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pebblysand · 1 year

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i haven't done this in a while. i used to be very intent on getting these extended a/n-s over the line at the same time as the chapter, which then ended up taking too much time. however, having recently seen the lovely @whinlatter do them for her own fic (also whose template i'm entirely plagiarising, sorry), it's inspired me to do this again. forgive my lateness.

acknowledgements: i would like to extend my most sincere thanks to @turanga4, @welsh-green, @whinlatter, @btelling, @ala-baguette, @greenhousethree, @uncontainedhybrid and everyone else on discord. you have allowed me to vent about All The Things, to pretty much use all of you as sounding boards for this chapter, and have answered my strange questions about air conditioning and automatic vehicles. truly, this chapter would not have been possible without you.

wordcount: let's not talk about it.

soundtrack: i feel like there was a just lots of music for this chapter. there are obviously all of the songs that are mentioned in universe: my name is, californication, here with me, wannabe (oh, the music of the 90s) and the oh-so-amazing bongo bong song which, i have discovered, never actually charted in the US (a crime, as far as i'm concerned). but also a lot songs that i listened to on loop at different times while writing this. caravane and young as the morning, old as the sea (two absolutely gorgeous travel songs), iris (the first-dance song of every wedding ever before ed sheeran took over), the seer's tower - jamie cullum's cover (idk how to describe this song. the cover is so beautiful and creepy at the same time. it's one of my favourite jamie cullum covers), what they'll say about us (an incredibly sad but beautiful love song - idk it's just #vibes), it's called: freefall (a tiktok cover i actually fucking love - love the singer as well, she's the same person who sings labour - and which i totally plagiarised in-text), and what is love? (which i also plagiarised lol). they are all on the castles playlist.

what is this chapter about? sex. love. the intersection of.

this is long and spoilery, so putting it behind the cut.

genesis:

i've honestly rarely been scared by the white blank page as much as i was before starting to write this chapter. i think this was due to a number of things: taking three months off writing (and wondering if i'd be able to pull it off again - i always worry, for some reason), but also this idea that this chapter was such a big ... aeroplane that i needed to land. i remember talking about it on discord a few weeks back, this idea that i'd built up so much, with this story, that i'd set up so much, and now having to deliver something that would be realistic, true to the spirit of castles (#sexandfunerals), but also fun and loving and healing. whilst, as i've said before, this story isn't about a relationship (i know a lot of you would like it to be, but i'm sorry, this is not about harry and ginny), it is a relationship that is obviously important. to the plot, to the characters, to the picture of the post-war world i'm trying to build. to me, doing justice to that relationship is essential in order to also do justice to the other elements of the story (the politics, the friendships, the feminism, the rebuilding of life, really). i've always seen love and romance as a part of life, and therefore as a part of fiction. and, i think i just wanted to treat it with the reverence it deserves.

as a result, i quickly made the decision that this chapter was going to be "just" about harry and ginny. the reason for that is three-fold:

first, narratively speaking, i wanted chapter sixteen (and, no, the fact that 8x2=16 is not a coincidence) to be a direct response to chapter eight. they both intervene as the beginnings of a new act (act two for chap 8, act three for chap 16), and exist in a place that's kind of outside of the "normal" time and space continuum of the fic. chapter eight is technically set in january '99, but it's really set in... ginny's letters. reality almost fades in favour of ginny's words and tale, making the chapter feel like it's almost happening right there and then. the actual reality of what is going on as harry is reading the letters is almost non-existent. it's a bit the same with sixteen. sixteen is an interlude, away from "reality" (london, the politics, everything). and, that's what i wanted it to be. i wanted it to be both the exact same, but also the exact opposite of chapter eight. and, i obviously wanted it to deal with the events of chapter eight, but in a tender, healing way. i had a whole conversation about this with @celestemagnoliathewriter on the podcast where we discussed how, in my opinion, once you deal with these very sensitive issues (non-con, SA, rape, etc.) in a work, you sort of owe it to your reader, too, to show that journey and to show what consensual sex can look like, too. and that, to me, was also the way this chapter was framed as a response to chapter eight. i wanted it to be about sex - but in a positive way.

secondly (and, obviously, this is very self-serving) - harry and ginny aren't the main focus of this story. their relationship is part of it, but not all of it. as i've said above, this is #shippygen territory. therefore, i unfortunately can't spend All My Time on this. so, in a purely technical sense, it felt more "efficient" to me to spend an entire chapter dedicated to them, get most of the rebuilding and relationship admin "done" in one chapter so that i could move on to other things. this obviously does not mean that there will be no romance/relationship stuff in the other chapters moving forward (there's tonnes) but it means that i've laid the ground work, you know? and although this chapter is 22k (sorry) i think it would have taken me a lot more time and energy to lay that same groundwork efficiently, had i not dedicated an entire chapter to it.

lastly, i think there was also a bit of me that was like: i want to write romance. which i know is strange. most of you don't know me as a writer of romance, but i also am. before HP, my entire "trade" was basically shippy fics. i enjoy it, i find it fun, and so i wanted to write it.

(below, a few individual points i thought i could talk about, in no particular order)

the american roadtrip:

as explained above, when i started to think about what the rebuilding of H&G's relationship would look like (which obviously happens throughout act 2 but really materialises in this chapter) i came to this conclusion that i wanted to have this chapter be a little bit of an interlude "outside" of normal life. and, as i've also said this before, my favourite niche sub-genre of post-war fics are fics that include travel. i mean, what can i say? i'm a traveler, i love going places to explore. i'm on a plane at least once a month. and, i've always had a soft spot for stories where harry "fucks off" and goes travelling somewhere, with or without ginny, to heal. for the record, here is a selection of my favourites:

the grown up driver by pocketfullof ; venn diagrams of one circle by aceofdiamonds ; warm front by flagpoles ; maps to the stars' homes by lizbee ; beauty lays behind the hills by meliebee

and so, obviously, when it was time to create this chapter in my head, the idea of a road trip came very naturally to me. i was like: i need them to focus on "them", i need them away... let's take them away, you know? i'd always sort of dreamed of writing one of those travel fics, and so it was so, so nice to realise that castles itself was going to give me the opportunity to do that. super self-indulgent, but oh, so enjoyable. it came at the cost of a little "suspension of disbelief" (sure, they're going to drive a car even though they can apparate ; sure, harry can just fuck off from his job for two months ; and sure, the fact that Quidditch season starts just at the end of september when i need it to is a total coincidence lol) but you know, who cares? i hope you did suspend your disbelief, lol.

now, on the choice of the US: i feel like the US is obviously the quintessential "road trip" destination, but i did consider others. i also toyed with australia for a while, south africa, canada and argentina. i ended up ruling out the first three pretty quickly because a) i've never been to australia or south africa and b) i have been to canada but never driven there. as you now know from our research episode on the podcast, anything that requires me to do extensive amounts of research is an automatic no (lol), so. the only one that really held some ground against the US was argentina because i love the country so much, we did drive around quite a lot when i was there, and i felt like there was a lot of potential for magical worldbuilding. but my issue was a) i went to argentina in early 2020 so i felt like the country was probably very different from what it would have looked like in 98 (coming back to our #idontwannadoresearch issue) and b) i would have kind of needed to change the timing of the trip if i wanted them to go in summer. i really considered this, i felt like there wouldn't be that much difference in having them go away over christmas rather than july/august/sep, and i feel like flying over Mount Fitz Roy or Perito Moreno rather than the Grand Canyon would have been equally spectacular, so the research part was really what did it for me in the end. i've just been to the US so much. i lived there for a year. i also have a lot of friends there who i can ask stuff to about the late 90s if i need to. it was just... easier. H&G will go to argentina for their twentieth anniversary or something lol.

now this being said, dearest americans, i hope you forgive me for... roasting your country a bit? in good spirit, i promise. i love the US. the US is just... funny, you know? what's with the aircon everywhere? and omg the state of your roads. buffalo is a shithole, i will not apologise for that, i have been there too many times. it was just so much fun to write this from harry and ginny's perspective, build in some little quirks they would have noticed. the trelawney bean joke. that and the line "This is the late 90s - there’s still something sort of “aspirational” about it." will never not make me laugh. what the fuck is happening to this country right now? do you need a hug? it was also fun to wonder what magical life would look like there. i think what i built is very inspired by what i could find on pottermore, although i did sort of pick and choose what i liked. and also fuck, the grand canyon is literally the most beautiful place on earth.

lastly, sorry to all of the areas i didn't mention. i initially wanted to get them to loop around but of their own accord, they decided to go at a really slow pace so i decided to scratch the north west and the south east. i really wanted them to drive down the coast from seattle to LA, but alas. they'll come back later, i promise lol.

harry and ginny:

i think, honestly, all i have to say about them is in the chapter (and, if it's not, it'll surely be in my asks, lol). my babies. i think what i really wanted this chapter to be was like: them, talking. face to face, not through letters. just existing together. joking around. confessing things. arguing, sometimes (as we all probably must). in light of the many comments i've received over the last 48 hours (for which i cannot thank you enough), it seems that that was achieved. obviously, castles is also very much about sex and so i wanted this chapter to be about them rebuilding that, too. harry has this strange mental block, of course, which is him being terrified of basically being "like" Amycus and forcing her into something she doesn't want and also fearing that she actually doesn't want them to be together. it's hard to believe someone who's lied to you in the past, regardless of their reasons. it's hard to be told "yes, you did make me think of him" and build past that. i also really want this to be a callback to last summer where, as harry says himself:

Last summer, everything was difficult but the sex was always the one thing that worked, between them, and now everything is better but every time his hands are on her skin, he freezes. He wants to slam the car into a tree like that will shock him into living.

i wanted this chapter to not only show the struggles, but them actually working through the struggles. communicating. and, i don't know if you've noticed, every time they do "argue," they sort of get better at it. at first, they have this fight about bodycount (see below for more on that) where neither of them is actually a) talking about what they're really talking about, b) saying what they want to say and c) talking about what they should be talking about. then, slowly, carefully, they communicate better and better to the point that when they "fight" inside the car before grand canyon, it's not really a "fight" and more of a reflection on how to solve a very practical problem.

@gardenroses1 said something in her comment this morning which really intrigued me and is something i genuinely didn't plan for or notice: every time H&G fight, they do it following some sort of "external" intervention. either the press (prior to the bodycount fight) or the millers family (prior to the "i want to believe you" fight). it's true, was totally unintentional, but also feels super interesting and goes to what i felt in my gut prior to this chapter: that they needed to go away to truly focus on rebuilding this. again, i feel like their foundations are strong enough, now, that when the outside world attacks them again, they will know how to respond better. but, i thought this was a very good point to note!

the line:

He wonders if girls just get better at reading people because their lives depend on it.

this was quoted back to me a few times in my comments and so i thought i should maybe talk about it a bit. or at least, acknowledge it. i actually don't particularly like that line, i tried many times to phrase it better, gave up and almost deleted it, verifying once again this strange phenomenon that @btelling and i have recently identified where, whenever we seem to think like a line is too on the nose and almost delete it, it becomes the line that everyone loves, lol.

i mean, this reflects what it says on the tin, right? if castles is one thing, it's the place for me to push my feminist agenda (lol) so there you go. smashing the patriarchy one line at a time.

on "bodycount":

if you were following this tumblr last summer, you will remember this: i used to get a lot of asks about ginny's sex life. stuff like: wouldn't harry be mocked because ginny slept around? and: wouldn't harry feel insecure about ginny sleeping around? and even once: what's ginny's bodycount? (if you don't believe me, look through here). often (though not always) these were formulated quite rudely (which actually led me to implement the politeness policy) and i must admit, i wasn't always super nice, myself, answering these. i think they just sort of puzzled me. given the themes of this fic, i tend to think of my audience as liberal, feminist women in their 20s & 30s, which made it all the more shocking to get questions from people who were clearly not part of that demographic. the way the concept of "loose women" and "bodycount" is inherently tied with the control of women's sexuality by the patriarchy should be news to no one, reading this. and, i mean, on the one hand, sure, these were legit questions given the society we live in, but not ones i would necessarily expect to be asked, you know? i think especially the bodycount one really surprised me.

the first iteration of this chapter included the whole issue of sex (i.e. harry not wanting to "force" her, etc.) but the bodycount talk was actually a later addition. i don't know where it came from. i remember i was actually writing a whole bunch of conversations that were to occur before the road trip (and ended up being moved around into the road trip for the most part) and harry and ginny just started ... talking about it. it was very sweet and cute and him basically telling her he didn't care. i kind of liked it and sent it to @btelling as a sort of "look what my anons make me write" thing but then i was like: wait a minute, i think there's potential for more here. i remembered there was this idea that stemmed from the anons i was getting that was like: harry will be insecure about her sleeping around and i was like: i mean, maybe, but what about her though? because for a girl who's barely 18 and still probably very much affected by patriarchal ideas, having been through what she's been through, it's like: well, what is he going to think about me, right? and, she kind of asks him what he thinks in chapter 14 and he's like a) telling her he doesn't care/mind and b) that he is a bit insecure, too, which i think alleviates her concerns a bit until, well, he doesn't seem to want to sleep with her, right? and she's like: wait, were you lying? and, i think for ginny as well, she sort of wants it to be about that because if it's not that, it's the fact that she "slept" with amycus that's putting him off, which is much more serious and traumatic for her.

as i said above, i loved writing that fight in the hotel room. i realised that the cute and sweet conversation i has originally written could be turned into an argument very easily by just changing the tone, which definitely was a good sign. and having harry snap: i didn't ask the next day was so enjoyable. he thinks he's saying the right thing by saying he doesn't care, but that's not what she wants to hear. she wants him to care, because for her it's a part of her that isn't "perfect" and she wants him to know about it and accept it, rather than ignore it. and getting to resolve that misunderstanding was just so satisfying.

lastly, i've had comments telling me 28 wasn't a lot. she's barely 18. this happened over the span of 3 months-ish. i don't care if it's a lot or not a lot and the fact that people have an opinion about that is just fucking gross.

ah, the patriarchy 🙄.

miscellaneous:

you have @btelling and @turanga4 to thank for the fact that i kept R&H's wedding. this chapter was so long, i genuinely considered deleting the first 5k. i also considered doing two chapters (one for the wedding and one for the road trip) but those would have been annoyingly uneven. i hope you enjoyed lol.

the flight over grand canyon was almost a flight over the Great Lakes. initially, it was grand canyon. then, that felt like too much time as i was going north then south so i changed it and decided to have them sleep together right after the upper peninsula (which, by the way, not making the trip upstate when i lived in michigan is my biggest regret - this was just me getting to go there by proxy). but then, when i got to that point, idk, it didn't ... work? and, when i'd made the change, although the great lakes region is gorgeous, i was super upset to not get the grand canyon sights, so i changed it back. i think it was just better in terms of scenery and timing in the end.

speaking of the grand canyon.... i used chatGPT to describe it LOL. or, at least get inspo on how to describe it. as we know, i'm not very visual so while i have been there, it's always difficult for me to describe the grandiosity of something. so i prompted chatGPT to describe the grand canyon at night to me in a "romantic" way and TA-DA. honestly, i only took a couple of sentences from the few paragraphs it gave me, but it was just good to get the juices going. i thought i'd mention it cause i don't think all AI is evil.

if you've listened to the podcast episode on romance, you'll notice a few references to the ep (When he opens his eyes again, their palms let go of each other and they stumble, landing inside their motel room. A rough transition between the grandiose and the mundane, and a bed that protests loudly whenever they move, and carpet that reeks like centuries-old cigarettes.) i was editing the ep whilst editing castles so i thought it was fun to play with the discussion @copper-dust and i had had a little bit.

i think H&G will go on one annual trip per year now. just somewhere. they deserve it lol.

aaand, that's it for me. this was way longer than i thought it would be lol.

if you have any questions, let me know ❤️

#castles #chapter 16

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princesssarisa · 1 year

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Sleeping Beauty Spring: "Sleeping Beauty" (1991 Golden Films animation)

In the '90s, Golden Films was one of the chief producers of direct-to-video animated "mockbusters" – knockoffs both of the latest hit films and of older classics by Disney and other studios. Well I remember seeing their films on video store shelves in my childhood: their versions of Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (which notoriously changes Esmeralda's name to Melody and has Quasimodo lose his deformity in the end), and two versions each of Beauty and the Beast and Snow White. One of their films that I didn't discover until recently, however, is their version of Sleeping Beauty.

While the opening credits say "Adapted from a story by the Brothers Grimm," the plot of this Sleeping Beauty is really a cross between Perrault's version, the Grimms', and other adaptations. It opens like the Grimm's tale, with a frog assuring the Queen that she'll soon give birth to a daughter. But after the Princess is born, the story follows Perrault by inviting seven fairies (rather than twelve) to the castle. These fairies are tiny, giggly, slightly goofy winged creatures, four female and three male, who, like Disney's Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, serve as the main viewpoint characters throughout most of the story and provide comic relief. Their names are Hector, Wanda, Oscar, Jewel, Tinder, Cinder, and Lily. Meanwhile, the villainess is a flying sorceress (probably not a fairy, because she's human-sized) named Ursula, who, despite having a human flesh tone and wearing purple instead of black, looks and sounds like a screechy knockoff of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. She curses the Princess to prick her finger and die "someday, when you least expect it," but Lily softens the curse to a hundred-year sleep.

Although the King has all the kingdom's spinning wheels burned, the fairies still worry about Ursula and resolve to never let the Princess out of their sight. A comic montage follows, where the lively, playful Princess gives her fairy "babysitters" more trouble than they bargained for. But eventually, Lily makes the mistake of playing hide-and-seek with the Princess, and of course while looking for a hiding place, the Princess finds Ursula disguised as an old woman with a spinning wheel. After sadly laying their daughter to rest in her bed, the King and Queen are put to sleep in their own bed by the fairies, who go on to freeze the rest of the castle in place, sometimes in the middle of comical moments, a la the 1955 German film.

A hundred years pass, and during that time, thorn bushes – which grow naturally on the castle grounds, and which the King was shown complaining about in an early scene – grow into a forest of briars around the castle. Many princes try to fight their way in, but all fail. (Without dying, however – they're shown leaving afterwards). But eventually, the right Prince arrives. Ursula tries to stop him from reaching the castle, first by trying to drown him in a river, then by bringing trees to life to attack him, and then by blocking his way with walls of briars. But each time, the fairies thwart her with their magic. Then a chime of bells signify the end of the hundred years – at this point, Ursula has no more power to stop the Prince, and she vanishes in a rage. The Prince kisses the Princess, everyone awakens, and a royal wedding is celebrated, with the King and Queen remembering to invite Ursula this time.

As a whole, this is a reasonably charming Sleeping Beauty for young children – colorful and lighthearted, without the emotional depth or artistry of other versions, but not offensive either. The animation is far from sophisticated, but neither is it ugly. The same can be said for the musical score, which in classic "mockbuster" fashion, ends with a pop song, "Love Has Opened Your Eyes," over the closing credits. One interesting visual detail is that unlike in most versions, the Princess seems to age slightly in her sleep, as her appearance changes from childlike to more womanly. (Her dress also changes from pink to blue and yellow – did the fairies have a Disney-style color battle during the hundred years, I wonder?) The voice cast is uncredited, but from my knowledge of '90s cartoons, I'm almost certain that the tiniest fairy, Jewel, is voiced by Kath Soucie, and that Rob Paulsen voices Oscar, the chubby male fairy.

Not an essential Sleeping Beauty, but worth seeing.

@ariel-seagull-wings, @thealmightyemprex, @faintingheroine, @paexgo-rosa, @reds-revenge, @comma-after-dearest, @the-blue-fairie, @thatscarletflycatcher, @themousefromfantasyland

#sleeping beauty spring #sleeping beauty #golden films #1991 #animated film #direct to video #mockbuster

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pastafossa · 1 year

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When Jane finally allows herself to have her own interest and dislikes, I would love to see her spotify wrapped! Who do you think would be her top 5 artists?

Ooooh, I love this! She would have the most wild gd spotify wrapped, if only because she'd be listening to EVERYTHING as she worked to figure out what she liked. Matt would love shifting his senses ahead as he came home, to hear whatever she was listening to that evening because it was always something new, something different. She'd swing wildly between everything from indie to classic rock to Taylor Swift to heart pounding movie soundtracks. He knows when she's found a song she likes because he'll hear it play on loop, over and over, as she takes it in and considers it and just kinda revels in the fact that she's allowed to do this now.

Matt has said before he likes 90s top 40s, so I can see Jane picking up a few faves there like Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston. Powerhouses of music that make her feel strong, empowered, and in control. For more recent artists, I can see her enjoying dancing around or going on a run to the more upbeat Taylor Swift songs. Hozier might be her go to for more emotional songs. I think for a while she'd avoid anything too dark or sad; she's had a lifetime of that, so she'd want happier songs for a while, but Hozier would manage to hook her for complex love songs she relates to. And the odd one out, which is technically a variety of artists - movie soundtracks, because at the same time she was discovering her favorite music genres, she'd be looking for movies too! And some of those soundtracks would be fucking amazing , classical wonderpieces while others were ridiculously catchy songs (looking at you, Disney songs).

#ask response #the red thread #spotify wrapped #and this is just the first year!#listening to everything and anything just because she CAN #it'd take her a while to settle I think #because half the fun for her would be newness

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cleoselene · 11 months

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🎶✨️when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, publish. Then, send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers ✨

oh yay thanks for sending me this one, I loooove music asks!

gonna pick the songs that are my current obsessions. I definitely go through phases with songs.

Tori Amos - Bang

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2018's Native Invader was an album I 100% slept on (mostly because someone who is now an ex-friend really hated it and heard it before me and told me how much it sucked and like the loser follower I tend to be, I took her word for it and only gave the album a cursory listen) and now I am discovering how fucking brilliant it is. Tori has 17 original studio albums, Native Invader is #16, and long past the point when her annoying "fans" claimed she'd lost her touch. But they're wrong. She is still vividly creating even while turning 60 next month -- at this point so many musicians have stopped writing and just go tour the hits. We are BLESSED as fans of hers that she is so prolific. Another way in which she reminds me of Taylor -- both of them seem to have this compulsion to be constantly creating music and have scores of unpublished songs because like, writing songs is what I imagine both of these ladies do with like 90% of their time. Native Invader is a politically-charged album, written in the wake of Trump's election, and "Bang" is about the violent hatred Trump and his election fostered against immigrants. It's really powerful and structured gorgeously. Getting this album on vinyl changed everything for me, because vinyl really allows the instrumentation to shine.

hahaha I'm rambly so putting the other four behind a cut. HOPE YOU DON'T REGRET INVITING ME TO WAX POETIC ABOUT MUSIC

2. Taylor Swift - Maroon

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I have been living a Maroon Appreciation Life since October 21, 2022. This is more or less tied for me as the best song that Taylor has written with Jack (tied with Getaway Car for me) and I really wish had been put in the main Eras setlist, because I think the full instrumentation and staging and costuming and lighting for a Maroon performance would have been just 🔥🔥🔥

It is, much to my surprise, my actual favorite song on Midnights. And this surprises me because i am SUCH a ho for when Taylor writes with Aaron Dessner, and don't get me wrong, the Dessner tracks on Midnights on my favorite. It's the Dessner collabs and Maroon that MAKE this album iconic for me. I don't love the production on all of the songs, but the production on Maroon is just PERFECT. It's lush, it's got that sadgirl dance music vibe that I live for. Mark Ronson has a sadgirl dance album called Late Night Feelings that I'm a huge fan of and Maroon reminds me of a track from that album. Just, this smooth electronic vibe that would play well in a club but also plays well as sitting in your room alone wallowing in sad music. Is it my favorite Taylor song of all of them? No, that's still ivy, but Maroon is in the top tier. Like, if all the songs on Midnights are drowning and I can only save one, I'm saving Maroon. That's a real fuckin' legacy.

3. Garth Brooks - Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)

goddammit Garth, i can't drop a youtube or even a spotify link to this one because of your dumb exclusivity contracts. that being said, I recently switched from spotify to amazon music (bought a vinyl from amazon, they gave me 3 free months of amazon music as a gift, and well, why pay 12 bucks a month for spotify when I'm getting it for free from amazon music? And even after the three months it only goes up to like 8 dollars or something, AND, it's Garth Brooks' exclusive streaming platform. SO NOW I CAN LISTEN TO GARTH AGAIN.

My favorite thing about Garth (aside from his music, which is just excellent and classic and such beautifully crafted classic Americana) is that every few years the ignorant conservative segment of the country music fanbase re-discovers anew that Garth is, in fact, as the Fox News pundits say while clutching pearls, "woke." They need to be reminded that he wrote "We Shall Be Free" all the way back in 1990 with lyrics that very explicitly praise racial diversity and support queer people.

At the moment the dummies are mad because Garth won't stop serving Bud Light in his bar, has said transphobes are not welcome, and his reaction to conservatives putting down DEI programs is to say "Diversity and inclusion are what I am all about," essentially. Garth is old school country in the vein of Willie and Dolly and Emmylou and Loretta, just younger, sneaking in at the tail end of the old school outlaw country when it was less about the sort of conservative shit-kickin that emerged in the 90-now and you had Willie Nelson doing Farm Aid and Dolly Parton giving books to all the kids in her state, and Johnny Cash singing for prisoners. Garth is so much more alike that crew even if they're not his generation, than he is with buffoons like Travis Tritt who were his actual contemporaries He's always been a real ally, his sister is a lesbian and let me tell you, as an 11 year old daughter of a lesbian in 1990 when a guy like Garth is singing GAY RIGHTS while you live in the pseudo-South of Florida? Big fuckin deal.

On top of that, his music's just gorgeous. Romantic in all the senses of the word. Conveying yearning in ways that make my chest ache. This song has resonated with me all my life, honestly, I've always felt older than my years, but especially now that I'm a sick person. It makes me cry.

Like my ultimate ultimate dream for Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version) is for one of her collabs on a vault track to be with Garth Brooks, because they are really respectively the biggest country stars of their generations, achieving that huge GLOBAL success that pulls in people who aren't even a fan of the country genre, simply by writing music that really appeals to people's hearts and souls. I love when I can tell a songwriter is a hopeless romantic, and Garth definitely is. There's a vulnerability and tenderness to his ballads especially.

4. Tori Amos - Digital Ghost

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there's a lot of theories as to who this song is about, but I really honestly don't care about any of them. Tori songs are poetry more than lyrics, meant to be open to multiple interpretations, and really, no interpretation is necessarily right or wrong. Tori herself says this: she says that when she puts a song out into the world, it no longer belongs to her, and it becomes something different to every listener. She's talked about meeting fans who gush about a song and what it meant to them, and sometimes she's like, "yeah, absolutely, i was thinking the same thing too," but very often her reaction was also "huh. well. if that's how you see it, I'm glad it's useful to you!" She has acknowledged a lot of fans get meaning from her song that were never a part of her meaning, but she also acknowledges that it doesn't make the fans' meaning of a song less valid. Music is like that.

So do I really know what this song is about, specifically, or who? I've read the theories it's about Trent Reznor, a piece in conversation with NIN's Year Zero album, but idk about all of that. Could be true, could be bullshit. To me? The lyrics feel like Tori is singing TO me. I feel like the Digital Ghost. Actually really considered changing my tumblr url to some version of "digital ghost" that is available, but i hate changing my url because I get so confused when other people do it, hahah, but it's like. She sings of reaching out to someone, someone who seems more comfortable communicating with the world through the internet, through technology:

It started as a joke Just one of my lucks to see If somehow I could reach you So I swam onto your shores Through an open window Only to find you all alone Curled up with machines

and the song goes on to discuss the concept of a person fading away, becoming a ghost of a person more comfortable with machines than with flesh and blood people. It resonates for me on multiple levels. As an introvert, I do like to spend a lot of time alone with my machines. As someone whose dearest friends don't live geographically close, my machines allow me to have any communication at all with my loved ones. I spend so much of my time these days, with my stressed out, unhealthy MS and migraine brain, exhausted beyond belief by a trip to the grocery store, on low-dose chemo with a threadbare immune system so even if i wanted to go out more, it's literally not safe. So I don't go out to dinner and i don't go to baseball games as much and i get walmart grocery pick up so i don't have to walk around a store full of germs. Honestly a very very large part of the reason I sold my Eras tickets was because the thought of being around 80k people legit terrified me on a mental and physical level. It sucks. I wasn't always like this. But MS changed my life forever, and then Covid just magnified it all. I don't know that I'll ever be able to enjoy things like going out to eat anymore. I've always wanted to go on a cruise; now you couldn't pay me, I know I'd get so sick.

So i feel like a Digital Ghost. Curled up with my record player and my computer and my smart TV because they're safer, and the me I was has been fading away for some time now. I'm sounding more emo than I feel, hahah, because honestly sad songs are very therapeutic for me and help me process my own pain. Digital Ghost for me right now is helping me process something heavy, and for the umpteenth time in my life, I feel like Tori is my big sister holding my hand and helping me navigate this wild ride that is womanhood. And I find the achingly sad songs very comforting and cathartic. It's actually often really peppy songs that irritate me lol /is goth

5. Peter Murphy - I'll Fall With Your Knife

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So. This is actually my favorite song of all time by anyone, and it has been for 25 years now. When I was 18 and had just moved out of the house and was a sweet little babygoth, I lived in Tampa and clubbed goth-style in Ybor City 4-5 nights a week. Get all gothed up from head to do and go dancing to dramatic and sad gothic/industrial and seeing more boys in dresses than an episode of RuPaul's Drag Race. It was my ritual, it was my church, it was my identity for several years. Putting on the costume (because well, it was. I'm a t-shirt and jeans and no-makeup person naturally. Putting on long black skirts and wearing corset tops and fishnets on my arms and caking on loads of make-up and shaping part of my hair into demonic horns made of coiled up braids while wearing my steel-toed Dr. Martens was a lot of stuff do to in order to get ready. I am not a prissy person by nature so spending an hour to doll up is something I find to be a choice honestly, but I thought the style was pretty and I LOVED the music.

Dancing was my favorite part. South Park's depiction of goth dancing is inaccurate and stupid, lol, and it's hard to explain, but it's prettier than that. And it's also a solo dance. You don't dance with other people, you're not grinding or leading someone else. You're connecting with the music on a pure level and it's about that musical connection, not about looking cute or hooking up. That being said, there was this guy who would dance at the club to all the same songs I liked to dance to and I thought he was sexy as hell. Should have realized a good dancer who is also a guy would be gay as the day is long, but Patrick and I became good friends after my thirsty hopes were crushed. Turns out, he had spent the same couple of months thinking I was a good dancer, too! On a platonic level, haha, because he was very much gay, but I liked that we were drawn to each other by something as human and joyous as dancing.

This song. This was the song that had Patrick and me dropping our drinks and bolting for the dance floor the second we heard the first opening note. It was OUR song. And we didn't dance with each other, because again: goth dancing is a solo venture. But we danced next to each other so many times and sang at the top of our lungs together, and never more so than to I'll Fall With Your Knife.

It's just a quintessential goth song. Forget Marilyn Manson, even back in 1996 I knew he was a poser making shit music and trying to pass it off as goth when it was just dumb shock rock that had none of the soul and spirit of real gothic/industrial, and also, tbh, was extremely derivative to the point of being plagiaristic. He was doing exactly what Skinny Puppy had been doing for decades, only Puppy did it much better and with less rape obsession. Brian Warner is a pervert obsessed with Nazis and subjugating and abusing women. Skinny Puppy was a band called that because they're sensitive dudes who love animals and their pet cause (no pun intended) is to stop animal experimentation, specifically vivisection. It makes me sad and angry that the world thinks of Brian fucking Warner as representative of the goths and industrial music, because gothic/industrial is a counterculture genre that challenges oppression. There's a reason Trent Reznor almost immediately regretted knowing the asshole.

But Peter Murphy? The lead singer of Bauhaus? Writing this achingly romantic song about love, goth style? This is what pulled the goth kids to the dance floor. And when it was played at full blast in the big club speakers it was just beyond beautiful. The flood does indeed wash all over you.

Well, if the birds can reach the sky To this land, I'll be with you 'Til the sun bursts from your side With my hands I reach to you Well, you think your chance is passing by Well, you blow your moon away I'll bleed like the reed Fall with your knife It's here, I'll be with you

fucking beautiful words. romance so lovely and scarlet and joyously melancholy.

Incidentally, there is another artist who I absolutely adore who also claims this as their favorite song of all time: Sarah McLachlan. She's a brilliant musician so that makes me feel like i got taste that we have the same favorite song ever lol

#swiftzeldas #THANK YOU AND IF YOU READ IT ALL YOU GET A GOLD STAR #music #tori amos #taylor swift #peter murphy #garth brooks #lol at this mix of musicians but like i see nothing wrong with being a fan of Skinny Puppy Taylor Garth and Tori simultaneously!#it's called having range! lol

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skinks · 11 months

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I got tagged by @rockcandyshrike to do a wee music meme post and I’m gonna follow her example and do my top 10 most RECENT repeated songs because that’s more interesting than just my top 10 repeated songs. gives it a lil summer snapshot. I find that I mostly listen to metal and prog in the winter whereas as soon as the sun is actually warm I remember funk and classical exists lmao

1. Breakwater - Release the Beast

However hard you might imagine this song goes, you’re not ready for it!!! Heard this for the first time before the Coheed show the other night, immediately recognised a part of it being the origin sample for the entire daft punk song “robot rock”. This is so insanely good, and my discovery of it coinciding with actual summer weather means I’ve been blasting it while driving around with my windows down nonstop lmao. You’re welcome fellow citizens. The beast is fucking released

2. Bilmuri - BOUTTA CASHEW

Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean I stop listening to metal and post-hxc… Bilmuri have never failed me except for the fact that they never tour the UK. The danciest tongue-in-cheek bangers this side of dance gavin dance

3. Halogen - U Got That

SPEAKING OF DANCE!! Who among us can resist a house drop when it’s this chonky. I heard this on a tiktok meme shared to tumblr that I had to do like 3 levels of googling to understand because I’m an old woman. But this song makes me actually want to go to a club for the second time ever in my crone life

4. Caroline Polachek - Caroline Shut Up

I had heard a snippet of one of her songs ages ago and it didn’t wow me, but I gave her new album a try and holy moly!! Really interesting acrobatic vocals plus lush dense intricate dramatic varied production… im in love. Even though this is actually from her first album, it’s the best example of what I like about her stuff. She’s like a mix of Bjork and 90s Madonna and Enya and Imogen Heap. And brother I’m nothing if not a Heaphead. Caroline pls come to Scotland

5. Maria Callas - O Mio Babbino Caro

I got this song stuck in my head and of course it’s so hard to sing along to a soprano aria, but I specifically love this Callas version because the way she really takes her time with the phrasing emphasises the longing of it and it makes me cry

6. bel canto - A Shoulder to the Wheel

Recently discovered there’s a name for an artistic aesthetic I have VIVID memory and nostalgia for from the mid-late 90s - the name of the aesthetic is Global Village Coffeehouse. I found a 50 hour gvc playlist on spotify and have been finding banging new music one of which is this song!! I love the propulsive synths and drums and the DRAMA… let it wash over u

7. Chris Rea - On The Beach

It’s got to be this specific single version not the slower album one! My whole life I only knew Rea as the singer of a pretty great xmas song until this April when my beloved pal added this to our Highland roadtrip playlist. If this doesn’t get you feeling like a neon-soaked sweaty lounge-lizard having a hallucinatory tango under a palm tree with a sexy extra from Miami Vice idk what will

8. Aviations - Coma

Is it really a joe skinks music post if there’s not a 10 minute prog metal song………….

I’m hoping their last two singles this year mean we have an imminent album incoming and it’s gonna SLAP as hard as the rest of their output! Aviations embody everything I love most and seek out in my prog metal; super agile clean AND harsh vocals interacting with the extreme amount of syncopation and intricacy in the instrumental arrangements. Aviations use piano in their compositions better than any other prog band I enjoy. I mean listen to this shit it’s beautiful

9. Stereophonics - Pick A Part That’s New

I had a really fun time making a playlist of songs I remember my parents always playing in my childhood, it’s full of a lot of 90s soul and electronic music and also this… whiny britpop. But it surprised me how much fantastic whiny britpop there is

10. Sumerlands - Force of a Storm

My brother introduced me to this album and it truly fucks how much they sound like an old-school Heavy Metal band while being fully contemporary. Like they truly sound like Sabbath or Iron Maiden but with modern production sensibilities. I LOVE the strength of this guy’s voice. Like if this doesn’t make you feel like a barbarian riding a winged steed and brandishing a massive sword against a dragon drawn by Frank Frazetta idk what will. Can u tell fantasising is how I process music

I will tag @shrikestrike @acuzena @lungtile @kitsune-sam @wordssometimesfail @kelsey-arts @erebones and whomstever else wants to… of course nobody has to if they don’t want

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goddesspharo · 1 year

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Tagged by @antiquitea.

3 ships: This changes like...all the time. Wave something shiny and pretty and vaguely antagonistic at me and I'm pretty much yours.

I rewatched Top Gun Maverick over the weekend and even though the point of The Hard Deck intro was to establish that they all knew each other carnally, I'm feeling very into Hangman/Phoenix at the moment because who doesn't love a pairing with two extremely attractive people being shitheads to each other while secretly wanting to bone?

I feel a flare up of "why didn't Grace and Daniel make out in Ready Or Not?" at least once a month so that's still a thing, I guess. Adam Brody deserves better than being a second tier character in those dumb Shazam movies.

I miss seeing Kyle Valenti's face every week for two minutes an episode on Roswell, New Mexico so I am still extremely bitter that my garbage CW show got cancelled (except that I genuinely believe the first season was stellar and not just because every music cue was from the 90s) and after four seasons of wanting someone to love Kyle Valenti back, we fiiiiiiiinally got Kyle and Isobel getting together in the last episode after a season of secret and not so secret pining only so they could have...one minute of screen time together in which they...didn't even kiss? THANKS FOR DEPRIVING ME OF ALL THE NICE THINGS. Am I ever going to stop being bitter over not getting to see them date or make out or do all the things that Lily Cowles probably put up on her vision board? NO, I WILL NOT. Get them booked and busy!!!!

1st ever ship: I can't think that far back! I'm sure there were many before this but off the top of my head, my first thought after "I'm too ancient to remember this" was that Tommy and Kimberly in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers ruled. Remember the proverbial water cooler discussions in elementary school when they introduced the green ranger? SPECTACULAR. Ah, back in the days when we thought some dude using a flute to summon a robot dragon was the height of being a bad ass. (Side note: the Power Rangers movie with Dacre Montgomery and Naomi Scott doesn't get enough credit for being a really good time. They teased a sequel that will never happen because not enough people recognize a good reboot!!!)

last song: Last week, I was inexplicably listening to A LOT of Dave Matthews Band live performances. I guess the inexplicable bit is that last week Spotify's Discover Weekly decided to randomly put a Stevie Nicks cover of "Crash Into Me" on my playlist, which sent me into a DMB spiral - I know this is deeply uncool because anyone who was alive in the 90s heard that song at least once a day for YEARS on the radio so we are all hardwired to roll our eyes at them, but this spiral led me to this (in which the late great LeRoi Moore's sax solo is the closest I will ever come to understanding Damien Chazelle's obsession with jazz) and, even more spectacularly, this, which is worth even listening to in the background. But actually none of that is what I've been listening to more recently. I was on call the other night and the only thing that got me through 48 hours on 4 hours of sleep was Tina Turner, particularly "Nutbush City Limits."

currently reading: Patricia Highsmith's Strangers On A Train.

last movie: I watched Breathe (2014; dir. Mélanie Laurent) last night and it was SO GOOD! Highly recommend! It was also refreshing to watch a movie that wasn't two hours long. Bring back 90-100 minute movies!

currently consuming: I'm drinking black tea with milk.

currently watching: About to watch the pilot of Mayfair Witches even though Alexandra Daddario has the acting range of a beautiful block of wood, but I'm in the intersection of AMC's venn diagram of "bitches who miss Interview With The Vampire" and "bitches who miss Jack Huston's face."

currently craving: Lychees, but they're out of season :(

Tagging whoever wants to do it!

#ask me things

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iloveyouphillipmorris · 1 year

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hiiiii can we get a list of top 5-10 songs u've listened 2 in the new yr ? ^_^ Wld loooove annotations. i wanna hear Ur thoughtsss🔊🔊🔊🔊🎤🎙📻

yes bby!!!!! since thee new years has started iv been a little everywhere with what iv been listening to but here’s some stuff iv either recently discovered or have been continuing to love <333

[IBRAHIM HESNAWI — TENDME] — this is an interesting cross between reggae and funk, hailing outtuv libya. ibrahim was one ov thee most prominent reggae artists to come outtuv libya n seeing as how reggae is like . Such A Big Deal 2 Me, it can be hard to find things i feel compare to thee og wave outtuv kingston, however libyan reggae is coming up a hard second place. this features on one ov thee iconic “Habibi Funk” compilations released by thee label ov thee same title. they focus on arabic speaking countries, you can find their bandcamp here. [it’s friday! any purchase off bandcamp goes 100% towards thee artist]

[DIVINE — LOVE REACTION] — so i heard this on a comp called “twelves inches of pleasure” i think it was vol. ii which included some tracks produced by my man patrick cowley. i’d heard love reaction before but this particular mix is combined & beat mixed with “blue monday” by new order which is NOTHING short ov GENIUS i was so amazed by it. it’s on thee playlist i listen to thee most which is basically just gay club music. huge fan ov divine and all she does and she just sounds utterly sinister with gillian & stephen’s synths underneath her prowling voice. adore it, adore it.

[RUPAUL — SUPERMODEL (YOU BETTER WORK)] — another pick from my gay club music playlist that im always listening to but this time probably a more known track from a big name. alyssa edwards’ homage to this track’s intro in her AS S2 EP1 performance is iconic and ofc this track is, also. it’s very good for turning your brain off. i was listening to this album and rupaul’s other 90s lps interchangeably with tammy faye baker tracks. not much to say about this, just been on thee mind. here’s a cool interview between rupaul and tammy faye baker in substitute ov my lack ov anything to say !

[JOHN CALE — EVERYTIME THE DOG BARKS] — so most reviews n i think most musical historians will tell you that john cale’s 80s work is unremarkable if not downright awful. i don’t think that’s true, with thee exception ov carribean sunset [which is truly offensive to thee conscious n should not be counted], they’re fairly good at worst average all thee way up to veering on some ov his best work. this track is thee first off his record ‘artificial intelligence’ which most people regard [seemingly?] as his best ov thee 80s. now that’s flagrantly ridiculous bcoz ‘music for a new society’ came out in thee 80s but i suppose ‘artificial intelligence’ isn’t as soul crushingly depressive. i love thee guitar work on this track, john’s delivery is exciting & thee electronics keep your nerves on a particularly seedy edge. i love john cale so much.

[JOEL VANDBROOGENBROECK — NIGHT CITY] — iv mentioned this a few times so i figure i should talk about it a little bit. so joel vandroogenbroeck is a prominent name in thee library music genre, which i have mentioned a little bit here and there. library music is a work for fire type genre where musicians make music on demand for television or movie companies, so it will have sortuv ‘default’ type settings to it to thee listener’s ear cuz odds are you’ve heard Plenty ov these tracks before and just didn’t know it. since thee advent ov beat making & hip hop production, library music very much found a new home. now being transformed into samples and thee foundations for beats, it lives again !!! one such track [gerhard trede’s “B11” from “electronic fields,” 27:00] is sampled predominantly in kid cudi’s “distant fantasies.” just to provide an example :] <3 as well as i would like to say that library music is quite different from ambient music and it is quiet different from muzak as well ! as thee #1 ambient defender i would like to say that….

OK I GOTTA STOP SOMEWHERE!!! THANK YOU!!! I LOVE YOU!!! YOU FAN DM ME WHENEVER U WANT!!!

#replies #music talk #MWAHHHHHH #forreal msg me anytime i wanna get to know u better!!!!

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idol-trickster · 2 years

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🎶✨when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, publish. then, send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) 🎶✨

@billyholztisch

OOC: I would have loved to answer this IC, but deciding what Trickster/Ji-Woon would listen to takes tons of headcanon space in my brain, which would take too long to think about to properly reply.

But since I got two of these I'll double the song amount and give you 10, straight from my Spotify most listened to! (I promise not to make duplicate artists' spots, so I'll list the "Top Song" and mention others from them.)

Zico - Freak This has been in my top songs for 3 months (since it was released) It overthrew Any Song, which was reigning supreme last year! She's a Baby is also one I adore a lot, Balloon & Being Left always hurt my heart (Dean's vocals are fantastic), and not to mention Anti is such a strong statement song.

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2. Block B - Her This song, choreography, video, and aesthetic make me happy! Very Good is my gateway song to BB, but I've listened to Her more often recently. Their sub-group stuff Bastarz's whole I'm a Mess album is super sexy, and it's a treat anytime I get to hear P.O.'s vocals!

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3. Enhyphen - Drunk-Dazed Sexy, Hype, and Catchy! It was great to see the performance in person, and one of my favs right next to Fever and One in a Billion!

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4. DPR Ian - No Bluberries DPR as a duo is so talented and they work hard to self-produce! Though this song mostly DPR Ian is one of my favs for the tone. Scaredy Cat comes in right next to this one, but honestly, all their songs are REALLY my style. (They have a nice Indie sound)

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5. Kai - Peaches "Pretty girl you're like peaches~" It's such a lovely song and I love the soft sound. It always gets quickly stuck in my head if I listen, and Kai's concept seemed so cute. I always remember how happy he seemed to have released this song, and that he wanted a fantasy feel.

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6. Wonho - Ain't about you King is conquering the English vocals, and with such a sultry and good duet, they really balance out the song. The beat reminds me of being trendy and as if it belongs in Dislyte!

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7. PRETTYMUCH, CNCO - Me Necessita The boy band sound with Spanish lyrics and a reggaeton beat made this a big hit on my playlist. I love it so much! Their other song Would You Mind is so fun and has such an 80s-90s sound it makes it a fun listen!

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8. Salem Ilse, TXT, Alan Walker - PS5 I'm a console gamer, so this song was relatable! The vocals are gorgeous and the beat's so catchy, I end up humming this song a lot.

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9. Vaundy - Tokyo Flash This just has such a great sound. It's very indie sounding and has a great melody to lyric composition. Everything compliments so well.

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10. Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better Honestly, this song always makes me sentimental and grateful. I'm putting it here because I think everyone needs to hear this at least once. No matter how hard things get, and how un-ending it feels, it's always nice to have a positive outlook; sometimes when it doesn't feel like you're reaching any goals, something as nice as spending time with someone you cherish and having a good time is what we should look forward to, to enjoy our lives. It's a reminder to not forget the love and support we receive, and look forward to good days! Maybe to be kinder and take things easier on ourselves and make our happiness an important goal. (But other than that, I really adore Lisztomania from them too)

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--- PS. As a bonus song, I adore "Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me (Japanese Version)"; it's hit my no.2 spot on Spotify, it's so classic! (and I discovered the Japanese cover from Tokyo Vice)

#OOC #answered #This is just the tip of the ice berg #most of these are fairly recent (the past 2 years)#My favorite genres are Rock | Indie | Kpop | pop #We're not talking about how Unholy has hit my number one spot lol #I listen to a lot of artists though I think I'd struggle listing even 100 musicians #I feel horrible leaving so many wonderful songs and musicians out because I think so many leave impressions on me #From various genres as well #Worth noting #I adore the westworld soundtrack as well but I don't think it fits #||#D-do I have to tag someone--? It seems like so many people have don this already lol #and I feel bad about sending copy pastes ;w;#Especially from me who has a hard time answering asks hahaa #I'm sorry once again for being slow 8w8

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beijingbrown · 1 year

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February 2023 Mix: Rahman Magic Orchestra

February 2023: 2 of 12 mixtapes connecting the music of my childhood (Tamil pop) and the music that influenced me (sinophone indie) to the music of my new home (The Netherlands). This month: A.R.Rahman to Das Wettbüro, via Nazia Hassan and Agnès Gayraud's theory pop. Also: Themes for Great Cities.

Tracklist: A.R. Rahman - Chandralekha (from Thiruda Thiruda, 1993) Yellow Magic Orchestra - キュー "Cue" (1981) Nation of Language - Wounds of Love (2021) Nazia Hassan - Telephone Pyaar (1987) Julia Holter - Everytime Boots (2015) 亲爱的艾洛伊丝 Dear Eloise - 她的歌 "Song for Her" (2012) Yuvan Shankar Raja - Jalsa (from Chennai 600028, 2007) La Féline - Dancing (2022) Folie 2 - SG Suprasound (2022) A.R. Rahman - Kannum Kannum (from Thiruda Thiruda, 1993) Das Wettbüro - Ungerade 19/36 (2022)

Notes:

A.R. Rahman - Chandralekha (from Thiruda Thiruda, 1993) A.R. Rahman - Kannum Kannum (from Thiruda Thiruda, 1993)

'Thiruda Thiruda' was the first music album I remember being impressed by, and some of the earliest music I remember acknowledging as good. I've never seen the film the music was written for.

Yellow Magic Orchestra - キュー "Cue" (1981)

For me, YMO was the band (after Linkin Park) that only access to the internet made visible. For me as a (not upper class) teen in India, there was no local circuit of record shops or alternative radio where I'd pick up on something like YMO. Early dial-up and Napster changed that.

Nation of Language - Wounds of Love (2021) The most important concerts I saw in 2022 were Nation of Language in Amsterdam, and Nation of Language in Iceland.

Nazia Hassan - Telephone Pyaar (1987) I was too young for the "indipop" wave of the 90s but, like Japanese city pop, its the stylistic predecessors of the buzzword that deserve wider recognition, like the extended discography of Nazia Hassan or the work that labels like Naya Beat and Discostan are doing.

Julia Holter - Everytime Boots (2015) I was part of the team that toured Julia Holter in China in 2015, and I was the band's local tour handler in Beijing. The group left a huge impression on me - one of my fondest memories of Beijing is the band singing acapella on the Great Wall under a crisp, blue-skied Beijing winter day. I like to think i left an impression on them as well....Julia did tweet about me once 😳

亲爱的艾洛伊丝 Dear Eloise - 她的歌 "Song for Her" (2012) For two years, I made the daily playlists at Jing-A's bars in Beijing and the only time I've seen someone break down in joy at a song coming on is when this Dear Eloise song played at midnight on a Saturday. Yuvan Shankar Raja - Jalsa (from Chennai 600028, 2007) This song lent its name to my brother's extremely-popular blog, and was really of an era when I learned that the power of the early Internet was its uncanny ability to take the cringe errata of our pop culture and turn them into lasting friendships.

La Féline - Dancing (2022) I love this song so much. I also love that La Feline is the musical project of Agnes Gayraud, a theorist whose Dialectics of Pop is one of my favourite music books. Folie 2 - SG Suprasound (2022) Das Wettbüro - Ungerade 19/36 (2022)

Two extraordinary albums discovered on a recent trip to Dusseldorf, courtesy of local labels Themes for Great Cities and Candomble.

Thanks for listening!

#mixtape #amsterdam #rahman #post punk #dusseldorf #nation of language

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montygreen · 1 year

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Tagged by the lovely @xoxoemynn to share my top 5 songs of the moment. Get ready for a weird mix of stuff that happens to make up my music taste!

Doomsday by Lizzy McAlpine: Honestly, I think “five seconds flat” is the album of the year for me. Lizzy’s vocals, her lyrics, her composition, the fact that each song on this album feels different and distinct, god it’s just so fantastic. Doomsday is definitely my favourite song from the album, however, but I also really love All My Ghosts and Orange Show Speedway (but also Reckless Driving, Erase Me, Call Me Again.... and the... entire album honestly.)

Ghosts by Laura Marling: I can’t exactly explain why I vibe with this song, but... I vibe with this song (and honestly, the entire album...) Funnily enough, it was actually my virology prof from this past term who recommended her stuff to me, but did not inform me that she has SEVEN ALBUMS. One of my friends who was familiar with her music then helped me out and directed me to listen to just three of her albums. I deciding to listen to “Alas I Cannot Swim” while doing some last minute studying for a quiz in virology and when the first song came on (which is in fact “Ghosts”) I immediately decided that it was exactly my vibe, musically, in fact the entire album was. And now this song is one of my top listened to of the year and I discovered it at the beginning of November.... oops... (BUT in my defence, I sing + play my guitar more frequently than I listen to music, so my most listened to songs of any year end up with maybe around 100 or so plays maximally? It’s never actually THAT much, all things considered)

Underneath the Tree by Kelly Clarkson: This song only makes an appearance because I am still in a Christmassy mood and one of my favourite aspects of Christmas is Christmas music, and I’ve listened to this song in particular quite a bit recently. It’s fun, it’s catchy, and also I sound fantastic when I either sing along to it, or play it on my guitar (and let’s be real, 90% of the music I like happens to be stuff I can sing.)

Happy & Sad by Kacey Musgraves: I just love this song!! It’s SO pretty and that key change between the second chorus-the bridge-and the final chorus is LOVELY. Also another example of, I know I sing this song nicely and therefore I like it. The lab manager of the lab where I’m doing my thesis recorded me singing this one (she took me somewhere in our building with really, really nice acoustics and recorded my singing because she likes my singing voice.) And then the next week, when I saw my thesis supervisor for the first time she was like “oh Leila, we listened to that recording Dhruva took of you last week when we were driving back from the conference this weekend, you have a beautiful voice!” which was SO FUCKING SWEET!!

Storm to Weather by Grace Petrie: This song has very Ed-Stede vibes for me. I’m not usually one to latch onto songs because of ships, but this, I suppose, is an exception.

Tagging: If you see this and want to participate, consider yourself tagged!

#tag games

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homegrrl · 2 years

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Tagged by the wonderful @magdelanian to post 6 albums recently listened to! 🧡🧡🧡 I love doing these lol. Now... I am a very non committal music listener and stan, so I have tried to have a think: 1) Film soundtrack to ‘Run, Lola, Run’. A fast paced trance soundtrack which makes me feel like a supa hacker. Alas, I am instead a supa slacker. I listened to this a lot when I worked in journalism/comms. But I think part of the appeal was that, like Lola, I feel like my life sometimes moves too fast for me to catch up- and that I need another play through like in a videogame. 2) ‘Hounds of Love’ by Kate Bush. My father once said that Kate Bush was the weirdest artist of his young adult life. So naturally, I had to discover her music. I first heard Kate Bush when I was 14 in the school computer lab and I felt so stirred and affected by her songs (and still am!). 3) ‘Stripped’ by Christina Aguilera. I love pop of the 2000s and was reminded of this album when a guy in the city started playing this album aloud from his boombox. 4) ‘Houses of the Holy’ by Led Zeppelin. My brother loves Led Zeppelin, so this music was familiar, but took on a different meaning, two years ago. I was broke and in a terrible and desperate situation. I took on a housesitting job in a unique bungalow by the beach. I listened to this album on their record player and would spend my evenings at the beach to think about life and cry lol. But because of the music and the sense of adventure it gave me, I had a feeling everything would be ok. This album makes me think of that. 5) Not an album, but Flava FM 😆. A New Zealand radio station which plays 90s and 2000s hiphop and RnB. I grew up in one of my city’s equivalent of the hood haha and this was the music I grew up with. This was my comfort station in our lockdowns and I would listen to Flava on long walks and doing university remotely. 6) ‘From the Screen to the Stereo Part II’ by New Found Glory. 2000s emo rock was a mainstay in my childhood and teens, as with spending all my spare time watching films. This makes me think of those times and more; in my attic room overlooking our street, in the neighbourhood park on Christmas Day, movie marathons at night and rollerblading in the empty cul-de-sac at sunset 🥰😊. Tagging anyone who wants to! (don’t forget to tag me so I see 😊) and @elephantinchinatown @lotus73eater @hellhathnofurylikeido @sipqlq @g-a-y-g-o-y-l-e

#homegrrl

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lee-minhoe · 2 years

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my mom has been learning korean for a few years now and she found bts in 2018 as a recommendation for like listening to korean music and getting familiar with the language. so we we’re into bts for a while but after that we found other groups we liked more instead of bts. she found got7 and exo and I found svt and we both found skz and nct and monsta x and stuff like that. It’s very rare that I find a group and get her into it instead of the other way around 😂😂 so I’m glad I can take credit for like a couple groups including txt 🤣 I can only do that so much 😂😂😂 also yeah we go to concerts together always when we’re able ofc bc of covid 🥺 and yeah I just wore her down with him and she was resisting it so much but in a funny way and then eventually she caved 😂😂😂

omg nct dream doing stuff like txt activities would be fun especially if it involves a lot of running or playing tag haha and YEAH jaemin would be so lowkey 😂😂😂 meanwhile I could see haechan and chenle running around like beomgyu and taehyun 🤣

oh yeah same it’s gonna be a while so I think I need to make a checklist and just go through slowly but they’re so entertaining yes 😂😂

THATS SO FUNNNN omg love you and your moms shared kpop interest!!!! 😍 one time my mom discovered kpop (the black pink ice cream with selena gomez lol) and then i was like oooooooh well let me show you MY FAVORITE GROUP NCT……i showed her 90s love (which had just recently come out at the time) but i think that wasnt the best starter song bc she didnt seem super into it 🤣🤣 my mom watches kdramas though which i also like <3

when i get into a group i can really get into them so these days im just trying to make my way through all the (many) txt content videos and choreos and stuff 😂 i saw they have a 20 min mv for eternally so thats saved in my watch later too lol. i noticed their mvs usually have storylines and i like the ones that look bright but have dark undertones (i like things with dark undertones 😂) also yesterday i watched yeonjuns artist of the month performance on studio choom from last year…….🤯🤯 INSANE have u seen it??

#answered #izzy 💜

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aaronafgash · 3 months

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10 NEW SONGS - 2/23/24

Pretty bad week again for the new tunes, but that’s why I’m here, trying to find the diamonds in the rough. And boy, was this rough. A dishonorable mention to the new corny-ass Justin Timberlake song. Where were you when he lost all rizz? Fascinating what happens when he isn't backed by Pharrell and Timbaland. Anyways, enjoy!

1. Test It - Erika de Casier

There’s something about Erika de Casier’s music that feels mysteriously nostalgic - familiar for reasons I can’t quite pinpoint. It’s almost like I’m discovering an artist from the ‘90s that went under the radar back in the day. That being said - this song rocks. Sultry and lowkey, Erika sings in an almost-whisper, discussing how she and a potential partner need to “test” things out before fully committing. Her album was hit or miss, but this song is a clear hit. (Sidenote - worth listening to "ice" if you want to hear an all-time Andre 3000 impersonation.)

2. I Don’t Love You - Charlotte Day Wilson

Charlotte Day Wilson - who I’ll be referring to as CDW for the remainder of this blurb to avoid writing her long-ass name out again - sings with her soul. “I Don’t Love You” is a classic breakup ballad, but there are some fascinating things happening texturally on the backing production, including synth pads and sped-up samples. “It's more peaceful being heartbroken” is a devastating (but effective) lyric in the first verse. Knowing that shit is going to hurt but accepting that it’s the right thing for yourself? Damn, CDW. Bars.

3. Illusions - Jalen Ngonda

Talk about an old soul. Jalen Ngonda burst onto the R&B scene last year with his debut album Come Around and Love Me, a warm, beautiful soul album that makes you want to dance in the kitchen with your partner. He keeps the vibe going here with “Illusions”, his first release since then. The production is perfect, channeling ‘60s Motown, but his voice is the reason you want to keep listening - this dude would have been a star in any era. Whereas artists like Bruno Mars pick a decade and base an entire album / era on that, what Jalen’s doing here feels much more authentic and grounded - more reminiscent of someone like Leon Bridges.

4. High Value (feat. Ty Dolla $ign) - RJMrLA

I know literally nothing about RJMrLA, but I cannot stress enough how nice it is to hear Ty Dolla $ign collaborate with someone who isn’t a Nazi. Good West-coast beat, solid verses, and a great hook. (We’re only on the fourth song and I’m already starting to struggle. Bear with me.)

5. Britpop - A. G. Cook

A.G. Cook has been one of Charli XCX’s main collaborators for a while now. I tend to have a harder time getting into his solo work, but this is catchy, and you can definitely hear Charli over this kind of beat. We love mindless electronic music!

((Update - after some light reading, I discovered that Charli's voice is the one we hear on this song. Sick!))

6. Karma (feat. Isaiah Rashad) - SiR

TDE-labelmates SiR and Isaiah Rashad link up here for a laid back track. SiR’s recent single “No Evil” hit much harder for me, but I’m not mad at this.

7. Flowers - Real Estate

Real Estate’s 2014 album Atlas is one of my favorite front to back records of all time, conjuring up nostalgic memories of the spring before graduating high school. Their new album, Daniel, does not live up to that billing! But “Flowers” specifically strikes me as a proper return to form for the indie rock mainstays - a breezy, chill track that just feels like summer.

8. Mine (feat. Shakka) - Ghetts

I mentioned Ghetts’ single with Sampha a few weeks ago - he dropped his full album, On Purpose, With Purpose, today, and this song was a standout. Over an uptempo, soul-sampled beat, Ghetts flows effortlessly while maintaining tactile precision with his words and cadence. Shakka provides a lovely little hook, and we even get a small backing choir supporting him.

9. NO SLACK (feat. Healy) - DLG.

Cool beat / production. Chill. I’m a Healy fan, so that’s why this popped up on my Spotify. I don’t know shit about DLG. so I have little to add here, but it’s worth a listen.

10. Fear - Logic

Cannot emphasize enough how little I want to be associated with Logic fandom, but damn, "Fear" is so good. Released a few weeks ago, I will fully admit that I slept on this. Over a funky guitar riff and a four-on-the-floor house beat, Logic sounds better than expected singing the simple “I can’t let you hold me back” hook. His nimble, brisk raps pair perfectly with the song. My only critique lies in the second half, where we get a full two minutes of a jazzy, slow motion, fully-sung outro. It’s cool! But I would have loved it if they treated it more like a brief interlude, instead of letting it consume what ends up being a majority of the track. Regardless, good job Logic!

#Spotify

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