruth definitely makes people uncomfortable when watching the musical, but for her character saying the most out of pocket things is her way of getting attention, and then also to have such a pathetic death? It really rubs salt in the wound.

In many ways I can relate to Ruth. Her want to be something when she's older. Ruth's need of attention and affection is also kind of how I do it: with theater and saying weird shit. Although when I say weird shit I think it's hilarious to see their reaction. But she also wants to perform and I love to perform so much and being someone you aren't for just an hour seems so fun.

They couldn't have chosen anyone better but Lauren for this role. You can see how much thought she put into her acting: her little facial expressions, the slightest change in tone of voice and her posture. I love the way she acts in the beginning of the song with the eye batting and the over animated movements are so satisfying but also serve a purpose. It shows how Ruth is mocking the play, but once the movements become less and less animated you see that she longs for that life she is talking about. I just absolutely adore the song and character although she is seen as weird. ENDING NOTES: THIS SONG IS SO GOOD!! LISTEN TO IT RIGHT NOW

If you actually read the whole thing thank you :))

5 notes · View notes

jezfletcher · 5 years

Text

1000 Albums, 2018: The Top Ten

10. Skerryvore - Evo

(Celtic rock) Right in my wheelhouse is the confluence of Celtic folk, pop and rock, and Evo from Skerryvore really delivers exactly that. It’s has a kind of rousing stadium sound to it, but performed with some trad twists that always makes it sound fresher than your average kind of pop rock. Much like my #1 album of 2016, The Space Between from Jamie Smith’s Mabon, this is the kind of album which was always going to vault up the ratings. My pick of the tracks it Hold On.

9. Orbital - Monsters Exist

(techno) A pretty monumental album from Orbital, 90s beatmakers extrordinaire, which manages to wrangle all of their dark, thumping electronica, and their humour into one tight little package. My pick of the tracks is the sprawling Monsters Exist, but you could just as easily fall in love with tracks like Hoo Hoo Ha Ha or P.H.U.K.. This sounds a little bit like their 2001 album The Altogether, which is one of my favourite albums of all time. This won the week easily the week it came out; so easily that I didn’t necessarily think about it much. But when it came time to relisten, I appreciated anew just what a fine album this is.

8. Dudley Benson - Zealandia

(contemporary chamber music) This was something of a revelation to me. This was one of Sam’s picks, and something that I’d failed to find in my screening. But this is really quite wonderful music, akin to the Mercury-winning Benjamin Clementine we listened to last year. It’s music with a real sense of novelty to it—music that sounds like music will sound in the future. It’s based around chamber music ideals and baroque instrumentation (harpsichord features prominently), but it maintains a kind of pop structure that adds an accessibility to it. That might make it less academically complex as Clementine, for instance, but it also makes it the kind of music you can devour wholeheartedly. I have two particular picks: Birth of a Nation and It’s Otepoti’s Fault.

7. The Fratellis - In Your Own Sweet Time

(indie rock) I’ve actually never listened to the Fratellis before, although they’ve had a somewhat illustrious career before now. Coming into this album fresh though is quite an experience though. You feel a little bit as though they’ve completed everything they wanted to complete, and now, with an album like In Your Own Sweet Time (their fifth), they can just let rip and have fun. And this absolutely comes through in the music—it’s riproaring stuff, just full-throated and unapologetic about what a good time they’re having. It’s also daggy, but it’s done with such abandon and sincerity that I was dragged along with it, grinning every step of the way. There’s lots of pick on an album like this, but even amongst all the goodness, there’s a big standout in Starcrossed Losers.

6. Cosmo Sheldrake - The Much Much How How And I

(baroque pop, art pop) A wonderfully quirky album from a very talented musician, The Much Much How How And I is the debut album from Sheldrake, after a teaser of his style in his EP Pelicans We, which we also listened to this year. A multi-instrumentalist, Sheldrake must play around 100 instruments on this thing, ranging from plinky strings to oddly tuned percussion, to clarinet, all backed up by his affected vocals. It’s chamber pop in some sense, but it’s also mixed with the music you’d find in a turn-of-the-century circus, or the soundtrack to the inevitable approach of the clockwork army. It’s utterly unlike anything else we listened to this year, and that’s enough to propel it this high in my list. My top pick is Wriggle, but I also rate Birth a Basket, Hocking and Egg and Soldiers.

5. Jeremy Messersmith - Late Stage Capitalism

(orchestral pop) From the first moments I started this album, I could tell it was going to be a yearly standout. It’s a kind of effortless throwback pop rock, which both manages to sound evocative of 60s pop, while having the clean, crisp edge that makes it feel fresh and modern. On top of that, there’s just some really classic songwriting in here—tracks like Purple Hearts feel like the kind of track which could have been a hit in any era since the 1950s. While Purple Hearts is a big standout for me, I’m also very fond of the melancholy ambivalence of Monday (“Monday, you’re not so bad”, he croons), and the swooning All The Cool Girls. It’s a really quite wonderful album.

4. Moon Taxi - Let The Record Play

(indie pop) I’m pretty surprised to see this so high—it’s the highest album on this list which didn’t end up taking out an Album of the Week award the week it was released—but on relistening I was shocked at how bloody good it is. This is, absolutely, the kind of album which I have just devoured in the past. It’s pop rock with jazz and funk influences. It’s got a prominent horn section. I mean, even just look at that cover art. You know it’s going to be fun. But the even better part is the density of top tracks. Even many months after hearing it, I not only get my top track stuck in my head (Two High, which is awesome and you should go listen to it), but I find myself humming along to Let the Record Play, Good As Gold, Nothing Can Keep Us Apart and Trouble. This is the sort of thing that’s going to get me in just about any week of the music project. And yet it didn’t win the week when we listened to it. Funny about that.

3. Kyle Craft - Full Circle Nightmare

(glam folk) Kyle Craft had my #2 album of the year in 2016, with his debut Dolls of Highland, which was a revelation, and just a bloody good album. He’d released a couple of respectable, but somewhat underwhelming filler singles in 2017, so I was approaching his sophomore effort with some trepidation. But boy oh boy was I wrong to worry. This is every bit as good as his first effort, recapturing all of the energy and glam swagger, and putting it forward with his brassy bombast. Here we have tracks like Fever Dream Girl and Heartbreak Junky which run the gamut from melancholy introspection to punchy full-throated sass. This was absolutely the album I wanted from Craft to follow up on his exceptional debut: it’s more of the same, to show that he can pull out the same style and verve that made the first album so good. If there’s one reason that this is #3 of the year when the previous album was #2, it’s that it does lack that delineation from the first album. But that, as I said, is a strength as well. I feel like I’m expecting something new from album number three though, and given Craft’s talent, I can imagine a bunch of ways it could go where he really ratchets it up to the next level. I’ll be waiting.

2. Jukebox The Ghost - Off to the Races

(power pop) This is an amazing collection of music, and has a density of quality songs that beats just about anything on this list apart from my #1 album. Unsurprisingly, that’s why it’s in my #2 position of the year. You know you’re in safe hands from the very beginning, with the Queen-channelling, raucously complex opening track Jumpstarted (which will also be featuring prominently in my Top Tracks of the Year list). But the hits keep coming, with the power pop Fred Astaire, almost chamber-work like Time And I and plaintive Diane. There are more I could mention. This is just exactly the kind of music I’m here for—and for them to give me so many different flavours of it across the album is a real treat. A very worthy #2 of the year from me.

1. The Go! Team - Semicircle

(vaguely alterna-J-hip-poptronica) In the end though, I can’t go past this pretty awesome album from stylistic provocateurs The Go! Team. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed some of their previous work (although I’ve not done a proper deep dive into it), but even this album is pushing them somewhere different. Recorded with a youth choir and what sounds like a high school marching band, it manages to capture their same style but package it up in a different way and the results are fascinating. But beyond being academically interesting, it’s just great fun. We have tracks like the steel-drum infused If There’s One Thing You Should Know, the plunderphonic Mayday, which incorporates a Morse code beeping into its main driving rhythm, the tight jazz-rock stylings of All The Way Live, or title track The Semicircle Song, which climaxes with a bunch of the singers introducing themselves with their name and star sign (because why. the hell. not). This was a strong winner of Album of the Week the week it was release (and the reason why Moon Taxi didn’t get a look-in that week), and I think I’ve always been quietly considering it my Album of the Year from when it was first released. But there’s nothing like making it official, and it feels good to finally make an honest album out of Semicircle. There we have it for another year. There were genuinely some amazing albums this year, and I find it very, very satisfying to look over the best of them. It absolutely makes the effort and the time we spend on this project worth it. Tomorrow, I'm going to post my top tracks of the year, without commentary, and also post a public playlist of all of my top tracks, in case you want to give it a whirl. Believe me that 2018 (like 2017 and 2016 before it, and maybe even years before we did our 1000 Albums project) was an excellent year for music.

0 notes