#shameless UK and shameless US are two VERY different shows

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

100% what you said about Debbie and Fiona being women written by men; theres definitely a lot of times where I get weird vibes from certain scenes and it usually boils down to misogyny - but like that subtle misogyny that you can just tell the writers don't think they're being misogynistic at all because it's not overt in anyway. I think you can see this in other female characters that deserved better (Mandy and Svetlana both deserved better too); but if you look at the way the writing tends to treat the women who are introduced as the love interests of the male characters, you can see that too. and I can see why other people don't see it because aside from it not being overt, to some extent some of the misogyny is just from the characters themselves--i can't fully explain all of it in words yet but I have a lot of feelings about this haha

On a lighter note - thoughts on Debbie's + Carl's relationship? And if you have any head cannons? I love whenever they're together and I feel like their relationship totally got underused/under explored in the show, especially considering how close in age they are; and they both had such complex feelings toward Frank!!

yeah… i think that season 6 was one of the best examples of all of the misogyny just with the whole abortion thing. personally, i’m pro-choice, so i think that debbie and fiona both should’ve gotten a say in what they wanted to do with their bodies, but i’m not sure what the writers were, because the way they wrote fiona and debbie in that season wasn’t normal.

another example of the misogyny is the way they write the body language, which i already talked about. whether it’s lip and ian screaming at fiona in a way that sent a 🚩 to most women, or frank literally hitting debbie, it sent a lot of women, like myself, very bad vibes.

and i don’t even know how to fully explain what i’m trying to say, but the way that the women vs the men act in shameless makes it truly obvious who wrote this show.

as for debbie and carl, i fucking LOVE their relationship and i’m soooo pissed we didn’t get more of it, i have multiple unfinished fics in my drafts that include those two because ❤️❤️❤️

personally, one thing i would’ve liked for the writers to do would be make them twins. ethan and emma are the same age, and idk… it would add so much. especially since they’d be twins in different grades because carl got held back. idk. definite missed opportunity, in the us one debbie’s older and in the uk one carl is so it’s not like they weren’t willing to change their ages.

i do have headcanons about them, and now that i’m thinking about those two, i’ll post them and tag you!

♥️

#shameless #debbie gallagher #fiona gallagher #carl gallagher #shameless us #shameless meta #i love your blog btw everything i’ve seen you post is amazing

[ifyougoillfollow]

trick or treat!

MWUAHAHA - TRICKS BE UPON YE 😈😈

excuse me while i use this hallowed ween as an excuse to exorcise some demons:

what if rooftop gang Misfits AU

no listen if you've never seen Misfits(UK)(2009) i cannot in good conscience recommend doing so – it is a horrid little show full of horrid little people having a horrid little time and suffering horrid little fates more often than not, but like. it's also ASTOUNDINGLY funny, if you can stomach dated, edgy-with-a-captital-E late-2000's humor –

and boy CAN i, so i've recently made the mistake of starting a casual rewatch and lemme tell ya, the urge to stick our favorite rooftop fools* into this horrid little setting is MIGHTY but i cannot do it i REFUSE !!

anyway here's what i have so far**

* plus emi, because i'm predictable like that **please note i say 'so far' for comedic effect – i am for serious not gonna actually write this thing i cannot emphasize this enough

PREMISE Group of young delinquents sentenced to do community service get caught in a freak storm that gives them superpowers which reflect some important aspect of their personalities. Shenanigans (by which I mean crime) (by which I mean they immediately kill their parole officer (in self-defense!)) ensue. CAST MIC: Loudmouth. Doing time for assault. Talked shit, got hit – hit back hard. Wannabe punk with a chip on his shoulder. Flaming bisexual. Hates Aizawa. Has his sights set on Nemuri. Chill with Oboro. Finds Emi annoying. Power: Same as Quirk. AIZAWA: Buzzkill. Doing time for petty theft. Stole Daddy's credit card. Rich kid loner with a stick up his ass. Repressed homosexual. Hates Mic. Unnerved by Nemuri. Suspicious of Oboro. Finds Emi annoying. Power: Same as Quirk. NEMURI: Vixen. Doing time for shoplifting. Big titty discount fail. Shameless freak with boundary issues. Burgeoning bisexual. Tolerates Mic. Intrigued by Aizawa. Amused by Oboro. Finds Emi annoying. Power: Similar to Quirk, but based on pheromones and more emphasis on others perceiving her as attractive. OBORO: Stoner. Doing time for drug sale/possession. Local weed dealer. Chill extrovert with his head in the clouds. Token straight. Chill with everyone. Giant, obvious crush on Nemuri. Power: Similar to Quirk, except the clouds behave like real clouds, i.e. are intangible. EMI: Clown. Doing time for destruction of property. Prank gone wrong. Cringefail funnyman with a crippling need for validation. Closeted lesbian. Finds Mic hilarious. Likes to harass Aizawa. Giant crush on Nemuri. Chill with Oboro. Power: Same as Quirk.

Hizashi's the last to arrive at the community center.

He wasn't even on time for his court date – why the hell should court-mandated community service be any different? (Fuck the court, is the point.) By the time he's out of the locker room clad in his very own dumbfuck (but also kinda punk as hell if you think about it) mandatory orange jumpsuit, the rest of the clowns he's serving time with have already assembled in a convenient little lineup on the steps out front.

As he gets closer, 'clowns' turns out to be a more appropriate descriptor than he'd bargained for. Two of his four fellow ne'er-do-wells are sporting bad dye jobs in precociously pastel colors – blue for the guy, green for the chick. Bluey has a wide bandage over a nose that looks thoroughly unbroken. The other one has smiley-face stickers plastered over both cheeks and may very well be an actual clown. Both are flashing gap-toothed, paint-huffer-eyed grins. They're either going to be a riot or completely fucking insufferable, Hizashi can feel it in his jimmies.

Before Hizashi has a chance to suss out what kind of freak his other two compatriots in crime might be, a hulking, sentient block of a man steps out to join them in front of the community center. The dude is so jacked he's downright cubical. He's not just beefy, he's the whole goddamn cow – or bull, rather. Hizashi's not entirely convinced the fucker can look at his own reflection without ramming straight into the mirror, what with the red hair and all.

These are all the sorts of observations Hizashi would normally take great pleasure in relaying out loud, but the thing about Hizashi is, he's an asshole, not suicidal.

"Afternoon, everyone,” growls the steroid abuse PSA come to life. “My name is Todoroki Enji. I will be your parole officer for the coming weeks. While you are under my supervision, you do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it. If you can manage that until the end of your term, I will sign all necessary forms and you will all be free to continue down the path to lifelong delinquency on your own time. With any luck, next time we can skip this unnecessary step and send you straight to prison where you belong."

"Ah,” says Hizashi, “so you're a Cop cop."

The dark-haired bombshell Hizashi had deliberately stood next to as soon as he’d spotted her snorts. "He's a parole officer, numbnuts – what did you expect?"

"Hot and mean? Happy birthday to me."

Bluey pops up from beside Hizashi’s future heartbreak with a dopey grin. "Oh, hey, happy birthday, man!"

Before Hizashi can tell him off, the clown on Bluey’s other side starts shrieking: “Haaaappy birthday to you, happy birthday to you –”

Hot Stuff snorts again. "It's not actually your birthday, is it?"

Hizashi winks at her over his shades. "For you, baby, it could be."

"Real cute,” she drawls.

"Can you stop that?" someone snaps.

The clown stops her caterwauling. "But it's his birthday!"

"No, it isn't. He’s just trying to get in that one’s pants." There’s a sneer in that voice that sets Hizashi’s asshole-sense a-tingling. When he turns towards the source, he finds a dead-eyed, greasy-haired emo reject with the most potent school shooter vibes Hizashi’s witnessed to date.

"Yeah?” Hizashi shoots back. “And what would you know about getting laid, eh, Columbine?"

"That enough!” Officer Roid Rage thunders. Hizashi swears he feels the earth quake a little. “Your first task for today is to repaint those benches.” He jabs a meaty finger toward some benches across the way. “There are six of them, and six of you. Figure it out. Paint buckets and brushes are over there.” Another meaty finger over yonder. “Questions?"

The clown raises her hand. "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"Are you for real –” Hizashi turns to the other clowns for help – “is she for real right now?"

"Hey, I'll bite,” says Bluey. “Why'd the chicken cross the road?"

"I dunno – that's why I'm asking!" She doubles over wheezing at her own joke. Probably to make up for the fact that no one else ever will.

"I expect those benches to be painted by the end of the hour,” growls Officer Roid Rage. Then he exercises the freedom Hizashi wishes he currently had himself and walks away. The bastard.

It’s only as the world’s clowniest band of misfits jingle-jangle one by one towards the benches over yonder, bargain bin painting supplies in hand, that Hizashi realizes the headcount is off.

“Hey – didn’t the cop say there were six of us?”

#spoiler: it's tensei. tensei's the sixth clown. #he's running late bc he had to pick lil tenya up from school he got it all cleared with enji and everything #his whole shtick in this verse is he's a charmingly roguish goody-two-shoes who's only doing time bc he got caught in some sort of protest #he doesn't get a cast intro bc in the fic inside my head that i'll never write he dies in the first 'episode' 😬 #rip king ✊ #ask box #trick or treat #i wrote a thing #rooftop gang #misfits au #thanks for the ask homie <33

[bringinbackpod]

We had the pleasure of interviewing BOWEN * YOUNG LIVE from The Twisted Wool Lounge at the Historic Woolworth Theatre in Nashville! Most partners, in theory, will promise the world to keep each other safe and sound, but rarely is their vow necessary in everyday practice. However, when husband and wife duo BOWEN * YOUNG —singer/songwriters Clare Bowen and Brandon Robert Young—found themselves in the midst of a terrifying home invasion, the pair stared down the prospect of being separated, or worse, during a very real situation. Just two days later, without sleep and lacking creativity, BOWEN * YOUNG sat down with their friend and producer Sean McConnell and shared what they’d just been through. After several hours, the glimmer of an idea took hold of Bowen, just as McConnell picked up a guitar and said, “What if it goes a little something like this?” In less than an hour, the chilling story had been shaped into a song, and “Dangerous Love” was born. “Somewhere, deep in the conversation, Clare offered up an idea that was perfectly beautiful in the moment, revolving around the most harrowing part of the whole event,” remembers Young. “...The prospect of one of us being taken away from the other, just because one cruel individual decided it should be so.” The end result is a beautifully dark love song; an ode to just how far true-lovers are willing to go for each other. “Each time we play it is cathartic and healing,” says Young. “Each time we play it we love each other a little bit more. This event was just one part of our story, but it affected us deeply, and the trauma therapy we’ve done to recover has been one of the best gifts we could have given ourselves and each other. We can’t undo what was done to us, but we can, through spreading awareness of how important it is to take care of your mental health, strive to turn that individual’s cruelty into another person’s healing.” More About BOWEN * YOUNG: Bowen Young’s timeless debut record created by Clare Bowen and husband Brandon Robert Young is a multi-sensory feast. The music, produced by Sean McConnell, invokes themes painted by the duo’s powerfully authentic lyrics and hypnotic harmonies. Clare, the charismatic actress who played Scarlett O’Connor in the popular show Nashville, is known as a ray of sunshine around the world. She is an empath who leads with her heart, able to communicate and translate emotions whether on stage or screen. Born in rural Australia, she moved to Music City in 2012 for the Nashville role and immediately earned respect from the city’s musical leaders. She has performed with artists such as Vince Gill and Zac Brown Band, working with Grammy Award-winning producers/songwriters T-Bone Burnett, Colin Linden, and Buddy Miller, who became her mentors. She toured her eponymous album for sold-out crowds with Brandon in Germany, Australia, the US, and the UK. The pair also earned a coveted spot on Sugarland’s popular “Still the Same Tour” and toured live with the Nashville cast, selling out London’s O2 Arena. Brandon, who began singing at age five under the gentle guidance of his mother, had a very different upbringing and path to Nashville. In 2000, he moved from Enfield, CT, to Nashville, where he taught himself to play guitar. He worked as a courier during the day and spent his nights filling empty composition books with song after song. He spent a decade touring with music legend John Hiatt, first as percussionist and background vocalist and eventually becoming one-third of The John Hiatt Trio. He worked on three of the famed artist’s albums, the last of which was nominated for a Grammy in the Americana category. Brandon has collaborated with Grammy Award-winning artists Emmylou Harris, Colin Linden, and Mikky Ekko. Young was also invited by John Carter Cash to finish one of his father’s unpublished works for Johnny Cash Forever Words. Brandon’s music has been heard in shows such as Shameless, A Million Little Things, and Nashville. We want to hear from you! Please email [email protected]. www.BringinitBackwards.com #podcast #interview #bringinbackpod #BOWENYOUNG #ClareBowen #BrandonRobertYoung #WoolworthTheatre #TheTwistedWool #Nashville #NashvilleCMT #DangerousLove #NewMusic Listen & Subscribe to BiB https://www.bringinitbackwards.com/follow/ Follow our podcast on Instagram and Twitter! https://www.facebook.com/groups/bringinbackpod

#podcast #new episode #music #interview #bringinbackpod

[siriusbx]

Influences 

To be honest, I could probably talk about Sirius all day, he’s definitely my favourite character in both the books and films. Along with Dirk and Barty, he’s also one of my favourites to write.   

Obviously, none of us write an exact copy from the books, but I try my best to keep his fundamental views the same.  He’s really just out here trying his best.  Theres been three fictional characters who have really influenced my Sirius, and helped with muse.  (Luke was actually a close second choice for a fc after Matt.)   

Daryl Dixon is another fave of mine, he’s actually a very complex character, and often zigs when you think he’s going to zag. He’s got a tough exterior, which the show heavily suggests is to do with his background and the way he was raised. If you have never watched the Walking dead, the only person we as viewers meet from Daryl’s life before the outbreak is his brother, who pretty much out right says that their father beat them both.  I think that his experiences actually made him a better person, rather than a worse person.  He’s really a bit of a softie deep down, but could absolutely kill you. 

Like I said, Luke was nearly my choice for a fc, the main reason I ultimately went with Matt was because, I have never watched anything Matt’s in, except for one film.  Still never seen Shadowhunters Whereas, I watched and rewatched Skins several time, especially the second generation. I think Freddie is lost in life, he knows where he wants to be, but he doesn’t know how to get there. His friends are his world.

Okay so.... in terms of Lip, I actually mean the British/Original version of Shameless However, there is basically no gifs of the og Lip.  To me, Lip, along with Ian are the black sheep of the gallaghers. They have the most ambition, but they’re constantly dragged down, especially by Frank.  Again, I’m mostly talking about the UK version, which is a vastly different show.  Theres more of a community feel to the US series, but in the UK one, it’s actually pretty depressing in the middle seasons and Lip ends up leaving because he can’t cope with his family anymore.   Need I say more?

***** In terms of why did I choose Sirius?   Basically because I always wanted to write him, from the canon characters he and Ted are the two I relate to most. Sirius just deserved so much more than he got, which is also why our rp is AU, he definitely isn’t the only one who got a shitty deal. 

Fresh Start Fever - You Me At Six  is his anthem 

#morsmordre: prompts #tw: abuse #Sirius

[mcmansionhell]

Coronagrifting: A Design Phenomenon

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled content to bring you a critical essay on the design world. I promise you that this will also be funny. 

This morning, the design website Dezeen tweeted a link to one of its articles, depicting a plexiglass coronavirus shield that could be suspended above dining areas, with the caption “Reader comment: ‘Dezeen, please stop promoting this stupidity.’”

This, of course, filled many design people, including myself, with a kind of malicious glee. The tweet seemed to show that the website’s editorial (or at least social media) staff retained within themselves a scintilla of self-awareness regarding the spread a new kind of virus in its own right: cheap mockups of COVID-related design “solutions” filling the endlessly scrollable feeds of PR-beholden design websites such as Dezeen, ArchDaily, and designboom. I call this phenomenon: Coronagrifting. 

I’ll go into detail about what I mean by this, but first, I would like to presenet some (highly condensed) history. 

From Paper Architecture to PR-chitecture

Back in the headier days of architecture in the 1960s and 70s, a number of architectural avant gardes (such as Superstudio and Archizoom in Italy and Archigram in the UK) ceased producing, well, buildings, in favor of what critics came to regard as “paper architecture.” This “paper architecture” included everything from sprawling diagrams of megastructures, including cities that “walked” or “never stopped” - to playfully erotic collages involving Chicago’s Marina City. Occasionally, these theoretical and aesthetic explorations were accompanied by real-world productions of “anti-design” furniture that may or may not have involved foam fingers. 

Archigram’s Walking City (1964). Source.

Paper architecture, of course, still exists, but its original radical, critical, playful, (and, yes, even erotic) elements were shed when the last of the ultra-modernists were swallowed up by the emerging aesthetic hegemony of Postmodernism (which was much less invested in theoretical and aesthetic futurism) in the early 1980s. What remained were merely images, the production and consumption of which has only increased as the design world shifted away from print and towards the rapidly produced, easily digestible content of the internet and social media. 

Architect Bjarke Ingels’s “Oceanix” - a mockup of an ecomodernist, luxury city designed in response to rising sea levels from climate change. The city will never be built, and its critical interrogation amounts only to “city with solar panels that floats bc climate change is Serious”  - but it did get Ingels and his firm, BIG, a TED talk and circulation on all of the hottest blogs and websites. Meanwhile, Ingels has been in business talks with the right-wing climate change denialist president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. (Image via designboom) 

Design websites are increasingly dominated by text and mockups from the desks of a firm’s public relations departments, facilitating a transition from the paper-architecture-imaginary to what I have begun calling “PR-chitecture.” In short, PR-chitecture is architecture and design content that has been dreamed up from scratch to look good on instagram feeds or, more simply, for clicks.  It is only within this substance-less, critically lapsed media landscape that Coronagrifting can prosper.

Coronagrifting: An Evolution

As of this writing, the two greatest offenders of Coronagrifting are Dezeen, which has devoted an entire section of its website to the virus (itself offering twelve pages of content since February alone) and designboom, whose coronavirus tag contains no fewer than 159 articles. 

Certainly, a small handful of these stories demonstrate useful solutions to COVID-related problems (such as this one from designboom about a student who created a mask prototype that would allow D/deaf and hard of hearing people to read lips) most of the prototypes and the articles about them are, for a lack of a better word, insipid. 

But where, you may ask, did it all start?

One of the easiest (and, therefore, one of the earliest) Coronagrifts involves “new innovative, health-centric designs tackling problems at the intersection of wearables and personal mobility,” which is PR-chitecture speak for “body shields and masks.” 

Wearables and Post-ables

The first example came from Chinese architect Sun Dayong, back at the end of February 2020, when the virus was still isolated in China. Dayong submitted to Dezeen a prototype of a full mask and body-shield that “would protect a wearer during a coronavirus outbreak by using UV light to sterilise itself.” The project was titled “Be a Bat Man.” No, I am not making this up. 

Screenshot of Dayong’s “Be a Batman” as seen on the Dezeen website. 

Soon after, every artist, architect, designer, and sharp-eyed PR rep at firms and companies only tangentially related to design realized that, with the small investment of a Photoshop mockup and some B-minus marketing text, they too could end up on the front page of these websites boasting a large social media following and an air of legitimacy in the field. 

By April, companies like Apple and Nike were promising the use of existing facilities for producing or supplying an arms race’s worth of slick-tech face coverings. Starchitecture’s perennial PR-churners like Foster + Partners and Bjarke Ingels were repping “3D-printed face shields”, while other, lesser firms promised wearable vaporware like “grapheme filters,” branded “skincare LED masks for encouraging self-development” and “solar powered bubble shields.” 

While the mask Coronagrift continues to this day, the Coronagrifting phenomenon had, by early March, moved to other domains of design. 

Consider the barrage of asinine PR fluff that is the “Public Service Announcement” and by Public Service Announcement, I mean “A Designer Has Done Something Cute to Capitalize on Information Meant to Save Lives.” 

Some of the earliest offenders include cutesy posters featuring flags in the shape of houses, ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home;” a designer building a pyramid out of pillows ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home”; and Banksy making “lockdown artwork” that involved covering his bathroom in images of rats ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home.” 

Lol. Screenshot from Dezeen. 

You may be asking, “What’s the harm in all this, really, if it projects a good message?” And the answer is that people are plenty well encouraged to stay home due to the rampant spread of a deadly virus at the urging of the world’s health authorities, and that these tone-deaf art world creeps are using such a crisis for shameless self promotion and the generation of clicks and income, while providing little to no material benefit to those at risk and on the frontlines.

Of course, like the mask coronagrift, the Public Service Announcement coronagrift continues to this very day. 

The final iteration of Post-able and Wearable Coronagrifting genres are what I call “Passive Aggressive Social Distancing Initiatives” or PASDIs. Many of the first PASDIs were themselves PSAs and art grifts, my favorite of which being the designboom post titled “social distancing applied to iconic album covers like the beatle’s abbey road.” As you can see, we’re dealing with extremely deep stuff here. 

However, an even earlier and, in many ways more prescient and lucrative grift involves “social distancing wearables.” This can easily be summarized by the first example of this phenomenon, published March 19th, 2020 on designboom: 

Never wasting a single moment to capitalize on collective despair, all manner of brands have seized on the social distancing wearable trend, which, again, can best be seen in the last example of the phenomenon, published May 22nd, 2020 on designboom:

We truly, truly live in Hell. 

Which brings us, of course, to living. 

“Architectural Interventions” for a “Post-COVID World”

As soon as it became clear around late March and early April that the coronavirus (and its implications) would be sticking around longer than a few months, the architectural solutions to the problem came pouring in. These, like the virus itself, started at the scale of the individual and have since grown to the scale of the city. (Whether or not they will soon encompass the entire world remains to be seen.) 

The architectural Coronagrift began with accessories (like the designboom article about 3D-printed door-openers that enable one to open a door with one’s elbow, and the Dezeen article about a different 3D-printed door-opener that enables one to open a door with one’s elbow) which, in turn, evolved into “work from home” furniture (”Stykka designs cardboard #StayTheF***Home Desk for people working from home during self-isolation”) which, in turn, evolved into pop-up vaporware architecture for first responders (”opposite office proposes to turn berlin's brandenburg airport into COVID-19 'superhospital'”), which, in turn evolved into proposals for entire buildings (”studio prototype designs prefabricated 'vital house' to combat COVID-19″); which, finally, in turn evolved into “urban solutions” aimed at changing the city itself (a great article summarizing and criticizing said urban solutions was recently written by Curbed’s Alissa Walker).

There is something truly chilling about an architecture firm, in order to profit from attention seized by a global pandemic, logging on to their computers, opening photoshop, and drafting up some lazy, ineffectual, unsanitary mockup featuring figures in hazmat suits carrying a dying patient (macabrely set in an unfinished airport construction site) as a real, tangible solution to the problem of overcrowded hospitals; submitting it to their PR desk for copy, and sending it out to blogs and websites for clicks, knowing full well that the sole purpose of doing so consists of the hope that maybe someone with lots of money looking to commission health-related interiors will remember that one time there was a glossy airport hospital rendering on designboom and hire them. 

Enough, already. 

Frankly, after an endless barrage of cyberpunk mask designs, social distancing burger king crowns, foot-triggered crosswalk beg buttons that completely ignore accessibility concerns such as those of wheelchair users, cutesy “stay home uwu” projects from well-to-do art celebrities (who are certainly not suffering too greatly from the economic ramifications of this pandemic), I, like the reader featured in the Dezeen Tweet at the beginning of this post, have simply had enough of this bullshit. 

What’s most astounding to me about all of this (but especially about #brand crap like the burger king crowns) is that it is taken completely seriously by design establishments that, despite being under the purview of PR firms, should frankly know better. I’m sure that Bjarke Ingels and Burger King aren’t nearly as affected by the pandemic as those who have lost money, jobs, stability, homes, and even their lives at the hands of COVID-19 and the criminally inept national and international response to it. On the other hand, I’m sure that architects and designers are hard up for cash at a time when nobody is building and buying anything, and, as a result, many see resulting to PR-chitecture as one of the only solutions to financial problems. 

However, I’m also extremely sure that there are interventions that can be made at the social, political, and organizational level, such as campaigning for paid sick leave, organizing against layoffs and for decent severance or an expansion of public assistance, or generally fighting the rapidly accelerating encroachment of work into all aspects of everyday life – that would bring much more good and, dare I say, progress into the world than a cardboard desk captioned with the hashtag #StaytheF***Home. 

Hence, I’ve spent most of my Saturday penning this article on my blog, McMansion Hell. I’ve chosen to run this here because I myself have lost work as a freelance writer, and the gutting of publications down to a handful of editors means that, were I to publish this story on another platform, it would have resulted in at least a few more weeks worth of inflatable, wearable, plexiglass-laden Coronagrifting, something my sanity simply can no longer withstand. 

So please, Dezeen, designboom, others – I love that you keep daily tabs on what architects and designers are up to, a resource myself and other critics and design writers find invaluable – however, I am begging, begging you to start having some discretion with regards to the proposals submitted to you as “news” or “solutions” by brands and firms, and the cynical, ulterior motives behind them. If you’re looking for a guide on how to screen such content, please scroll up to the beginning of this page. 

----

If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to my Patreon, as I didn’t get paid to write it.  

#architecture #design #coronavirus #dezeen #designboom #capitalism

[mickeygifs]

i think uk shameless really speaks more to british people and us shameless speaks more to americans because i relate a lot to uk!fiona's struggles while my partner who is american only swears by US shameless. it shows two very different versions of poverty which are extremely anchored in where these characters live and their social and politic environment. but i also think a lot of the US actors are better than the brits

exactly!! i completely agree

#us one also probably had a bigger budget which made for better actors and a better show overall

[hireath24]

Everything Wrong with ACOFAS: A Rant  Part One

Disclaimer: These page numbers come from the UK paperback edition of A Court of Frost and Starlight. This is my own personal opinion of the book - the writing, the grammar, the characters, etc. I won’t be commenting on anything that may have been plagiarized or has been ripped off from the history of other cultures as SJM has a tendency to do. If you disagree with my opinions, I’m sorry and hope you see the error in your ways. 

Page 1: ‘...with a heady cup of tea.’ First of all... heady? Is Feyre spiking her morning tea with alcohol? Someone tell me.

Page 3: ‘I was still new enough to being a High Lady’ see, this is what I cannot understand. Even when I used to enjoy the books, I don’t get why Feyre was made a High Lady?? She has had no training, has no idea how to run a country and, when Rhysand first met her, she couldn’t even read nor write. And if Rhys cares so much about his court and the safety of his people, why put her in charge? THEY DIDN’T EVEN KNOW EACH OTHER FOR TWO YEARS WHEN HE DECIDED TO MAKE HER A HIGH LADY! HOW COULD HE TRUST HER ENOUGH TO SHARE OWNERSHIP OF HIS COURT?! 

Page 4: ‘Working had helped. Both of us.’ I’m convinced that this book was spell checked and then sent out for printing, lord help me.

Page 5: ‘It’s more for those who wish to honor the light’s rebirth, usually by spending the entire night sitting in absolute darkness.’ This is actually a pretty interesting concept. I would have loved to see the Inner Circle honor this tradition and maybe have a midnight dance where they all wear black clothing and we learn more about their culture but it was ruined by the need for pointless smut and bickering.

Page 5: ‘I donned the heavy charcoal sweater and the tight black leggings.’ Why is she wearing a sweater? Why is she wearing leggings? Is this not a fantasy novel? 

Page 6: ‘the heavy, wicked-looking mace that Rhys had somehow dumped beside the desk without my noticing.’ Look at the feminist hiding big weapons in his bedroom without asking his wife first. Ooooh. Also... Why does he even need weapons? And why in the bedroom? I was of the impression that the war was over?

Page 7: So SJM wants us all to think that Rhysand is this amazing ruler who would do anything for his people and is The Best High Lord but... ‘the court budget that Rhys never really cared to follow.’ Ahem. Also, what budget? Where are they getting their money from? Why is the Night Court the best court and why do they have so much money? Tell me how this works.

Page 11: Okay so this is in Rhysand’s POV and, to be honest, it’s so different from the tone he uses when we see him from Feyre’s POV? His thought process reads eerily like Feyre’s. Also, Rhys supposedly frees ‘old or young’ women from having to do ‘drudgery’ work and this basic act of inhuman decency shows us how woke of a person he is? 

Page 14: ‘buried inside her.’ Edit: Oh, dear High Lord, he said it twice.

Page 15: Rhysand’s cock is this magical thing that deserves its own religion and yet the big man can climax at a laugh. Wow. Also,they have sex in the sky and Feyre laughs when they nearly crash into someone’s roof? Isn’t that a bit insensitive considering they have to ‘rebuild Verlaris after the attacks’? THIS IS A YA BOOK. WHY IS RHYSAND CONSTANTLY THINKING ABOUT SEX AND FEYRE BEING ‘bent over’ A KITCHEN TABLE?! Also Feyre said that the house was getting too crowded with everyone there so when the fuck did they do that

Page 16: ‘We can’t kill our way out of this one.’ What an amazing ruler.

Page 18: ‘Cassian and my mate’s sister...’ Why can’t he just say Feyre? Honestly, this is so clunky and it just takes me right out of the scene. We get it! You’re mates! They go on about being mates as much as vegans go on about being... Do I really have to explain where I was going with this

Also, Rhysand tends to say things and then explain the reasoning behind what he said in his thought process. Which is basically a really crappy method for info-dumping. And it’s boring.

Page 19: ‘She’ll be there,’ I said, grinding my teeth,’ Honestly the way Nesta is treated is so terrible. Not only morally but also from a writing viewpoint: SJM can’t write a good, morally gray character and so she makes the MC hate Nesta to make her look like the bad guy.

Page 20: ‘It indeed would.’ Why does the indeed need to be there? It doesn’t. In fact, the line (about violence breaking out if Cassian spoke to Nesta about accepting a job that Rhys offered her) would be much more effective if the indeed... wasn’t there.

Page 20: ‘Your mother was 18 to your father’s nine hundred.’ I just- What? How does the aging system work for Fae? Also ew?? Just to put that into perspective: If I were to date Chaucer, he would only be 700 years old. 

Page 22: I’m wondering why Cassian’s POV is in third person when Feyre and Rhys’s POV is in first... And why does every character have to rave about how great Feyre and Rhys are? You can’t tell me that every single character thinks that they are the entire bee’s leg. That’s so boring to read about. These people are cardboard.

Page 26: Why is the mountain called Ramiel? Like, I get that people name mountains but why is it called that when it is older than ‘the first ruler of the Night Court’? I would like history, please.

Page 27: Cassian has burned an entire village to ‘only cinders and debris’ and he never faces any repercussions of that? Rhysand’s ruling feels very biased but go off, I guess.

Page 32: Feyre’s POV again and ‘I’d indeed braved the walk’ WHAT IS THIS OBSESSION WITH THAT WORD?! It doesn’t mean anything. It’s a filler word that shouldn’t be there and should only ever be used sparingly. This book shouldn’t be over 200 pages. 

Page 32: ‘Stop importing goods from other courts because it impacts local artisans’ What goods? What court are they trading with? How does it impact local artisans? And impacts what? Their money? Their general happiness? Their time?

Page 32: ‘And I now did, too.’ 

Page 34: ‘Indeed, the buildings around it...’ WHAT THE FUCK IS UP

Page 35: ‘On her pale green skin’ Why do some people have these skin tones and others don’t? I would have loved to see Rhysand look a little more magical. If his eyes weren’t violet but literally the night sky. No sclera. I would love to see Feyre’s appearance change when every single court gave her a drop of their power. That would have been amazing. But nope. 

Page 38: SJM has this shameless thing for cheesy lines. This is a personal nitpick of mine but saying things like ‘What do you paint? The things that need telling.’ and ‘Let’s make this a fight worthy of a song.’ Said by Aedion in the Throne of Glass series is just... It rubs me the wrong way, I don’t know why. It feels like a cliche and also like she’s trying too hard? I don’t know

Page 39: ‘...Without summoning a flame would be handy indeed.’ Guys, I have a new drinking game. 

Page 40: I stand by my theory that Amren is an asexual dragon forced to take the skin of a girl when she jumped between worlds.

Page 40: Also, how are people finding these jewels? Are there mines? Are some jewels native to certain courts and they have a trade agreement? 

Page 41: When thinking about the disaster that was Mor’s ‘coming out scene’ Feyre doesn’t use the term ‘coming out’ once. It’s just ‘what she told me.’ WHY? 

Page 44: I think this has been touched on before but what exactly is the Court of Nightmares? It’s a subcourt for the Night Court but... Does every court have that? And why? Do they have to do the same amount of work as the Night Court? Do they have to do any work? 

I was going to divide this rant to 50 pages for each one but I don’t want to start a new chapter and my battery is dying. Part 2 will be up soon. Edit: Part 2 can be found here and Part 3 can be found here. Part 4 can be found here.

#anti sjm #anti sarah j maas #anti acofas #anti acotar #anti feysand #anti acowar #anti acomaf #anti feyre #anti rhysand #anti tog #anti rowaelin #long posts #my post

[laurenkmyers]

I live in the UK, and other than the fact that we're currently in lockdown, I'm not sure what the difference is when it comes to UK and USA filming. Shameless for example are filming without social distancing on camera and are tested for Covid daily. Wonder why Eastenders aren't doing the same.

I’m not exactly the best person to ask, but what I do know is that filming a tv show is a lot different to filming a soap. Soaps are continuous. Eastenders hadn’t really been off-air (apart from lockdown) for 30 years. TV shows are filmed in a matter of months. So to have a continuous/unlimited supply of covid tests on hand for every member of the cast and crew is unrealistic. Which is why social distancing is in play for Eastenders and other soaps.

Also, the US Government are a lot more lax on their covid procedures because Trump is a despicable ‘human being’ who, even after allegedly having it himself, still doesn’t take the virus seriously. Whereas BoJo (who is just as bad as Trump in terms of not taking it seriously enough) has had to take another route to lower numbers, and has forced us all back into lockdown, masks are mandatory, and social distancing is advised. The two countries are very different and are handling things, both terribly, but in different ways. 

Again, I’m not the expert so I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, but does this make things any clearer??

#eastenders #soaps #uk #filming #Anonymous

[shamelessus11x1]

Shameless (US) | Season 11 Episode 1 | This is Chicago! | Showtime

Watch Shameless (US) (Season 11 Episode 1) : Full_Episodes ⇨ One way to watch StreamiNG !!! ⇨ Enjoy watching! Series Online Complete! ⇨ Watch Shameless (US) [S11E1] Full Online ➤➤ https://bit.ly/3qvygVu

〘 4K UHD | HD-1080p | HD-720p | SD-480p | MP4 〙

Title : Shameless (US) Season 11 Episode 1 Genre : Drama, Comedy Air Date : 2020-12-06 Network : Showtime Casts : Ethan Cutkosky, Cameron Monaghan, Christian Isaiah, Shanola Hampton, Emma Kenney, Steve Howey, Jeremy Allen White, William H. Macy

Sipnosis

The Gallaghers adjust to life during the pandemic: Frank fears the loss of the South Side to gentrification, while bar closures force Kev and V to get creative at the Alibi. Sleep-deprived Lip and Tami work to make their new house a home as Carl finishes his time at the police academy. Debbie becomes her own boss and deals with the repercussions of her statutory rape conviction of 17-year-old Julia. Ian and Mickey’s honeymoon phase is over as they have very different ideas about what married life would be.

Storyline

Based on the UK drama, Shameless, the series follows the exploits of an alcoholic patriarch and his large, blue-collar family. Set in working-class Chicago, the Gallagher family, a working class family of eight, must survive the ups and downs of today's recession. With a mother who is out of her element and an alcoholic father who usually ends up passed out on the living room floor, 18-year-old daughter Fiona is left with the task of keeping her five younger brothers and sisters on the straight and narrow. This series is based on the UK series of the same name.

❍❍❍ Definition and Definition of Film / Movie ❍❍❍

While the players who play a role in the film are referred to as actors (men) or actresses (women). There is also the term extras that are used as supporting characters with few roles in the film. This is different from the main actors who have bigger and more roles. Being an actor and an actress must be demanded to have good acting talent, which is in accordance with the theme of the film he is starring in. In certain scenes, the actor’s role can be replaced by a stuntman or a stuntman. The existence of a stuntman is important to replace the actors doing scenes that are difficult and extreme, which are usually found in action action films. Films can also be used to convey certain messages from the filmmaker. Some industries also use film to convey and represent their symbols and culture. Filmmaking is also a form of expression, thoughts, ideas, concepts, feelings and moods of a human being visualized in film. The film itself is mostly a fiction, although some are based on fact true stories or based on a true story. There are also documentaries with original and real pictures, or biographical films that tell the story of a character. There are many other popular genre films, ranging from action films, horror films, comedy films, romantic films, fantasy films, thriller films, drama films, science fiction films, crime films, documentaries and others. That’s a little information about the definition of film or movie. The information was quoted from various sources and references. Hope it can be useful.

❍❍❍ TV MOVIE ❍❍❍

The first television shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within a very short range from the broadcast tower starting in the 11930s. Televised events such as the 11931 Summer Olympics in Germany, the 119340 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famous introduction at the 11939 New York World’s Fair in the US spurred a growth in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 119440 World MOVIE inspired many Americans to buy their first television set and then in 11948, the popular radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “Mr Television” and demonstrating that the medium was a stable, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The first national live television broadcast in the US took place on September 4, 119511 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets. The first national color broadcast (the 11954 Tournament of Roses Parade) in the US occurred on January 11, 11954. During the following ten years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white. A color transition was announced for the fall of 11915, during which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 1194011, the last holdout among daytime network shows converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season.

❍❍❍ Formats and Genres ❍❍❍

See also: List of genres § Film and television formats and genres Television shows are more varied than most other forms of media due to the wide variety of formats and genres that can be presented. A show may be fictional (as in comedies and dramas), or non-fictional (as in documentary, news, and reality television). It may be topical (as in the case of a local newscast and some made-for-television films), or historical (as in the case of many documentaries and fictional MOVIE). They could be primarily instructional or educational, or entertaining as is the case in situation comedy and game shows.[citation needed] A drama program usually features a set of actors playing characters in a historical or contemporary setting. The program follows their lives and adventures. Before the 11980s, shows (except for soap opera-type serials) typically remained static without story arcs, and the main characters and premise changed little.[citation needed] If some change happened to the characters’ lives during the episode, it was usually undone by the end. Because of this, the episodes could be broadcast in any order.[citation needed] Since the 11980s, many MOVIE feature progressive change in the plot, the characters, or both. For instance, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere were two of the first American prime time drama television MOVIE to have this kind of dramatic structure,[4][better source needed] while the later MOVIE Babylon 5 further exemplifies such structure in that it had a predetermined story running over its intended five-season run.[citation needed] In “DC11&”, it was reported that television was growing into a larger component of major media companies’ revenues than film.[5] Some also noted the increase in quality of some television programs. In “DC11&”, Academy-Award-winning film director Steven Soderbergh, commenting on ambiguity and complexity of character and narrative, stated: “I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that people who want to see stories that have those kinds of qualities are watching television. Find all the movies that you can stream online, including those that were screened this week. If you are wondering what you can watch on this website, then you should know that it covers genres that include crime, Science, Fi-Fi, action, romance, thriller, Comedy, drama and Anime Movie. Thank you very much. We tell everyone who is happy to receive us as news or information about this year’s film schedule and how you watch your favorite films. Hopefully we can become the best partner for you in finding recommendations for your favorite movies. That’s all from us, greetings!

#Shameless (US) #Shameless (US) Season 11 #Shameless (US) Season 11 Episode 1 #television #series #Drama #Comedy #Showtime

[h-styles-babes]

Harry Styles Blurb/Request #7

I had a request a little while ago to do some prompts from a list I posted on my blog. I’m not sure if the person who requested them wants me to tag them in this, since they PM’d me instead of sending an ask, so I’ll leave them unmentioned unless they request to be tagged. Anyway, thank you so much for the request, darling! I’m slowly working my way through the other requests I got from that list. Onward!

24. “It’s six o’clock in the morning, you’re not having vodka.” & “Don’t argue, just do it.”

Harry Styles was pretty much a household name. He was famous for his rise in One Direction, then for his extraordinary solo career and his phenomenal performance in an Oscar-winning film. He was seen as pretty much the nicest person in Hollywood—or anywhere, really—and you would be hard pressed to find a person with something bad to say about him. He donated millions to charities, he went out of his way to fulfill as many Make-a-Wish requests as possible, he never said a bad word to anyone, even those damn paparazzi that harassed him on the daily, and he was the first celebrity you’d worked with that always shook hands with everyone present when he walked into a room. You’d never met anyone like him before, and you honestly didn’t want to work for anyone else ever again.

Being his personal assistant, though, you saw a different side to Harry than the general public saw. That didn’t mean you admired him any less, because he’d never done anything or asked you to do anything that was questionable or shady. He was exactly the same as he portrayed himself to the public as he was in his private day-to-day life. Except he was much weirder than anyone who didn’t personally know him would ever expect, she believed. And he was much more the typical early twenty-something male than people probably would like to believe. He certainly didn’t party as much as he used to, but he could still get drunk with the best of them, and he was currently the most drunk Y/N had seen him in a long time.

It was post-tour, and they had just arrived back in the UK from being in Italy for about two weeks. While it had been mostly a vacation for Y/N, since there wasn’t much planning to their trip, aside from when he went on his fancy yacht trip, she had been there to make sure Harry was where he was supposed to be when they weren’t wandering around town or lounging on the beach. Now that they were back on their home turf, there weren’t many obligations Harry had, so there really wasn’t any reason for Y/N to be with him often. She spent most of her day in her own flat, catching up on the shows she’d missed out on while touring the world with Harry and the rest of his crew. Season eight of Shameless had just been released on Shameless, so she had every intention of finishing all twelve episodes in a few days before she was back to searching for something else to do with her downtime. She was positive Harry would be back to filling his schedule within a few weeks, so she was going to enjoy it while she could.

She’d only been out of Harry’s presence for fifty-four hours when she got a phone call from him on a Friday night, or Saturday morning, rather. It was nearing four in the morning, and she was on the last episode of Shameless, and she was determined to finish it. She wasn’t really even tired, since she’d been lounging around all day drinking coffee and sitting in front of a fan while streaming her show from her laptop to her telly.

Y/N paused her show and answered right away. If Harry was calling her in the middle of the night, it must have been something serious, and she had better answer. Or he could be calling to ask her if she wanted to go with him to the taco place a few blocks over that was open until two in the morning because he was craving horchata and cilantro. (He had called her just after midnight after his first show in LA back in July, with a real hankering for King Taco. There were only two in all of California, and while he’d heard the one somewhere in the Inland Empire was good, he knew the original one in LA was the best. It was necessary for his stay in LA. And who was Y/N to deny her boss his craving for Mexican food in the middle of the night? She wasn’t a monster, after all.)

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she’d answered.

“Y/N?” That definitely wasn’t Harry, and Y/N sat up in her seat, suddenly more alert than she had been.

“Mitch? Why have yeh got Harry’s phone?”

“Harry is beyond drunk. I’d take him back to his place myself, but the car’s full. And I don’t want to send him home alone. Who knows if he’d actually even get there.”

That was the most Y/N had heard Mitch utter at once in the entire time she’d known him, so she knew Harry must have been in a state. She could hear yelling in the background that sounded distinctly like Harry, and Mitch shushed him and told him he was on the phone. Harry giggled and made a slurred shushing sound, and Y/N could just imagine him pressing his forefinger to his pursed lips. She smiled.

“Where are you lot at?” she asked, already reaching to slip her trainers on, once that Harry bought for her when they were in America. They were just Vans, but he had a matching pair, and she had been endeared by his excitement when he revealed them to her before one of his shows. He had been so happy that he’d gotten her shoe size correct without even having to ask her.

“Just a pub a few blocks from Harry’s place.”

That was all the information Y/N needed to know exactly where it was that Harry was. It was a low-key, quiet pub that was a lot like the ones he’d gone to in Holmes Chapel, he had told her. He preferred it to the loud clubs that were more popular in London because it was familiar and more his speed than the thumping music and writhing mass of bodies that came along with larger clubs. She’d been to it many times with him, enjoying the ambience of the wooden floors and glossy top of the bar. She knew the location well.

“Be there in ten. Hold tight and make sure he doesn’t do anything to hurt himself. Lord knows he’s a clumsy drunk.”

As promised, Y/N pulled up into the car park of the pub ten minutes later, not having changed out of her pajama shorts and tank top. She hadn’t even thought to put a bra on, and she was regretting it now as she stepped out into the chilly London night. That was the last thing on her mind when she saw Harry, though, leaned up against the side of Sarah’s car, looking like he was giggling uncontrollably as Mitch made sure he stood upright.

When Mitch caught sight of her, a look of relief passed over his face. She jogged up to them and slid Harry’s arm around her shoulder, attempting to take some of his weight so Mitch didn’t have to work as hard.

“I know you’re technically taking time off. I couldn't think of who else to call, though.”

Y/N brushed him off. “I’m his PA, I don’t really have time off.”

“Button!” Harry shouted when he finally opened his eyes enough to spot Y/N talking to Mitch. Apparently, he hadn’t fully realised that he’d had his arm slung around her as she helped Mitch steady him. He tightened his arm around her and squeezed her into his side in a sort of hug-cuddle.

“Hi, H. Had a bit to drink, yeah?” she greeted, flashing him a smile.

Harry raised his free hand and pinched his forefinger and thumb together. “Just a little.”

“From what I saw, he had several shots of tequila and a few mixed drinks. But I wasn’t with him the whole time,” Mitch informed her.

“Fabulous,” she muttered. Telling from how far his lids had lulled, he was incredibly inebriated, more so than she’d ever seen him, as far as she could recall. “Well, thanks for callin’ me, Mitch. Thanks for takin’ care of him. I’ll get him home.”

“Don’t wanna go home. Wanna go to yours.” Harry looked down at her with bleary eyes and pouted.

“Don’t yeh wanna sleep in your own bed?” Y/N enticed, sending a nod Mitch’s way when he gave her a look that asked if she had it handled. When she confirmed, Mitch made his way toward the driver’s side of his car, and Y/N started ushering Harry across to her car.

“Nope. Wanna cuddle up with yeh in your bed. So soft and warm, petal.”

“Oh, boy,” Y/N chuckled. Harry was typically a very affectionate man, but it was at a whole new level when he was drunk.

He was a touchy fellow, too, so the way he was nuzzling his nose into her head was no surprise to her. She couldn’t deny the way her tummy fluttered at his little gestures, but she quickly squashed it down. She was his PA for Christ’s sake. He paid her to be around him and figure out his life. She would deny it to anyone else, but she couldn’t deny it to herself that she fancied him a bit. It was nothing major, she’d convinced herself, just a bit of schoolgirl crush on him, because he was undeniably attractive and she knew how incredibly kind and lovely he was personally. She’d properly dealt with it for years now, so she let little things like his cuddling and hugs and terms of affection slide right off her back. It may have smarted a little, but she did it.

“Please? Don’t wanna go to sleep alone,” he pouted.

“I’ll stay with yeh until yeh fall asleep,” Y/N promised. She’d never slept with Harry before, aside from the odd time or two when they’d fallen asleep on a couch together, and they usually just ended up with their heads on each other’s shoulders. Y/N knew Harry was a cuddler, and she didn’t know how that would go over when he was asleep in a proper bed. Plus, she was his employee. Sleeping in a bed together wasn’t exactly appropriate.

“Don’t wanna wake up alone, either,” he argued. They had finally reached Y/N’s car, and she quickly flung the door open and started guiding Harry into the passenger seat. She glanced around quickly to make sure there weren’t any odd fans or paparazzi lingering about, trying to snap pictures of Harry in his extremely intoxicated state, but the parking lot was empty, and the people who were walking by were uninterested in Y/N trying to get a drunkard home.

“How about I take yeh home, put yeh to bed, and I’ll stay in a guest room?” Y/N offered, knowing Harry wouldn’t quit until he got his way. He was stubborn by nature, and his drunk mind had no way of tampering it down like he did when he was sober.

He huffed as Y/N reached across him to buckle him in. “Fine.”

She smiled at him before shutting the door with a sigh. She had a long night ahead of her.

Y/N figured it would be easy enough to get Harry up to bed, and sound asleep within ten minutes of walking in the door. She had been sorely mistaken.

Harry wanted something to eat when they got to his house, so Y/N had obliged him and made him an egg white omelet with some veggies he already had cut up and topped it with hot sauce. He’d sat with a content little smile on his face as he ate it and Y/N made herself a cup of tea. It had already been a late night and the time she’d been awake for the day was starting to wear on her. She was sure she’d be asleep by the time her head eventually hit the pillow in Harry’s cushy guest room.

She’d began to gather him to go upstairs, but he’d insisted on getting himself something to drink. Thinking he was just going to pour himself a glass of water, Y/N had left him to go in search of a charger for her phone, which was nearly dead. When she came back three minutes later, he had a very large bottle of vodka in his hand, the other trying to steady a glass as he attempted to pour. With a groan, Y/N darted over and grabbed both objects from him, dancing out of his reach as he protested.

“It’s six o’clock in the morning, you’re not having vodka,” she told him, capping the bottle and pouring the bit he’d managed to get into the cup down the sink.

“Oi, that’s expensive liquor,” he protested, trying to grab for it again, boxing her into the counter with his body.

“Don’t care. S’not like yeh can’t afford it.”

“Not the point,” he grumbled, pouting as Y/N filled up the glass with water. She turned in his arm, presenting him with the glass with a smile.

“Drink that down now, then head up to your room and get changed. I’ll bring another glass up to yeh in case yeh get thirsty while you’re sleepin’.”

“I don’t need t—”

“Don’t argue, just do it,” she reprimanded, using her mothering voice. It worked on every man she came across that needed a little forceful direction, and Harry was no different. He pouted, but he did as she said, downing the glass in a few gulps before handing it back to her and turning to head up the stairs.

Y/N took the time to refill his glass and find a few paracetamol tablets and clean up her mess from cooking in order to give him time to get undressed and under the covers in peace. For all the times Y/N had seen Harry in just his pants, it had never been when it was just the two of them in his bedroom, and she really did not want to experience that right then. It was one thing to see him nearly naked while she was helping him get into a suit for a show or a photoshoot, but it would have been entirely different if he was plastered and in his own home, trying to get into bed.

Luckily, when she made it up to his room, he was already tucked under a sheet, only his chest and shoulders visible, nearly asleep. He smiled sleepily when he saw her, and she returned it as she set the pills and his water on the nightstand.

“Don’t need to puke or anythin’, do yeh?” she asked, mostly teasing. She was sure Harry could hold his liquor, but he had consumed quite a bit from what she’d gathered from Mitch, so she just wanted to be sure. She couldn’t have her boss choking on his own vomit and dying in the middle of the night. She’d feel awful, not to mention she’d never get hired again.

“Nope. Feel fine, just fuzzy,” he told her, closing his eyes completely.

“Did yeh brush your teeth?” she asked. “Wash your face?”

He peeked one eye open at her, pouting out his lips. “Yes, mum.”

Y/N smiled. “Good. I’ll be down the hall if yeh need anything. Goodnight, Haz.”

“Yeh sure yeh don’t want to cuddle up with me? M’bed’s comfy.”

While the slur to his words should have sent Y/N instantly scurrying away, afraid of the possible turns this conversation could take, she stayed rooted in her spot beside his bed. His offer was tempting, but Y/N was very aware of their separation as employer and employee. And drunk Harry wasn’t someone who’s suggestions she typically took seriously, because they were often ridiculous. This was the same man who thought jumping into the stream that ran around the bungalow they’d stayed in in Jamaica at nearly two in the morning was a good idea.

Eventually, Y/N sighed and flashed him a closed mouth smile. “Be good, Harry. Go to bed, sleep this off, and I’ll see yeh when yeh wake up.”

Harry pouted and muttered back a goodnight as she flicked off the lights and headed to the guest bedroom that she used when she stayed over. They’d had many late nights planning his schedule together, having powwows with Jeff and Harry’s label trying to nail down touring and a promo schedule and any other events he needed to attend. These lasted well into the night, and Harry was always concerned about people driving back so late, so there were always rooms available to those who wanted it. He was a very thoughtful host, and Y/N was very thankful for it.

The first rays of sunlight were already slotting through the cracked blinds when she settled into the bed finally. She pulled the curtains to ensure nothing would wake her up unnecessarily before nestling herself down into the plushy pillows and bedding the mattress was dressed with. She was so comfortable and so exhausted from the events of the last few hours that she fell asleep only moments after she closed her eyes.

Her last thought was that she hoped Harry would take the pain relievers she left out for him and not remember anything that he suggested tonight in the morning. It was enough that she would have to live with the memory. She didn’t need Harry walking around with it too.

Y/N wasn’t sure what hour it was when she became conscious again. The room was dim from the blinds, but she felt rested enough, so she supposed it was probably early afternoon. She had every intention of reaching out and taking a look at her phone for the time, but she was stopped when she realised there was an extra weight on her.

There was an arm slung across her waist and another one under her neck, acting as a pillow. A warm body was pressed against her back and she could distinctly feel the puff of breath against the back of her head, lightly rustling her hair.

Y/N knew it was Harry. Which was a relief of sorts, but her body also tensed with the realisation. When had he gotten in here? How had she not noticed that he’d curled up in bed with her? Had he realised what he’d done, or had it been executed in a drunken stupor?

Whatever the answers, Y/N wasn’t waiting around to find out. She couldn’t deal with this. She couldn’t deal with whatever awkwardness that would ensure once Harry awoke to find them in the same bed together. Drunk Harry’s wants and Sober Harry’s wants were on two completely different spectrums, she reckoned.

So, as carefully as she could, so as not to disturb Harry too much, she slipped out of bed, put her shoes back on, grabbed her phone, and dashed out of the room. She was in her car back on her way to her house in five minutes, her heart beating erratically and her palms a bit sweaty.

She hoped Harry was drunk enough the night before to block out memories of what exactly happened. Y/N didn’t need this affecting her relationship with her boss. She loved Harry, but her job was more important than her emotions.

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[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Electronic Music Styles - Electronic Music

Acid Jazz

The music played by a generation raised on jazz as well as funk and hip-hop, Acid Jazz used elements of all three; its existence as a percussion-heavy, primarily live music placed it closer to jazz and Afro-Cuban than any other dance style, but its insistence on keeping the groove allied it with funk, hip-hop, and dance music. The term itself first appeared in 1988 as both an American record label and the title of an English compilation series that reissued jazz-funk music from the ’70s, called “rare groove” by the Brits during a major mid-’80s resurgence. A variety of acid jazz artists emerged during the late ’80s and early ’90s: live bands such as Stereo MC’s, James Taylor Quartet, the Brand New Heavies, Groove Collective, Galliano, and Jamiroquai, as well as studio projects like Palm Skin Productions, Mondo Grosso, Outside, and United Future Organization.

Acid Techno

When the squelch of mid-’80s acid house music was given time to sink into the minds of impressionable youths, they became quite influenced by the sound. Many who began to make music in the early ’90s applied the sound to harder techno instead of the warm sounds of classic Chicago house. Quite similar to early German trance, Acid Techno includes the earlier recordings of Aphex Twin, Plastikman, and Dave Clarke, among others.

Alternative Rap

Alternative Rap refers to hip-hop groups that refuse to conform to any of the traditional stereotypes of rap, such as gangsta, funk, bass, hardcore, and party rap. Instead, they blur genres, drawing equally from funk and pop/rock, as well as jazz, soul, reggae, and even folk. Though Arrested Development and the Fugees managed to cross over into the mainstream, most alternative rap groups are embraced primarily by alternative rock fans, not hip-hop or pop audiences.

Ambient music evolved from the experimental electronic music of ’70s synth-based artists like Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, and the trance-like techno dance music of the ’80s. Ambient is a spacious, electronic music that is concerned with sonic texture, not songwriting or composing. It’s frequently repetitive and it all sounds the same to the casual listener, even though there are quite significant differences between the artists. Ambient became a popular cult music in the early ’90s, thanks to ambient techno artists like the Orb and Aphex Twin.

Ambient Breakbeat

Ambient Breakbeat refers to a narrow subgenre of electronic acts with less energy than the trip-hop or funky breaks, but with a pronounced hip-hop influence to their music. Some of the more downtempo works on British labels like Mo’Wax and Ninja Tune paved the way for New York’s DJ Wally (of the Liquid Sky Records brigade) and British artists such as Req, each good examples of the style.

Ambient Dub

Coined by the Beyond label for its compilation series of the same name, Ambient Dub has since been generalized by artists, critics, and audiences alike to refer to any form of rhythmic, usually beat-oriented ambient using the tastes, textures, and techniques of Jamaican dub-style production (e.g. reverb, emphasis on bass and percussion, heavy use of effects). Although the term has fallen out of favor due to the fevered intermingling of styles characteristic of post-rave electronica, it remains useful in demarcating the denser, more electronic applications of dub from the more hip-hop derived styles of downtempo, atmospheric beat music. Artists include the Orb, Higher Intelligence Agency, Sub Dub, Techno Animal, Automaton, and Solar Quest.

Ambient House

An early categorical marker used to distinguish newer wave ambient artists such as the Orb, the KLF, Irresistible Force, Future Sound of London, and Orbital, Ambient House was often applied indiscriminately to designate dance music not necessarily just for dancing. In its more rigorous application, ambient house implied music appropriating certain primary elements of acid house music-mid-tempo, four-on-the-floor beats; synth pads and strings; soaring vocal samples-used in a dreamier, more atmospheric fashion. It’s since been replaced (or rather, some would argue, complicated) by a barrage of more specific terms and is rarely used.

Ambient Pop

Ambient Pop combines elements of the two distinct styles which lend the blissed-out genre its name-while the music possesses a shape and form common to conventional pop, its electronic textures and atmospheres mirror the hypnotic, meditative qualities of ambient. The mesmerizing lock-groove melodies of Kraut-rock are a clear influence as well, although ambient pop is typically much less abrasive. Essentially an extension of the dream pop that emerged in the wake of the shoegazer movement, it’s set apart from its antecedents by its absorption of contemporary electronic idioms, including sampling, although for the most part live instruments continue to define the sound.

Ambient Techno

A rarefied, more specific reorientation of ambient house, Ambient Techno is usually applied to artists such as B12, early Aphex Twin, the Black Dog, Higher Intelligence Agency, and Biosphere. It distinguished artists who combined the melodic and rhythmic approaches of techno and electro-use of 808 and 909 drum machines; well-produced, thin-sounding electronics; minor-key melodies and alien-sounding samples and sounds-with the soaring, layered, aquatic atmospheres of beatless and experimental ambient. Most often associated with labels such as Apollo, GPR, Warp, and Beyond, the terminology morphed into “intelligent techno” after Warp released its Artificial Intelligence series (although the music’s stylistic references remained largely unchanged).

Bass Music

Springing from the fertile dance scenes in Miami (freestyle) and Detroit (electro) during the mid-’80s, Bass Music brought the funky-breaks aesthetic of the ’70s into the digital age with drum-machine frequencies capable of pulverizing the vast majority of unsuspecting car or club speakers. Early Miami pioneers like 2 Live Crew and DJ Magic Mike pushed the style into its distinctive booty obsession, and Detroit figures like DJ Assault, DJ Godfather, and DJ Bone melded it with techno to create an increasingly fast-paced music. Bass music even flirted with the charts during the early ’90s, as 95 South’s “Whoot (There It Is)” and 69 Boyz’ “Tootsee Roll” both hit the charts and went multi-platinum.

Bhangra started in Northern India, and shows what happens when you blend traditional music with electronic dance sensibilities. It has now spread to other parts of Asia and the UK.

Big Beat

Rescuing the electronica community from a near fall off the edge of its experimental fringe, Big Beat emerged in the mid-’90s as the next wave of big dumb dance music. Regional pockets around the world had emphasized the “less intelligent” side of dance music as early as 1994, in reaction to the growing coterie of chin-stroking intellectuals attached to the drum’n’bass and experimental movements. Big beat as a distinct movement finally coalesced in 1995-96 around two British labels: Brighton’s Skint and London’s Wall of Sound. The former-home to releases by Fatboy Slim, Bentley Rhythm Ace, and Lo-Fidelity Allstars-deserves more honors for innovation and quality, though Wall of Sound was founded slightly earlier and released great singles by Propellerheads, Wiseguys, and Les Rythmes Digitales. Big beat soon proved very popular in America as well, and artists attached to City of Angels Records (the Crystal Method, Überzone, Lunatic Calm, Front BC) gained a higher profile thanks to like-minded Brits. Other than Fatboy Slim, the other superstar artists of big beat were the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy, two groups who predated the style (and assisted its birth). Both the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy were never tight fits either, given productions that often reflected the more intelligent edge of trip-hop, and rarely broke into the mindless arena of true big beat.

The sound of big beat, a rather shameless fusion of old-school party breakbeats with appropriately off-the-wall samples, was reminiscent of house music’s sampladelic phase of the late ’80s as well as old-school rap and its penchant for silly samples and irresistible breaks. Though the sample programming and overall production was leaps and bounds beyond its predecessors, big beat was nevertheless criticized for dumbing down the electronica wave of the late ’90s. Even while recordings by the Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, and Fatboy Slim hit the American charts and earned positive reviews-granted, from rock critics-worldwide, many dance fans rejected the style wholesale for being too reliant on gimmicky production values and played-out samples. Big beat lasted a surprisingly long time, given the restraints of a style reliant on the patience of listeners who’ve heard the same break dozens of times, as well as the patience of DJs to hunt local thrift stores to find interesting samples on old instructional records.

Dance Hall Reggae

This dance music style takes reggae and electrifies it, strips down the beat to the essentials of drums and bass, and adds a vocalist doing rapid-fire “toasting” over the beats. Several pop groups have adopted this style and had hits, but the results are pretty diluted compared to the original.

Dance-Pop

An outgrowth of disco, Dance-Pop featured a pounding club beat framing simple, catchy melodies closer to fully-formed songs than pure dance music. It’s primarily the medium of producers, who write the songs and construct the tracks, picking an appropriate vocalist to sing the song. These dance divas become stars, but frequently the artistic vision is the producer’s. Naturally, there are some major exceptions-Madonna and Janet Jackson have had control over the sound and direction of their records-but dance-pop is music that is about image, not substance.

Dark Ambient

Brian Eno’s original vision of ambient music as unobtrusive musical wallpaper, later fused with warm house rhythms and given playful qualities by the Orb in the ’90s, found its opposite in the style known as Dark Ambient. Populated by a wide assortment of personalities-ranging from aging industrial and metal experimentalists (Scorn’s Mick Harris, Current 93’s David Tibet, Nurse with Wound’s Steven Stapleton) to electronic boffins (Kim Cascone/PGR, Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia), Japanese noise artists (K.K. Null, Merzbow), and latter-day indie rockers (Main, Bark Psychosis)-dark ambient features toned-down or entirely missing beats with unsettling passages of keyboards, eerie samples, and treated guitar effects. Like most styles related in some way to electronic/dance music of the ’90s, it’s a very nebulous term; many artists enter or leave the style with each successive release.

Detroit Techno

Early Detroit Techno is characterized by, alternately, a dark, detached, mechanistic vibe and a smooth, bright, soulful feel (the latter deriving in part from the Motown legacy and the stock-in-trade between early techno and the Chicago-style house developing simultaneously to the southwest). While essentially designed as dance music meant to uplift, the stark, melancholy edge of early tracks by Cybotron, Model 500, Rhythm Is Rhythm, and Reese also spoke to Detroit’s economic collapse in the late ’70s following the city’s prosperous heyday as the focal point of the American automobile industry.

The music’s oft-copied ruddy production and stripped-down aesthetic were largely a function of the limited technology available to the early innovators (records were often mastered from two-track onto cassette). The increasingly sophisticated arrangements of contemporary techno (on through to hardcore and jungle), conversely, has much to do with the growth and increasing affordability of MIDI-encoded equipment and desktop digital audio. Second- and third-wave Detroit techno, too, has gained considerably in production, although artists such as Derrick May, Juan Atkins, and Kenny Larkin have sought to combine the peerless sheen of the digital arena with the compositional minimalism of their Detroit origins.

No longer simply contained within the 313 area code, Detroit techno has become a global phenomenon (partly as a result of the more widespread acclaim many of the original Detroit artists have found in other countries), buoyed by the fact that many of the classic early tracks remain in print (available through Submerge). Detroit’s third wave began re-exploring the aesthetic commitment of the music’s early period, with hard-hitting beats (Underground Resistance, Jeff Mills), soulful grooves (Kenny Larkin, Stacey Pullen), and a renewed interest in techno’s breakbeat roots (Aux 88, Drexciya, “Mad” Mike, Dopplereffekt).

Disco marked the dawn of dance-based popular music. Growing out of the increasingly groove-oriented sound of early ’70s and funk, disco emphasized the beat above anything else, even the singer and the song. Disco was named after discotheques, clubs that played nothing but music for dancing. Most of the discotheques were gay clubs in New York, and the DJs in these clubs specifically picked soul and funk records that had a strong, heavy groove. After being played in the disco, the records began receiving radio play and respectable sales. Soon, record companies and producers were cutting records created specifically for discos. Naturally, these records also had strong pop hooks, so they could have crossover success. Disco albums frequently didn’t have many tracks-they had a handful of long songs that kept the beat going. Similarly, the singles were issued on 12″ records, which allowed for extended remixes. DJs could mix these tracks together, matching the beats on each song since they were marked with how fast they were in terms of beats per minute. In no time, the insistent, pounding disco beat dominated the pop chart, and everyone cut a disco record, from rockers like the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart to pop acts like the Bee Gees and new wave artists like Blondie. There were disco artists that became stars-Donna Summer, Chic, the Village People, and KC & the Sunshine Band were brand names-but the music was primarily a producer’s medium, since they created the tracks and wrote the songs. Disco lost momentum as the ’70s became the ’80s, but it didn’t die-it mutated into a variety of different dance-based genres, ranging from dance-pop and hip-hop to house and techno.

Downbeat is a quite generic term sometimes used to replace ambient house and ambient techno, considering that the amount and complexity of electronic listening music described under the “ambient” umbrella had made the terms practically useless by the mid-’90s. It often implies the use of moderate breakbeats instead of the steady four-four beats of most ambient house or ambient techno. The style also breaches territory claimed by trip-hop, ambient techno, and electro-techno. In its widest possible definition, downbeat is any form of electronic music created for the living room instead of the dance floor.

Dream-Pop

Dream Pop is an atmospheric subgenre of alternative rock that relies on sonic textures as much as melody. Dream pop often features breathy vocals and processed, echo-laden guitars and synthesizers. Though the Cocteau Twins, with their indecipherable vocals and languid soundscapes, are frequently seen as the leaders of dream pop, the genre has more stylistic diversity than their slow, electronic textures. Dream pop also encompasses the post-Velvet Underground guitar rock of Galaxie 500, as well as the loud, shimmering feedback of My Bloody Valentine. It is all tied together by a reliance on sonic texture, both in terms of instruments and vocals.

Dub derives its name from the practice of dubbing instrumental, rhythm-oriented versions of reggae songs onto the B-sides of 45 rpm singles, which evolved into a legitimate and accepted style of its own as those re-recordings became forums for engineers to experiment with the possibilities of their mixing consoles. The practice of re-recording reggae tracks without vocals dated back to 1967, when DJs found that dancehall crowds and partygoers greatly enjoyed being given the opportunity to sing the lyrics themselves. Around 1969, some DJs began talking, or “toasting,” over these instrumentals (known as “versions”), frequently reinterpreting the already familiar original lyrics. The most important early DJ was U-Roy, who became renowned for his ability to improvise dialogues with the recorded singers; U-Roy ran the sound system owned by engineer King Tubby, who mixed all of the instrumental tracks over which his DJ toasted. Eventually, Tubby began to experiment with remixing the instrumental tracks, bringing up the level of the rhythm section, dropping out most or all of the vocals, and adding new effects like reverb and echo. The results were seen by many reggae fans as stripping the music down to its purest essence. 45-rpm singles with dub versions on the B-sides became ubiquitous, and King Tubby’s credit on the back soon became a drawing card in and of itself. Full-fledged dub albums began to appear in 1973, with many highlights stemming from Tubby’s mixes for producers Bunny Lee and Augustus Pablo (the latter of whom also played the haunting melodica, which became one of dub’s signature added elements); other key early producers included the minimalistic Keith Hudson and the colorful, elaborate Lee “Scratch” Perry. By 1976, dub’s popularity in Jamaica was second only to Rastafarian roots reggae, and the sound had also found acceptance the UK (thanks largely to the Island label), where roots reggae artists like Burning Spear and Black Uhuru became just as well-known for their forays into dub. The Mad Professor and the experimental Adrian Sherwood helped Britain’s dub scene remain vital in the ’80s, but in spite of skilled newcomers like Scientist, Prince Jammy, and Mikey Dread, Jamaican popular taste had by then shifted to DJ toasters and lyrical improvisers, which led to the prominence of dancehall and ragga. The downtempo atmospherics and bass- and rhythm-heavy textures of dub had a lasting influence outside of reggae, beginning with Public Image Ltd.’s 1979 Metal Box/Second Edition album; during the ’90s, dub was frequently incorporated into the melting-pot eclecticism of underground avant-garde rock, and Britain’s thriving electronica/drum’n’bass scene owed a great deal to dub’s mixing and production techniques.

Blending ’70s funk with the emerging hip-hop culture and synthesizer technology of the early ’80s produced the style known as Electro. But what seemed to be a brief fad for the public-no more than two or three hits, including Afrikaa Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” and Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message,” neither of which made the pop Top 40-was in fact a fertile testing ground for innovators who later diverged into radically different territory, including Dr. Dre (who worked with the World Class Wreckin’ Cru) and techno godfather Juan Atkins (with Cybotron). Electro also provided an intriguing new direction for one of the style’s prime influences. Herbie Hancock, whose 1973 Headhunters album proved a large fusion hit, came storming back in 1983 with the electro single “Rockit.” Despite its successes (documented in full on Rhino’s four-disc Electric Funk set), the style was quickly eclipsed by the mid-’80s rise of hip-hop music built around samples (often from rock records) rather than musical synthesizers. Nevertheless, many techno and dance artists continued harking back to the sound, and a full-fledged electro revival emerged in Detroit and Britain during the mid-’90s.

Electro-Acoustic

Electro-Acoustic music thrives in more unfamiliar territory; the styles that emerge are often dictated by the technology itself. Rather than sampling or synthesizing acoustic sounds to electronically replicate them, these composers tend to mutate the original timbres, sometimes to an unrecognizable state. True artists in the genre also create their own sounds (as opposed to using the preset sounds that come with modern synthesizers). In progressive electro-acoustic music, the electronics play an equal if not greater part in the overall concept. Acoustic instruments performed in real time are usually processed through reverb, harmonizing, and so on, which adds an entirely new dimension to the player’s technique. At best, this music opens up new worlds of listening, thinking, and feeling. At worst, progressive electronic artists worship technology for its own sake, relinquishing the heart and soul of true artistic expression.

Electro-Techno

Influenced by the early-’80s phenomenon of electro-funk but also reliant upon Detroit techno and elements of ambient house, Electro-Techno emerged in the mid-’90s when a full-fledged electro flashback hit London clubs, complete with body-rocking robots and vocoder-distorted vocals, inspired by original electro classics like Afrikaa Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock.” The actual fad-spearheaded by Clear Records and led by artists like Jedi Knights, Tusken Raiders, and Gescom (masks for Global Communication, µ-Ziq, and Autechre, respectively)-was quick in passing, but it inspired some excellent music during the latter half of the ’90s, including the work of England’s Skam Records, Sweden’s Dot Records and, closer to the original sources, Detroit’s Drexciya and AUX 88.

Electronic is a broad designation that could be construed to cover many different styles of music-after all, electronic instrumentation has become commonplace, and much dance-oriented music from the late ’80s on is primarily, often exclusively, electronic. However, in this case, it refers mostly to electronic music as it took shape early on, when artists were still exploring the unique possibilities of electronically generated sound, as well as more recent music strongly indebted to those initial experiments. Avant-garde composers had long been fascinated with the ways technology could be used to produce previously unheard textures and combinations of sounds. French composer Edgard Varèse was a pioneer in this field, building his own electronic instruments as early as the 1920s and experimenting with tape loops during the ’50s. Varèse’s work was hugely influential on American avant-gardist John Cage and German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, both of whom greatly expanded the compositional structures in which electronic devices could be incorporated. But electronic music didn’t really begin to enter the wider consciousness until around the ’70s, when sequencers and synthesizers became more affordable and easier to obtain. Wendy Carlos’ 1968 Switched-On Bach album, a selection of Bach pieces performed on the Moog synthesizer, had ignited tremendous public attention, and Stockhausen’s teachings had begun to inspire a burgeoning experimental music scene in Germany. Kraut-rock groups such as Can and Neu! integrated synthesizers and tape manipulations into their rabid experimentalism, but the two most important electronic artists to emerge from the scene were Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. Kraftwerk pioneered the concept of pop music performed exclusively on synthesizers, and their robotic, mechanical, hypnotic style had a tremendous impact on nearly all electronic pop produced in the remainder of the 20th century. Tangerine Dream, meanwhile, was indebted to minimalist classical composition, crafting an atmospheric, slowly shifting, trance-inducing sound that helped invent the genre known as space music. Other crucial figures included Klaus Schulze, who explored a droning variation on space music that was even more trancelike than Tangerine Dream, and Brian Eno, whose inventive production and experiments with electronics in a pop context eventually gave way to his creation of ambient music, which aimed to blend thoroughly into its environment and often relied heavily on synthesizers. Ambient and space music helped give rise to new age, which emphasized the peaceful, soothing, and meditative qualities of those influences while adding greater melodicism; the progressive electronic branch of new age crafted a more dramatic, lushly orchestrated style that broke with electronic music’s roots in minimalism. Synth-pop, techno, and its artier companion electronica all owed a great deal to the basic innovations of early electronic artists as well.

A suitably vague term used to describe the emergence of electronic dance music increasingly geared to listening instead of strictly dancing, Electronica was first used in the title of a series of compilations (actually called New Electronica) spotlighting original sources of Detroit techno such as Juan Atkins and Underground Resistance alongside European artists who had gained much from the Motor City’s futuristic vision for techno. The word was later appropriated by the American press as an easy catch-all for practically any young artist using electronic equipment and/or instruments, but electronica serves to describe techno-based music that can be used for home listening as well as on the dance floor (since many electronica artists are club DJs as well).

Euro-Dance

Euro-Dance refers to a specific style of club/dance music produced on the European continent during the ’80s and ’90s. Euro-dance is generally informed by disco, hi-NRG, and house music, and performed entirely in the recording studio on synthesizers and drum machines; the producers are much more responsible for the finished product than the singers. Like its close relative Euro-pop, it’s usually simple, lightweight, and catchy, with fluffy, repetitive lyrics that don’t require much translation among listeners who speak different languages. The main difference between Euro-dance and Euro-pop is the exclusive and pronounced dance-club orientation of the former; while Euro-pop is frequently informed by dance music, it doesn’t have to be, and when it is, it doesn’t always fit into dance-club playlists. Most Euro-dance artists concentrate on crafting hit singles, with album releases almost an afterthought.

Experimental Dub

Thousands of miles away from sunny Jamaica, a loose collective of Berlin producers jump-started the style of music known as Experimental Dub. If the scene was centered at all, it occurred at Hard Wax Records, a record store as well as a tight distribution company that was home to several of the style’s crucial labels (Basic Channel, Chain Reaction, Imbalance) and producers (Maurizio, Mark Ernestus, Porter Ricks, Pole, Monolake). Indebted to Chicago acid house and minimalist Detroit techno figures like Jeff Mills, Rob Hood, and Plastikman, experimental dub was rather easily characterized; the sound usually focused on a mix of crackling, murky atmospheres that sounded almost subaquatic, with a mid-tempo beat and strong, clanging percussion. The similarities to classic Jamaican dub producers King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry were indirect at best, but the term worked well for identifying the signature sound of many of Germany’s best experimental producers. Other than the Basic Channel camp, experimental dub’s most important figures were Mike Ink (aka Wolfgang Voigt) and Thomas Brinkmann. Ink, a longtime Berlin producer responsible for more than a half-dozen aliases and labels, did most of his important work on the Profan and Studio 1 labels. Brinkmann, a comparative newcomer to the style, earned praise for his remixes of material by Ink and Plastikman. Experimental dub, in turn, inspired several major techno figures (including Plastikman and Mills) by the late ’90s, and its influence was even seen in American indie-rock and post-rock.

Experimental Electro

With the revival of the classic electro style, dubbed the neo-electro movement, came a wave of Experimental Electro artists with more abstract agendas, still influenced by the sound of the streets but with more curious minds when it came to noodling around in the studio. Names such as Freeform and Bisk characterized the style.

Experimental Rock

As the name suggests, Experimental Rock is music pushing the envelope of the form, far removed from the classic pop sensibilities of before. Typically, experimental rock is the diametric opposite of standard “verse-chorus-verse” music. Because the whole point is to liberate and innovate, no hard and fast rules apply, but distinguishing characteristics include improvisational performances, avant-garde influences, odd instrumentation, opaque lyrics (or no lyrics at all), strange compositional structures and rhythms, and an underlying rejection of commercial aspirations.

Experimental Techno

The field of electronic dance music has limitless possibilities for experimentation, so Experimental Techno has a similarly wide range of styles-from the disc-error clicks and scratches of European experimenters Oval and Pan sonic to the off-kilter effects (but straight-ahead rhythms) of Cristian Vogel, Neil Landstrumm, and Si Begg. Experimental techno can also include soundscape terrorists such as Twisted Science, Nonplace Urban Field, and Atom Heart; digital-age punks like Alec Empire; and former industrial stalwarts under new guises, such as Scorn, Download, or Techno Animal. Any artist wishing to take electronic dance places it’s never been can be characterized as experimental, and for better or worse, that includes a large cast.

Often growing in tandem with contemporary styles like electro and house, Freestyle emerged in the twin Latin capitals of New York City and Miami during the early ’80s. Freestyle classics like “I Wonder If I Take You Home” by Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, “Let the Music Play” by Shannon, and “Party Your Body” by Stevie B relied on angular, synthesized beats similar to electro and early house, but also emphasized the romantic themes of classic R&B and disco. The fusion of mechanical and sensual proved ready for crossover during the period, and both Shannon and Lisa Lisa hit the Top 40 during 1984-85. Freestyle also dovetailed nicely with the rise of dance-pop during the mid-’80s-Madonna’s early producer and remixer, John Benitez (aka Jellybean), was also active in the freestyle community. By the end of the decade, a number of artists-Exposé, Brenda K. Starr, Trinere, the Cover Girls, India, and Stevie B-followed them into the pop or R&B charts. Even after popular success waned in the late ’80s, though, freestyle moved to the underground as a vital stream of modern dance music alongside house, techno, and bass music. Similar to mainstream house, freestyle artists are usually (though by no means exclusively) either female vocalists or male producers. Newer figures like Lil Suzy, George Lamond, Angelique, Johnny O, and others became big stars in the freestyle community.

Funky Breaks

An amalgam of trance, hip-hop, and jungle, Funky Breaks became one of the most widely heard styles in electronic music thanks to its popularity as the sound of choice for those wishing to make some noise on pop charts and television commercials during the late ’90s. Pioneered by the Chemical Brothers plus James Lavelle’s epic-stature Mo’Wax Records stable, funky breaks really came into the fore in 1997, the year music-industry experts predicted would finally break the new electronica in the mainstream. Of the artists picked to spearhead the revolution, almost all-the Prodigy, Death in Vegas, the Crystal Method, Propellerheads-had that sound. That’s also a significant reason why the electronica revolution failed, at least commercially, since the highly-touted acts all sounded similar.

Most popular in the Netherlands and Scotland, Gabba is the hardest form of hardcore techno, frequently exceeding speeds of over 200 BPM. Popular DJs and producers like Paul Elstak and the Mover categorized gabba’s early evolution from German trance and British rave. By the mid-’90s, the music had acquired some rather unsavory connotations with neo-fascism and the skinhead movement, though much of the scene was free from it. Surprisingly, gabba made a rather successful attempt at the Dutch pop charts, with Elstak producing several hits. Many producers and fans proclaimed him a sell-out, and soon there appeared a divide in the scene between the hardcore and the really hardcore.

Named for what is arguably the birthplace of house music, the Paradise Garage in New York, Garage is the dance style closest in spirit and execution to the original disco music of the ’70s. Favoring synthesizer runs and gospel vocals similar to house music but with production values even more polished and shimmering than house, garage has a very soulful, organic feel. Though the style was most popular in New Jersey in the ’80s, the mainstream of British dance clubs championed the style throughout the ’90s as well.

Goa Trance

Named after a region on the coast of southwestern India famed as a clubbing and drugging paradise ever since the ’60s, Goa Trance broke away from the Teutonic bent of European trance during the early ’90s and carried the torch for trance during the rest of the decade. The presence of LSD on the Goa scene-instead of the ubiquitous club drug Ecstasy-translated the music into an appropriately psychedelic version of trance that embraced the mystical properties of Indian music and culture. Traditional Indian instruments such as the sitar and sarod (or electronic near-equivalents) often made appearances in the music, pushed along by the driving, hypnotic sequencer music that trance had always been known for. The style is considerably less turntable-oriented than other electronic dance styles, especially since vinyl tends to melt in the heat (DATs are often used instead). As a consequence, Goa had comparatively few DJs to recommend it worldwide until the late ’90s. Labels like Dragonfly, Blue Room Released, Flying Rhino, Platipus, and Paul Oakenfold’s Perfecto Fluoro became important sources for the sound. Oakenfold, Britain’s most popular DJ, finally gave Goa trance the cache it had lacked in the past by caning it on the radio and in clubs across the country. The British sound system known as Return to the Source also brought Goa trance to the mainstream hordes, releasing three volumes in a compilation series of the best trance music on the scene.

Happy Hardcore

Gradually evolving from the English rave scene of the late ’80s and early ’90s, Happy Hardcore featured many of the same elements that characterized rave: impossibly high beats per minute, similarly fast synthesizer/piano runs, and vocal samples altered to make the most soulful diva sound like a warbling chipmunk. The jungle/drum’n’bass movement had also emerged from rave, but the two scenes split and grew quite anathemic. The positive vibes of happy hardcore were criticized by most clubgoers as music for the drugged-out youth, but just as the hardcore-into-jungle scene found favor with critics later in the decade, a certain amount of respect for happy hardcore appeared as well. The work of combination DJ/producers such as Slipmatt, Hixxy & Sharkey, Force & Styles, and DJ Dougal produced innumerable compilations, as well as the inevitable solo production LPs.

Hardcore Techno

The fastest, most abrasive form of dance music currently available at any one time, Hardcore Techno was, by the mid-’90s, the province of a startlingly wide array of producers, including breakbeat junglists, industrial trancesters, digital-era punks, and cartoonish ravers. The style originally emerged from Great Britain’s 1988 Summer of Love; though the original soundtrack to those warehouse parties was influenced by the relatively mid-tempo rhythms of Chicago acid house, increased drug intake caused many ravers to embrace quicker rhythms and altogether more frenetic forms of music. Many DJs indulged their listeners by speeding up house records originally intended for 33-rpm play, and producers carried the torch by sampling the same records for their releases. During 1991-92, hardcore/rave music had hit the legitimate airwaves as well, led by hits like SL2’s “On a Ragga Tip,” T-99’s “Anasthasia,” and RTS’ “Poing.”

The resulting major-label feeding frenzy produced heavy coverage for lightweight novelty fare like “Go Speed Go” by Alpha Team, “Sesame’s Treat” by Smart E’s, and “James Brown Is Dead” by L.A. Style. By 1993, British producers like Rob Playford, 4 Hero, and Omni Trio began leading hardcore techno into the breakbeat territory that would later become known as jungle, even as the Teutonic end of hardcore morphed into harder trance and gabba.

During the mid-’90s, most ravers had grown out of the dance scene or simply tired of the sound; though the original hardcore/rave sound had spread to much of the British hinterlands as well as continental Europe, most Londoners favored progressive house or the emerging ambient techno. The simultaneous lack of critical coverage but wide spread of the sound-into the north of England and Scotland as well as the continental centers of Germany and the Netherlands-served to introduce a variety of underground styles, from the digital hardcore of Germany’s Alec Empire to English happy hardcore. In fact, the term had practically become a dinosaur by the end of the decade.

Hi-NRG

Hi-NRG is a fast variation of disco that evolved in the ’80s. Driven by a fast drum machine and synthesizers, Hi-NRG was essentially a dance-oriented music with only slight hints of pop. There would be a few hooks-generally sung by disembodied vocalists wailing in the background-but the emphasis of the music, like most dance music, was in the beat. Hi-NRG was a predecessor to techno and house, which drew from its beats in decidedly different ways. House had a funkier, soulful rhythm, while techno expanded with the mechanical beats of Hi-NRG.

Hip-Hop

Hip-hop is essentially the rhythm track to rap, which meanders at a relatively slow tempo, and features a minimalist collection of samples, loops, and/or turntable playing. The emphasis is definitely on the bass, with fat, thick drum beats. Groups like Public Enemy took hip-hop beats but added raps with more of a political, literate edge.

House music grew out of the post-disco dance club culture of the early ’80s. After disco became popular, certain urban DJs-particularly those in gay communities-altered the music to make it less pop-oriented. The beat became more mechanical and the bass grooves became deeper, while elements of electronic synth-pop, Latin soul, dub reggae, rap, and jazz were grafted over the music’s insistent, unvarying four-four beat. Frequently, the music was purely instrumental and when there were vocalists, they were faceless female divas that often sang wordless melodies. By the late ’80s, house had broken out of underground clubs in cities like Chicago, New York, and London, and had begun making inroads on the pop charts, particularly in England and Europe but later in America under the guise of artists like C+C Music Factory and Madonna. At the same time, house was breaking into the pop charts; it fragmented into a number of subgenres, including hip-house, ambient house, and most significantly, acid house (a subgenre of house with the instantly recognizable squelch of Roland’s TB-303 bass-line generator). During the ’90s, house ceased to be cutting-edge music, yet it remained popular in clubs throughout Europe and America. At the end of the decade, a new wave of progressive house artists including Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx, and House of 909 brought the music back to critical quarters with praised full-length works.

A loaded term meant to distinguish electronic music of the ’90s and later that’s equally comfortable on the dancefloor as in the living room, IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) eventually acquired a good deal of negative publicity, not least among the legion of dance producers and fans whose exclusion from the community prompted the question of whether they produced stupid dance music. Born in the late ’80s, the sound grew out of a fusion between the hard-edged dance music heard on the main floor at raves and larger club events, and the more downtempo music of the nearby chill-out rooms. DJs like Mixmaster Morris and Dr. Alex Paterson blended Chicago house, softer synth-pop/new wave, and ambient/environmental music, prompting a wave of producers inspired by a variety of sources. (Many DJs and producers were also reacting against the increasingly chart-leaning slant of British dance music during those years, exemplified by novelty hits like “Pump Up the Jam” by Technotronic and “Sesame’s Treat” by Smart E’s.) The premiere IDM label, Sheffield’s Warp Records, proved home to the best in the sound-in fact, the seminal Warp compilation Artificial Intelligence alone introduced listeners worldwide to a half-dozen of the style’s most crucial artists: Aphex Twin, the Orb, Plastikman, Autechre, Black Dog Productions, and B12. Other labels-Rising High, GPR, R&S, Rephlex, Fat Cat, Astralwerks-released quality IDM as well, though by the mid-’90s much of the electronica produced for headphone consumption had diverged either toward the path of more experimentation or more beat orientation. With no centered, commercial scene to speak of, North America became a far more hospitable clime to IDM, and by the end of the ’90s, dozens of solid labels had opened for business, including Drop Beat, Isophlux, Suction, Schematic, and Cytrax. Despite frequent attempts to rename the style (Warp’s “electronic listening music” and Aphex Twin’s “braindance” were two choices), IDM continued to be the de facto way for fans to describe their occasionally undescribable favorites.

Industrial music was a dissonant, abrasive style of music that grew out of the tape-music and electronic experiments of the mid-’70s bands Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle (the term was coined from the latter’s label, Industrial Records). The music was largely electronic, distorted, and rather avant-garde for rock circles. By the mid-’80s, industrial dance bands Ministry, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, and Skinny Puppy had evolved from the original template. During the next decade, industrial went overground and became a new kind of heavy-metal courtesy of crossover groups like Nine Inch Nails, White Zombie, and Marilyn Manson.

Industrial Dance

During the ’80s, industrial music progressed from being an obscure, experimentalist style to a position where it was quite popular and straight-ahead for a growing audience unenthused by limp-wristed alternative music as well as cock rock and heavy metal. Early distinguished by the term “electronic body music,” several artists, such as Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, Skinny Puppy, and Ministry gained significant airplay in clubs. By the ’90s, industrial had split along a guitar/electronics divide, with the latter usually carrying on the tradition of electronic body music. America’s Cleopatra Records featured the most Industrial Dance acts, including Leætherstrip, Spahn Ranch, and Die Krupps.

Jungle/Drum’n’bass

Based almost entirely in England, Jungle (also known as drum’n’bass) is a permutation of hardcore techno that emerged in the early ’90s. Jungle is the most rhythmically complex of all forms of techno, relying on extremely fast polyrhythms and breakbeats. Usually, it’s entirely instrumental-it is among the hardest of all hardcore techno, consisting of nothing but fast drum machines and deep bass. As its name implies, jungle does have more overt reggae, dub, and R&B influences than most hardcore-and that is why some critics claimed that the music was the sound of black techno musicians and DJs reclaiming it from the white musicians and DJs who dominated the hardcore scene. Nevertheless, jungle never slows down to develop a groove-it just speeds along. Like most techno genres, jungle is primarily a singles genre designed for a small, dedicated audience, although the crossover success of Goldie and his 1995 debut Timeless suggested a broader appeal and more musical possibilities than other forms of techno. Dozens of respected artists followed in their wake, fusing breakbeats with influences lifted from jazz, film music, ambient, and trip-hop.

Kraut-Rock

Kraut-Rock refers to the legions of German bands of the early ’70s that expanded the sonic possibilities of art and progressive rock. Instead of following in the direction of their British and American counterparts, who were moving toward jazz and classical-based compositions and concept albums, the German bands became more mechanical and electronic. Working with early synthesizers and splicing together seemingly unconnected reels of tape, bands like Faust, Can, and Neu! created a droning, pulsating sound that owed more to the avant-garde than to rock ‘n’ roll. Although the bands didn’t make much of an impact while they were active in the ’70s, their music anticipated much post-punk of the early ’80s, particularly industrial rock. Kraut-rock also came into vogue in the ’90s, when groups like Stereolab and Tortoise began incorporating the hypnotic rhythms and electronic experiments of the German art-rock bands into their own, vaguely avant-garde indie-rock.

Madchester was the dominant force in British rock during the late ’80s and early ’90s. A fusion of acid house dance rhythms and melodic pop, Madchester was distinguished by its loping beats, psychedelic flourishes, and hooky choruses. While the song structures were familiar, the arrangements and attitude were modern, and even the retro-pop touches-namely the jangling guitars, swirling organs, and sharp pop sense-functioned as postmodern collages. There were two approaches to this collage, as evidenced by the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. The Roses were a traditional guitar-pop band, and their songs were straight-ahead pop tunes, bolstered by baggy beats; it was modernized ’60s pop. Happy Mondays cut and pasted like rappers sampled, taking choruses from the Beatles and LaBelle and putting them into the context of darkly psychedelic dance. Despite their different approaches, both bands shared a love for acid-house music and culture, as well as the hometown of Manchester, England. As the group’s popularity grew, the British press tagged the two groups-as well as similarly-minded bands like the Charlatans [UK] and Inspiral Carpets-“Madchester” after a Happy Mondays song. (It was also known as “baggy,” since the bands wore baggy clothing). Madchester was enormously popular for several years in the UK before fading, largely because the Roses and the Mondays fell prey to laziness and drug abuse, respectively. The genre never made much impact in America outside of alternative circles, but Madchester’s offspring-bands like Oasis, Pulp, and Blur that were heavily influenced by the collision of contemporary and classic pop-became international stars in the mid-’90s.

One of the main innovations in the contemporary classical field, Minimalism has also influenced new age composers and electronic producers alike, particularly in progressive electronic styles where sequencers play an important role. Generally, this music is characterized by a strong and relentless pulse, the insistent repetition of short melodic fragments, and harmonies that change over long periods of time. A trio of ’60s figures, LaMonte Young, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich, did the most to pioneer the field, though Philip Glass had the most success with the style during the ’70s.

Neo-Electro

For several months in 1995, British clubs were afire with the sights and sounds of robots, body-poppers, and a revival of America’s early-’80s electro movement. Though much of the attention was given to the old-school masters (Afrika Bambaataa, the Egyptian Lover, Newcleus), much of the influence for the electro revival had come from more recent sounds. Detroit acts such as Drexciya, Underground Resistance, and Ectomorph had begun looking back to electro, and Drexciya’s multi-volume series of 1994 EPs were much-heard on the other side of the Atlantic. In Britain, Clear Records headed the revival hot-list, with singles from Jedi Knights, Tusken Raiders, Plaid, and Gescom (almost all were aliases for more well-known dance acts including Global Communication, µ-Ziq, and Autechre). Though the electro revival didn’t last long as a British club trend, good records continued to be released (especially by Clear), and other labels, such as Skam, Musik Aus Strom, and Dot, progressed beyond the sound to create intelligent new music with heavy electro influences.

A rather brief phenomenon (even for the style-a-minute world of dance music), Newbeat emerged late in the ’80s as a mid-tempo derivation of acid house. Influenced as well by Detroit techno and Euro-dance, newbeat was centered in Belgium, where labels such as R&S and Antler-Subway-home of the newbeat anthem “I Sit on Acid” by Lords of Acid-characterized the style with acid synth leanings, but more pop-friendly approaches to dance. The blazing success of the KLF during 1990-91 sustained newbeat for awhile, but after their exit from the music industry, the style faded quickly. While both Antler-Subway and Lords of Acid later moved on to a self-parodying approach to acid house, R&S became a respected name in the dance industry, focusing mostly on trance and ambient techno.

Sludgy, abrasive, and punishing, Noise is everything its name promises, expanding on the music’s capacity for sonic assault while almost entirely rejecting the role of melody and songcraft. From the ear-splitting, teeth-rattling attack of Japan’s Merzbow to the thick, grinding intensity of Amphetamine Reptile-label bands like Tar and Vertigo, it’s dark, brutal music that pushes rock to its furthest extremes. By the end of the ’90s, a resurgence in the use of sine waves-originally explored by musique concrète artists in the ’50s-became increasingly frequent among noise artists such as Otomo Yoshihide.

Noise Pop

Noise Pop is just that-pop music wrapped in barbed-wire kisses of feedback, dissonance, and abrasion. It occupies the halfway point between bubblegum and the avant-garde, a collision between conventional pop songcraft and the sonic assault of white noise-guitars veer out of control but somehow the melody pushes forward, and the tension between the two opposing forces frequently makes for fascinating listening.

Nu Breaks

A hard-edged dance style developed late in the ’90s with the convergence of techno and drum’n’bass as well as a few elements of the earlier rave scenes, Nu Breaks was led by artists and DJs including Brits Adam Freeland, Dylan Rhymes, Beber, Freq Nasty, and Rennie Pilgrem plus a bare few Americans like BT. From drum’n’bass the style borrowed two-step breakbeats and chilling effects, from techno its smooth flow and machine percussion, and from early-’90s rave/hardcore some of the crowd-pleasing bells and whistles (figuratively as well as literally) that in some cases had not been heard for years. Freeland was probably the best-known of the nu breaks crew (especially since most producers concentrated on singles output), as rock-steady mix sets like Coastal Breaks and Tectonics earned acclaim with dance fans around the world.

Old School Rap

Old School Rap is the style of the very first rap artists who emerged from New York City in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Old school is easily identified by its relatively simple raps-most lines take up approximately equal amounts of time, and the rhythms of the language rarely twisted around the beats of the song. The cadences usually fell squarely on the beat, and when they didn’t, they wouldn’t stray for long, returning to the original pattern for quick resolution. The emphasis was not on lyrical technique, but simply on good times-aside from the socially conscious material of Grandmaster Flash, which greatly expanded rap’s horizons, most old school rap had the fun, playful flavor of the block parties and dances at which it was born. In keeping with the laidback, communal good vibes, old school rap seemed to have more room and appreciation for female MCs, although none achieved the higher profile of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five or the Sugarhill Gang. Some old school songs were performed over disco or funk-style tracks, while others featured synthesized backing (this latter type of music, either with or without raps, was known as electro). Old school rap’s recorded history begins with two 1979 singles, Fatback’s “King Tim III” and the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” although the movement had been taking shape for almost a decade prior. Sugarhill Records quickly became the center for old school rap, dominating the market until Run-D.M.C. upped the ante for technique and hardcore urban toughness in 1983-84. Their sound and style soon took over the rap world, making old school’s party orientation and ’70s funk influences seem outdated. When compared with the more complex rhythms and rhyme schemes of modern-day rap-or even the hip-hop that was being produced less than ten years after “Rapper’s Delight”-old school rap can sound dated and a little unadventurous. However, the best old school tracks retain their liveliness as great party music no matter what the era, holding up surprisingly well considering all that’s happened since.

Post-Rock/Experimental

Post-Rock was an experimental, avant-garde movement that emerged in the mid-’90s. Most post-rock was droning and hypnotic, drawing from ambient, free-form jazz, avant-garde, and electronic music more than rock. The majority of post-rock groups were like Tortoise, a Chicago-based band with a rotating lineup. Tortoise viewed their music not as songs, but as ever-changing compositions that they improvised nightly. Most post-rock groups were defiantly anti-mainstream and anti-indie-rock in the vein of Tortoise. However, there were certain groups-like Stereolab-that essentially worked in a pop and indie-rock format, only touching on the experimental and avant-garde tendencies of most post-rockers. Thrill Jockey’s reissue of albums by European experimental names like Mouse on Mars and Oval led to the birth of a transatlantic scene, of sorts, with Germans more focused on electronic music while most Americans preferred rock-oriented setups.

Progressive House

House music had reached the mainstream by the late ’80s (more so in Britain than anywhere else), and while several early house hits were by genuine pioneers, they were later overwhelmed by the novelty acts and one-hit wonders dominating the charts around the turn of the decade. As well, ambient, techno, and trance made gains early in the ’90s as electronic styles with both street cred and a group of young artists making intelligent music. A generation of house producers soon emerged, weaned on the first wave of house and anxious to reapply the more soulful elements of the music. With a balance of sublime techno and a house sound more focused on New York garage than Chicago acid house, groups like Leftfield, the Drum Club, Spooky, and Faithless hit the dance charts (and occasionally Britain’s singles charts). Though critically acclaimed full-lengths were never quite as important as devastating club tracks, several Progressive House LPs were stellar works, including Leftfield’s Leftism, Spooky’s Gargantuan, and the Drum Club’s Everything Is Now. By the mid-’90s, the innovations of progressive house had become the mainstream of house music around the world.

Rave is more of an event than a genre of music. Raves were underground parties where acid house and hardcore records were played and large quantities of drugs-particularly ecstasy-were consumed. Most of the music played at raves had a psychedelic quality, even before drugs became a major element of the scene. DJs played at the raves, mixing stacks of house and techno singles; the DJs, not the recording artists themselves, became the most recognizable names in the scene. Raves were primarily an English phenomenon during the late ’80s and early ’90s. They were conducted in large venues, particularly abandoned warehouses and open fields. Eventually, the British government became concerned that raves were a dangerous, antisocial phenomenon that had to be shut down, but the parties never disappeared, especially since word of the events were usually passed through word of mouth and handmade fliers. In the States, raves began to make some inroads in the early ’90s, but they never gained a large audience, even by underground standards. Throughout the ’90s, bands that were directly influenced by rave culture-particularly “baggy” bands like the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, and Charlatans; Brit-pop acts like Pulp and Oasis; and techno artists like the Prodigy-made their way into the mainstream, and the culture continued to capture the attention of British youth into the late ’90s.

Salsa is the music of Latin America, which has stretched its way up to the United States by way of Puerto Rico. Rhythmically complex and featuring large bands with lots of personnel (percussion, horns, vocalists, piano, bass, etc.), salsa remains a vital form of music in the Latin community, and is becoming increasingly popular with mainstream America.

Schranz – New!

Since there has been a lot of talk about the word “Schranz” lately, I wanted to post my very own statement about it and not one,which is written by people who don`t really know. Yes, it is true, together with a friend I came up with the word “Schranz” in a Recordstore in Frankfurt in the year 1994. Not true is, that I am now annoyed by the term, I am only annoyed by all the discussions which come up about it, especially here in Germany. Everyone who uses the word “Schranz” to describe her or his musical taste or even way of living, shall do so and I think that is completely o.k.. Basically I like to call what I spin and produce “Techno” and in general “electronic Music”. For me personally, since that day in 1994, “Schranz” is a description for various dark and distorted sounds in Techno. At that point I couldn`t come up with a better word, but of course then I also didn`t know, that one day it would become so popular. I don`t want to and I can`t tell anyone how and where to use the word and in what respect. That´s CLAU 04 was called :”Call it what you want…” So be tolerant, make up your own mind about it and don`t believe everything which is written in magazines. Chris Liebing, 2002

Shibuya-Kei

The Japanese pop phenomenon known as Shibuya-Kei exploded forth from the ultra-trendy Shibuya shopping district of west Tokyo, an area home to some of the most fashionable and best-stocked record and clothing stores in the world. Shibuya-kei-literally, “Shibuya style”-was the name given to the like-minded pop musicians who emerged from this consumer culture, a group of young Japanese weaned on a steady and amazingly eclectic diet of Western pop exports; the result was an unprecedented collision of sights and sounds, with trailblazing acts like Pizzicato 5 drawing on disparate influences ranging from the lush lounge-pop of Burt Bacharach to the rhythms and energy of urban hip-hop. In its purest form, shibuya-kei is classic Western pop refracted through the looking glass of modern Eastern society-music cut up, pasted together, and spit out in new and exciting ways. Shibuya-kei is also pop music at its cutest: it’s a view to a world where the sweetness and simplicity of the girl-group era never ended but simply evolved, never out of step with the times but always true to its roots as well-the Lolita complex so pervasive throughout Japanese culture informs much of this music, and its youthful innocence is the key to much of its endearing charm.

Shoegazing is a genre of late ’80s and early ’90s British indie-rock, named after the bands’ motionless performing style, where they stood on stage and stared at the floor while they played. But shoegazing wasn’t about visuals-it was about pure sound. The sound of the music was overwhelmingly loud, with long, droning riffs, waves of distortion, and cascades of feedback. Vocals and melodies disappeared into the walls of guitars, creating a wash of sound where no instrument was distinguishable from the other. Most shoegazing groups worked off the template My Bloody Valentine established with their early EPs and their first full-length album, Isn’t Anything, but Dinosaur Jr., the Jesus & Mary Chain, and the Cocteau Twins were also major influences. Bands that followed-most notably Ride, Lush, Chapterhouse, and the Boo Radleys-added their own stylistic flourishes. Ride veered close to ’60s psychedelia, while Lush alternated between straight pop and the dream pop of the Cocteau Twins. None of the shoegazers were dynamic performers or interesting interviews, which prevented them from breaking through into the crucial US market. In 1992-after the groups had dominated the British music press and indie charts for about three years-the shoegazing groups were swept aside by the twin tides of American grunge and Suede, the band to initiate the wave of Brit-pop that ruled British music during the mid-’90s. Some shoegazers broke up within a few years (Chapterhouse, Ride), while other groups-such as the Boo Radleys and Lush-evolved with the times and were able to sustain careers into the late ’90s.

Ska originated in Jamaica in the early 60s, with an emphasis on vocals and horns, and rhythm guitar hitting on the offbeats. Today’s “ska revivalists,” like No Doubt, often jack up the tempo but otherwise remain relatively faithful to the concept.

Space-Rock

Once used as a tag to describe ’70s-era acts like Hawkwind, in more recent years the term Space-Rock has come to embody a new generation of heady, hypnotic bands with aspirations of cosmic transcendence. Arguably the first and most prominent of the new space-rock groups was Britain’s Spacemen 3, whose famous “Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to” credo subsequently influenced most, if not all, of the like-minded bands in their wake; indeed, the music of the genre is typically narcotic, defined by washes of heavily reverbed guitar, minimalist drumming, and gentle, languid vocals.

Speed Garage

Revving up the sweet sound of garage techno by adding ragga vocals, rewinds, and DJ scratching along with occasional drum’n’bass rhythms, Speed Garage hit the London clubscene in 1996, gaining momentum from its Sunday-night status as a good end-of-the-week comedown to supplant jungle/drum’n’bass as the hotly tipped dance style of the late ’90s. Influenced by American producers like Todd Edwards and Armand Van Helden, speed garage grew with European acts such as the Dream Team, Double 99, Boris Dlugosch, and the Tuff Jam crew.

Tech-House

Tech-House is used to describe a variety of rangy, mostly European producers who culled many of the rhythms and effects of acid and progressive house yet with a clean, simplistic production style suggestive of Detroit and British techno. The style came to cover a wide variety of names including Herbert, Daniel Ibbotson, Terry Lee Brown Jr., Funk D’Void, and Ian O’Brien, among others.

Techno had its roots in the electronic house music made in Detroit in the mid-’80s. Where house still had explicit connection to disco even when it was entirely mechanical, techno was strictly electronic music, designed for a small, specific audience. The first techno producers and DJs-Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, and Derrick May, among others-emphasized the electronic, synthesized beats of electro-funk artists like Afrika Bambaataa and synth-rock units like Kraftwerk. In the United States, techno was strictly an underground phenomenon, but in England, it broke into the mainstream in the late ’80s. In the early ’90s, techno began to fragment into a number of subgenres, including hardcore, ambient, and jungle. In hardcore techno, the beats-per-minute on each record were sped up to ridiculous, undanceable levels-it was designed to alienate a broad audience. Ambient took the opposite direction, slowing the beats down and relying on watery electronic textures-it was used as come-down music, when ravers and club-goers needed a break from acid house and hardcore techno. Jungle was nearly as aggressive as hardcore, combining driving techno beats with breakbeats and dancehall reggae-essentially. All subgenres of techno were initially designed to be played in clubs, where they would be mixed by DJs. Consequently, most of the music was available on 12″ singles or various-artists compilations, where the songs could run for a long time, providing the DJ with a lot of material to mix into his set. In the mid-’90s, a new breed of techno artists-most notably ambient acts like the Orb and Aphex Twin, but also harder-edged artists like the Prodigy and Goldie-began constructing albums that didn’t consist of raw beats intended for mixing. Not surprisingly, these artists-particularly the Prodigy-became the first recognizable stars in techno.

Breaking out of the German techno and hardcore scene of the early ’90s, Trance emphasized brief synthesizer lines repeated endlessly throughout tracks, with only the addition of minimal rhythmic changes and occasional synthesizer atmospherics to distinguish them-in effect putting listeners into a trance that approached those of religious origin. Despite waning interest in the sound during the mid-’90s, trance made a big comeback later in the decade, even supplanting house as the most popular dance music of choice around the globe.

Inspired by acid house and Detroit techno, trance coalesced with the opening of R&S Records in Ghent, Belgium and Harthouse/Eye Q Records in Frankfurt, Germany. R&S defined the sound early on with singles like “Energy Flash” by Joey Beltram, “The Ravesignal” by CJ Bolland, and others by Robert Leiner, Sun Electric, and Aphex Twin. Harthouse, begun in 1992 by Sven Väth with Heinz Roth & Matthias Hoffman, made the most impact on the sound of trance with Hardfloor’s minimal epic “Hardtrance Acperience” and Väth’s own “L’Esperanza,” plus releases by Arpeggiators, Spicelab, and Barbarella. Artists like Väth, Bolland, Leiner, and many others made the transition to the full-length realm, though without much of an impact on the wider music world.

Despite a long nascent period when it appeared trance had disappeared, replaced by breakbeat dance (trip-hop and jungle), the style’s increasing impact on Britain’s dance scene finally crested in the late ’90s. The classic German sound had changed somewhat though, and the term “progressive” trance gained favor to describe influences from the smoother end of house and Euro dance. By 1998, most of the country’s best-known DJs-Paul Oakenfold, Pete Tong, Tony De Vit, Danny Rampling, Sasha, Judge Jules-were playing trance in Britain’s superclubs. Even America turned on to the sound (eventually), led by its own cast of excellent DJs, including Christopher Lawrence and Kimball Collins.

Tribal House

By the early ’90s, house music had undergone several fusions with other styles, creating ambient house, hip-house and, when the four-on-the-floor punch was blended with polyrhythmic percussion, Tribal House. The style covers a bit of ground, from the mainstream leanings of Frankie Bones and Ultra Naté to the electro-hippie sensibilities of Banco de Gaia, Loop Guru, and Eat Static (all denizens of the UK’s Planet Dog Records).

Trip-Hop

Yet another in a long line of plastic placeholders to attach itself to one arm or another of the UK post-acid house dance scene’s rapidly mutating experimental underground, Trip-Hop was coined by the English music press in an attempt to characterize a new style of downtempo, jazz-, funk-, and soul-inflected experimental breakbeat music which began to emerge around in 1993 in association with labels such as Mo’Wax, Ninja Tune, Cup of Tea, and Wall of Sound. Similar to (though largely vocal-less) American hip-hop in its use of sampled drum breaks, typically more experimental, and infused with a high index of ambient-leaning and apparently psychotropic atmospherics (hence “trip”), the term quickly caught on to describe everything from Portishead and Tricky, to DJ Shadow and U.N.K.L.E., to Coldcut, Wagon Christ, and Depth Charge-much to the chagrin of many of these musicians, who saw their music largely as an extension of hip-hop proper, not a gimmicky offshoot. One of the first commercially significant hybrids of dance-based listening music to crossover to a more mainstream audience, trip-hop full-length releases routinely topped indie charts in the UK and, in artists such as Shadow, Tricky, Morcheeba, the Sneaker Pimps, and Massive Attack, account for a substantial portion of the first wave of “electronica” acts to reach Stateside audiences.

Zouk comes from the Caribbean, but it also extremely popular in France, where musicians from former French colonies congregate (Kassav is one of the better-known Zouk groups in France). Zouk is uplifting, uptempo music with the kind of vocal and instrumental interplay that’s reminiscent of purely African music.

[alittledizzy]

a long-winded but true story in which the moral is: why being able to talk about penises freely but not vaginas/vulvas is dangerous

this is about something that happened to me lately that could be considered tmi but you know what? it’s about physical health for a body part which in my case is no more sexual than my knee, so: if you find this story squeamish because physical health talk in general makes you uncomfortable that’s fair enough, but if it makes you uncomfortable specifically because it’s about physical health regarding my vulva (unless you have a specific reason for the idea of vulvas making you uncomfortable) it’s even more important that you in particular read this

(trigger warnings for antibiotic drugs/pills; mentions of vomit, abuse, genital mutilation, rape)

so two sundays ago i woke up and long story short it felt like my vulva was on fire with the amount of irritation it was experiencing — i’m not just talking about mild itching, i’m talking about ‘if this were a pain scale in the hospital for an injury that the nurse/doctor is giving you it would be a solid 6 or 7 for ‘severe, cannot concentrate on everyday activities as a result’’ irritation and pain, and it only got worse whenever i needed the toilet (which was frequently). so i couldn’t focus on anything, but it was okay because i knew exactly what to d- no, i didn’t. i had no idea what to do. i’d never been taught about everyday vulval health to the extent that i wasn’t even sure if this irritation was supposed to be an issue or not. that might sound stupid, especially considering i’ve been living with my vulva for decades, but: - it wasn’t the first time i’d experienced that irritation (only this time was the worst) - i’d never been able to discuss vulval health openly with anyone because no one had ever made it clear to me that i could talk to them about it if i needed to for whatever reason - and thus i’d never heard anyone complain about any similar experiences - therefore i couldn’t be sure whether it was normal or not - additionally the number of times i’d heard the phrase ‘UTI’ was lower than the number of digits on my hand - and even though i knew what it stood for i still had had no idea what the symptoms might include

so, because of my lack of education about vulval health, and especially because i was embarrassed about it — considering my entire life i’d been grown up surrounded by the attitude of ‘if it’s not absolutely necessary to discuss your vagina, don’t’, which funnily enough sounds like the saying “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all” (which is where the topics stigmatisation and misogyny come in, because that attitude implies that vaginal health is a dirty or improper or ‘rude’ topic to talk about in comparison to phallic health) — i didn’t do anything. i’d never been given the knowledge to be able to know that something was wrong, and i’d always been subliminally taught that it wasn’t socially acceptable to discuss vaginas or vulvas anyway, so i said nothing and researched nothing. monday to thursday i suffered in complete silence, still going into work and trying my best to act like nothing was wrong, even though the pain felt like the equivalent to a severe migraine (i’ve had plenty of migraines, thanks genetics, so i can judge). the only time i got a break from the pain was when i was asleep, and even then sometimes i woke up in the middle of the night because it burned so much, during which points i lost a lot of sleep because it took a couple of hours to drop back to sleep from sheer exhaustion. it was this constant never-ending demon that i couldn’t ignore or forget or ameliorate with medicinal creams of any kind, and what made it even worse was that during that week my work was undergoing intensely difficult graded assessment. i was stressed, in constant pain, loosing sleep and fucking terrified at what was going on.

thursday afternoon and i decided i’d had enough. i was suffering too much that even though i had no idea whether it was even an unnatural thing or not, i knew that whatever it was i couldn’t let it control me so much anymore. i couldn’t talk to my mates or anyone else about it because the mentioned internalised stigmatisation, so i ended up asking my own mother about it (which even now i still feel annoyingly embarrassed about, annoyingly because i know i shouldn’t feel embarrassed when it’s about my goddamned wellbeing). when she inevitably told me that no, it’s not normal to be in that much pain, i was relieved because it meant that i wasn’t just overreacting, but now even more scared because i now knew something was wrong and to someone as ignorant on the topic as me, it could have been anything. she told me to see a doctor as soon as possible, which i did.

i managed to see a doctor the very next day, on the friday (bless the nhs); i knew at the time that there was no shame in talking about what had been happening (again, it’s my health and health takes priority) and i knew that to the doctor it wouldn’t matter because that’s what they’re trained to do, to help your medical issues regardless of any potential disgust factor, but i still felt embarrassed as hell about it all. i described what i was going through, gave the obligatory urine sample etc etc and lo and behold, i did indeed have a UTI. he gave me antibiotics, which i duly took friday through to last sunday, and then it was gone! celebrations!

now here’s the thing. although i left it a long time to see the doctor, i still managed to catch it before it spread to the kidneys. during that appointment we had discussed it and it was revealed that thank god it had not yet spread, BUT if it HAD spread i would have started to experience the following symptoms, as stated by the doctor himself: - back pains - fever - headaches - fatigue - nausea and vomiting additionally, if it had spread to the kidneys and been left untreated, it could have also led to the following in the long run: - decreased or weakened kidney function - if my kidney was already weak, the possibility of overall kidney failure - the infection spreading to the bloodstream - therefore spreading to other organs so you can probably understand at this point why it’s lucky that i saw the doctor and caught it when i did, before it escalated even further. however, even as it was, i still didn’t see the doctor for nearly a full week after infection, and even after being prescribed with antibiotics the pain lasted until the day after i took my final pill, which was last monday. eight days of constant pain, internalised embarrassment, sleep loss, fear/paranoia (especially when it seemed like the antibiotics weren’t working by the last day), and reduced potential in the workplace. in fact, i looked it up, and i can actually receive extra credit for those graded assignments considering i fell under the category of “experiencing a distracting minor illness” as long as i provide a doctor’s note proving that i had the appointment.

eight days of constant pain, sleep loss, fear, paranoia and reduced potential in the workplace. and you know how this could have been avoided? if my social environment had felt safe enough for me to speak up about the issue, the issue being my vulval health, and if i had been taught enough previously to know that something was wrong.

during school all i’d ever learned about my genitalia is how menstruation, fertilisation, pregnancy and birth worked in bio class, and outside of/after school i’d basically never been taught anything. i’d never been taught about everyday vaginal/vulval health topics such as masturbation and UTIs — my parents had never taught me anything about such things (except how to use sanitary products) because they were too embarrassed and had expected the school to do it, and the school never taught me about those things beyond what we had to learn for biology or for pshe (where we only learned about contraception) because they expected my parents to teach me, so in my youth i was stuck in the middle, not knowing that i was supposed to learn all these things for my own good health and thus i never taught myself.

keep in mind that during and since secondary school i’ve been living in the uk, which compared to some other countries is pretty forward-thinking with issues like misogyny and wellbeing. now imagine how fucked i would have been in a culture where women are taught even less about their own bodies, where women are outright viewed as inferior, are viewed as less or not at all deserving of knowledge or rights to their own bodies, where women are frequently abused or raped or forced to undergo genital mutilation, or any other kind of abuse. all of society has a massive issue with letting people talk about their genital health, especially when it is specifically about vaginas or vulvas rather than penises, but i’m fortunate enough to be living in a country where i at least have the right to attempt to control how much suffering my body goes through, but in many other cultures a woman’s body is not considered her own right or her own property, and the thought of a woman even discussing her own health in a shameless or self-empowering manner is unimaginable. all of society shows more disdain towards discussion of vaginal/vulval health than phallic (for want of a better word to relate to penises) health, because of the still-widely internalised attitude that vaginas and the like are inherently dirty or sexual. the only difference is that some cultures look down upon such discussion more than others.

it is for these reasons that even “small” things, such as being afraid to directly mention vaginas and vulvas while having no hesitation in mentioning penises, contribute to misogynistic oppression. vaginas and vulvas are automatically thought of as sexual whether the context regarding them is sexual or not, while penises are viewed less frequently as sexual and more as jokes. because vaginas and vulvas are more likely to be viewed as sexual even if the context has absolutely nothing to do with sex, it leads people to view the discussion or context as dirty and improper, which brings shame upon the person whose vagina/vulva is being discussed. like this post, for example. nothing about this post is describing my vulva or vagina in a sexual context. i am not describing my sex life. i am not a sexual person. i do not use my vagina or vulva for sexual reasons, i am not sexually active and i am not seeking sex, so my vagina and vulva are about as sexual as my knees (hint: not at all sexual). i am simply describing my general health regarding them, i am not sexualising them, so this post deserves no shame but does deserve every equal amount of consideration and maturity that might be given to a post about a hypothetical infection in my knee. i suffered so much and for so long from my UTI simply because i was embarrassed (because of internalised misogyny) and uneducated (something that is also because of societal misogyny, the lack of education regarding all genital health rather than just reproductive health), and if i had let that hold me back any longer, as my doctor so described, the infection could have spread to my vital organs and caused much more serious problems that could have led to me being admitted to hospital.

tl;dr no one deserves shame simply for whatever genitalia they may have, and no one deserves shame for wanting to discuss and seek answers or cures for genital health problems. if we are told not to discuss our genitalia whatever the context because it is viewed as “improper”, we are made to feel ashamed and therefore hesitant to speak up and seek help. we (‘we’ referring to anyone with a vulva/vagina) are unfairly prevented from feeling shameless and empowered with our bodies, which results in oppression both because we are made to feel inferior and because we are less likely to seek medical guidance or help even when we most need it, resulting in unnecessary suffering (and potentially even death or at least a close encounter with it in some cases). this is why prejudice against open discussion of vaginas or vulvas is not excusable in any manner, and why i’m frankly disgusted with the amount of people who say it’s “not a big deal” when such prejudice is expressed (particularly since a fair amount of said people probably have vaginas/vulvas themselves)

(submission from @imagjnative)

#this is an amazing post #thank you for submitting it #and i'm really glad you're feeling better now #submission

[britpop-bowie]

Thanks to @adriftinspace for the tag xx

1. How tall are you?: 5′3″ or thereabouts, i know, I’m a shortarse lol

2. What colour and style is your hair?: It’s a kind of mousy brown at the moment, style wise I have no idea but it’s naturally very curly and fairly shaggy rn, it’s in curtains right now?

3. What colour are your eyes?: blue orbs 

4. Do you wear glasses?: Nope, but I always used to try and make myself need the when I was younger

5. Do you wear braces?: nope, my teeth are straighter than me

6. What is your fashion style?: It ranges from 90s grunge, 80s colour schemes, 70s vintage or a hoodie and jeans. But all in all I’m pretty snazzy, or y’all seem to think so

7. Full name: Alex-Jay Stevenson, I’ve toyed with changing Alex to Alexander but I’m not sure??

8. When were you born?: December 8th, unfortunately it’s also the date John Lennon died on and so I just spend my whole birthday being really sad

9. Where are you from and where do you live now?: I was born in Oxford England but not there anymore so don’t even think about stalking me lmao

10. What school do you go to?: One annoyingly far away from where I live, but I’m moving to a new one this year

11. What kind of student are you?: I’m like, quite good at everything? Like I just about get As in all subjects but I really don’t try as hard as I should so I’m struggling to continue being ‘the smart kid’

12. Do you like school?: I guess, but the whole culture surrounding it is shit man

13. What are your favourite school subjects?: History and Art, I quite like Maths too but only algebra

14. Favourite TV shows: Torchwood, Doctor Who, Ackley Bridge (watch this one!!), Shameless UK, Queer as folk UK and Merlin are my top at the moment but I’ve been rewatching Peep show and getting into Sex Education on Netflix so those are honourable mentions 

15. Favourite movies: Ooh there are so many, right I’ll start with Notting Hill, then The full Monty, Labyrinth, Hot Fuzz and grease  Although I watched The Man who fell to earth yesterday and y’all it was a religious experience

16. Favourite books?: Maurice by E. M. Forster (and his short story The Machine stops), Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier and I’m reading Andy Warhol’s autobiography at the moment and the whole thing is beautiful, it’s just a stream of consciousness.

17. Favourite pastime: I love reading and listening to my favourite albums, I suppose I do a lot of things, I also really enjoy playing all of my instruments too but I wouldn’t say it’s a favourite

18. Do you have any regrets?: of course, but the list grows longer every day so there is no point keeping track of them or dwelling otherwise I’d spend my whole life doing it

19. Dream job: Philosophy academic, maybe a politician if I feel like it’s worth my time, I’d quite like to be very active in my activism so any job that allows me to do that would be brilliant 

20. Would you like to get married someday?: I think so, but probably not legally, just an emotional thing with a celebration, and definitely not with such a big fuss about it

21. Would you like to have kids someday?: I don’t think so but that might all change

22: How many?: more than one

23: Do you like shopping?: Sort of?? I like looking good and having things I enjoy but I don’t like spending money or being surrounded by consumerism so I mainly go to charity shops and second hand so I can at least feel a bit better, I don’t buy much more than clothes.

24: What countries have you visited?: France, Switzerland, Wales, Greece and Spain. I don’t really remember the last two but France was beautiful, I stayed with my friends in Lyon and it was stunning!

25. What’s the scariest nightmare you’ve ever had?: I had reoccurring nightmares about the Queen from snow white as an old lady in various different scenarios until I was about 11. I still can’t look at her, she’s the reason I’m scared of the dark and I shit you not sometimes she makes me panic so much I almost go into an attack??? It’s so random and I have no idea why?

26. Do you have any enemies?: Not as far as I’m aware

27. Do you have a s/o?: Ooh no, but I do have my eye on someone ;))))

28. Do you believe in miracles?: no, but that doesnt mean I dont think miraculous things can happen

I tag: @claudyn @osmoxix @misterf4hrenheit and anyone else who feels like it :)

#personal #al speaks #not queen

[myfeelingshavefeelings]

Please offer feedback!

For my English class, we had to write a 'diagnostic essay' about a topic we're passionate about and wouldn't need to do research for, so I chose LGBT+ representation in the media. I was hoping to get some feedback from people perhaps more knowledgeable than I, like @thefingerfuckingfemalefury . Anyway, here it is:

LGBT+ Representation in Visual Media is Very Flawed

As a member of the LGBT+ community, I know that LGBT+ representation in the media is priceless, for everyone, regardless of whether they identify as LGBT+ or not.  Obviously, improvements have been made in LGBT+ representation in the media, especially in YA literature, with well-known series, such as Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard by Rick Riordan, and standalone novels, like Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, featuring more and more characters-both main and background-who identify as LGBT+.  However, the media still has a long way to go, as these representations are not without their flaws.  This is most obvious in visual media-movies, TV shows, etc.

    For example, LGBT+ characters have a history of being treated badly by show-writers.  One gross example of this is a gay character being brainwashed into being ‘straight again’ on Shameless UK.  And much of the time, LGBT+ romances end in tragedy, which is ironic considering the original meaning of the word ‘gay’. This has actually led to coinage of the term ‘gayngst’, as well as many jokes about how much straight people love their ‘tragic gays’.  Whether it was killing one or both halves of the couple, such as the killing off of Lexa in The 100, leading to controversy over the infamous “Bury Your Gays” trope, or having them break-up for whatever reason (cheating, social pressure, etc.) it can feel like they never get a happy ending.  A recent example of this was when the CW’s show Supergirl broke up fan beloved couple Maggie Sawyer and Alex Danvers, after it was discovered Maggie had been cheating.  Even if it’s just throwing in unnecessary drama, like Ian developing BPD and Mickey being forced to marry Svetlana in Shameless US, rarely is it all sunshine and rainbows for non-cishet couples.

Another issue is that these relationships frequently feature substantial age gaps.  Well-known examples include Call Me By Your Name, wherein Elio is 17 and Oliver is 24; and Blue is the Warmest Color, where Adèle is 15 and Emma is a grad student.  By American laws, their scenes of intimacy are statutory rape. Unsurprisingly, neither couple gets a happy ending-Oliver leaves Elio and marries a woman less than a year later to please his conservative parents; Adèle cheats on Emma, and they break up.

Plus, many toxic LGBT+ relationships are all but glorified because there’s little else available.  Big example-Ian Gallagher and Mickey Milkovich from Shameless US.  Through physical and verbal abuse, multiple breakups, Ian’s BPD, Ian kidnapping Mickey’s son, Mickey’s violently homophobic father discovering the relationship and forcing him to marry a female prostitute, and Mickey going to jail for murder, fans still desperately want to see them end up together, which isn’t healthy.  They’ve literally gotten into fistfights over the smallest disagreements, but because they make out afterwards, clearly it’s true love, according to the fanbase.  Similar arguments for-or should I say against-Alex and Piper’s relationship from Orange is the New Black.  Alex is a drug dealer, Piper is a manipulative narcissist, and it’s just one tumultuous mess of toxic codependency.   And the world has enough problems with straight couples staying in abusive relationships because they believe the other person loves them-I’m looking at you, 50 Shades trilogy. The last thing we need is members of the LGBT+ community, who are already at risk of violence against themselves for who they choose to be or love, settling for abusive partners because they think that’s as good as it gets.

  One more issue with LGBT+ representation is that there is an imbalance between how much showtime is given to straight couples versus LGBT+ couples.  Take Freeform’s  Shadowhunters: when it comes to promotional materials, there is more devoted to Clary and Jace’s relationship than Magnus and Alec’s.  Morally dubious relationships like Izzy and Raphael, Izzy and Aldertree, Simon and Camille, etc. that add next to nothing to the plot are given somewhat substantial runtime and scenes with explicit sexual undertones. Viewers spend an awkward minute watching Jace and Maia make-out against a brick wall in an alley, during which time she licks his abs, before they have a one-night stand. Contrast with, Magnus and Alec, who originally would’ve only gotten a suggestive fade to black had there not been major outcry from fans of the show, and they’re one of the most healthy, naturally-developed relationships on TV right now.

There’s also a lack of diversity within LGBT+ representation-many LGBT+ couples are between two white people: Lukas and Philip from Eyewitness, Alex and Piper from Orange is the New Black, etc., the list goes on.  And, in my experience, they’re not often interracial.  In addition, more ‘obscure’ sexual orientations (e.g. demisexual, pansexual, etc.) and gender identities (e.g. nonbinary, genderfluid, etc.) are often difficult, if not impossible, to find.

The icing on the cake is, of course, that TV shows featuring LGBT+ couples/characters are often cancelled, like Sense8, or constantly at risk of cancellation, like Wynonna Earp, sometimes in spite of fan support, which is a shame.  These shows are so important, especially to people who feel like they don’t belong because of their sexuality or their gender.

Representation is so important, especially for young people, and we desperately need more of it.  Diversity in media helps people figure out who they are, and learn to accept and respect those who are different from themselves.  Also, inaccurate representation hurts this minority group, and is part of the larger problem of the generalized homophobia/transphobia in America.

(Sorry if the formatting is messed up, I'm on Tumblr mobile)

Please don't repost/steal-I worked really hard on this

#lgbt+ #mine #please dont repost #magnus chase and the guards of asgard #carry on: the rise and fall of simon snow #clexa #the 100 #sanvers #supergirl #shameless uk #shameless us #call me by your name #blue is the warmest color #gallavich #alex x piper #oitnb #shadowhunters #clace #malec #philkas #eyewitness #sense8 #wynonna earp

[aion-rsa]

Shameless Season 11 Episode 3 Review: Frances Francis Franny Frank

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Shameless review contains spoilers.

Shameless Season 11 Episode 3

“Gender’s a social construct.”

Shameless is a series that’s always been very interested in how its Chicago neighborhood influences its characters. Coming as a remake from a UK series, Shameless’s new environment becomes one of its most important changes. This series constantly labels characters and tells them what they can and cannot do, while this perception internalizes and festers. This final season has taken an even greater interest in these themes and “Frances Francis Franny Frank” specifically filters them through gender norms. 

This is hardly the first time gender has been examined on Shameless, but this episode repeatedly challenges ideas that would have been accepted back during the series’ earliest seasons. Ian and Mickey kickstart this discussion, but it’s something that becomes unavoidable, whether it’s through the pretense of a beauty pageant, Carl’s new female training officer, or even Frank’s quick aside that Franny is “like Rain Man…but a girl.” Shameless’s final season looks forward to the future of not just the Gallaghers, but all of the South Side, and episodes like “Frances Francis Franny Frank” highlight just how much they’ve grown.

Each episode of this season has shown some new kind of relationship problem crop up in Ian and Mickey’s post-marriage life. This may be Shameless’s plan for the two of them this season, which is an energy that works for the show, but “Frances Francis Franny Frank” involves what’s by far Ian and Mickey’s simplest problem to date. This episode’s quest to answer who is the “man” in their relationship is extremely low stakes and territory that would have been inherent to the two of them pretty quickly into their romance. It’s used as comedic relief here more than it’s meant to prompt any big changes between the two of them, but it does pry into the episode’s larger theme of gender roles. 

Both Ian and Mickey turn to different circles that weigh in their perspectives on what makes a “man” and a “woman,” to therefore figure out which of them can be slotted in these roles. There’s no major revelation here, but it gets characters talking about broader topics that feel representative of the entire South Side’s points of view. These opinions hang over some characters more than others and Ian reaches his breaking point at his job. His frustration is honestly understandable after what he’s put through, but Ian’s fresh vulnerability allows the dynamics between him and Mickey to once again transform. Mickey lucks into some new work helping out Kevin and V with their money laundering and their humble drug operation continues to grow. 

It makes sense for Mickey to align with Kevin and V’s new revenue of business, much like it did for Frank. However, other than this new partnership, this material is rather dreadful. Any tension that existed between Frank, Kevin, and V from last week is completely erased as Kevin gets lost in the glory of expendable income. Kevin flaunts all of this in such an irresponsible manner where he’s practically asking to get robbed. The past few seasons have shown Kevin in a greater need of validation, but he should absolutely know better and not require the approval of these random strangers. He 100% deserves to get robbed in the manner that he does and it’s seriously depressing that he’d jeopardize his family’s income like this. Hopefully Mickey will also be used to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again.

Ian and Mickey aren’t alone with their work-based stress and transitions. Carl gets a new training officer after his previous one remains in intensive care and at death’s door. There’s immediately a connection as Carl’s new gung ho partner doesn’t belittle him and uses a very empowering attitude to inspire good work. Her “Billie” nickname that she gives him because of how Carl resembles Billie Eilish is also maybe the funniest thing that Shameless has done in years. This relationship is so compelling because the values of Carl’s partner aren’t necessarily broken, but she’s hardened to the point where she has no patience for unnecessary bullshit from either the public or her profession. She makes it clear that she views herself as a cop and a dispenser of justice more than she brings her race or gender into the equation.

Carl’s glee over his progress at work is really satisfying. He hasn’t looked this happy in a while and it’s so freaking adorable that he shares a picture of his first arrest with his family. It’s a welcome change of pace to see Carl’s fulfillment come from his work rather than his romantic fling for the season. It definitely reflects a maturity in Carl that would have seemed impossible years ago. However, it also looks like Carl may already be conflating work and romance as he potentially builds an infatuation towards his new partner.

Carl works hard to build a version of the South Side that his future children would be proud to live in, but Lip and Tami grow consumed over much more personal doubts about the future. Lip and Tami appear to be in a healthy place for the time being, but they learn that Brad and Cami’s baby has developed considerable heart problems. It’s a difficult situation that’s not really fair to Lip or Tami. Tami is clearly lost in panic and Lip would obviously do what he can to help, but $65,000 might as well be one million dollars to him. The Gallaghers have never had that much disposable income in their lives. 

It’s all very manipulative melodrama, but it may lead to something productive for Lip. He may begin to get steady contracting work after people notice the renovations that he’s done to his house. Lip’s life has taken some seriously surprising turns over the course of the series. This would be a development that doesn’t only make sense, but also be a smart way to turn the former burden of Lip and Tami’s home into something that allows their lives to become enriched in a totally different way. It works even better that it’d be growth that happens purely because of the level of dedication that Lip puts into his work.

Throughout everyone’s respective crises, this whirlwind of chaos scatters the Gallaghers in different directions. A prolonged passing of the buck results in a neglected Franny ending up in Frank’s care, which turns into one of the first real bonding experiences between these different generations of Gallagher. Frank needs to help Franny get to school, which is a super benign storyline, but it might as well be getting Franny to the moon for how high Frank is when he inadvertently volunteers himself for this task. The decision to make Frank perpetually high this season while he tests product for Kevin and V is a nice touch to all of this and Macy clearly has fun working this into his performance. 

The distance that’s been previously kept between Frank and Franny makes their dynamic together feel fresh and exciting. It should really be sickening to see Frank use Franny as an asset on his drug runs as he naturalizes her to this level of grifting. Strangely, Frank’s misconduct blossoms into a place of sweetness where he can strip away all of his charlatan tactics and just genuinely enjoy the company of his granddaughter. Franny’s decision to wear her dress to please Debbie because of something that Frank tells her is an extremely tender conclusion and shows that he’s left a good impression on her, despite everything. I’m genuinely mystified over how Frank may currently be this season’s best character.

Frank’s technical success with Franny only makes Debbie feel worse about the failures that she’s recently faced. She screws up in a colossal way in this episode where a litany of irresponsible reasons result in one of her clients getting robbed. It’s actually appreciated and perhaps necessary that Debbie gets called out in the way that she does. She’s offered no sympathy and is forced to confront the consequences of her actions. Hopefully Lip’s harsh words will be able to prompt some change in her life.

Debbie is also caught up in a dangling storyline about the Little Miss South Side pageant that doesn’t really amount to much. It’s there to facilitate the episode’s final emotional beat where Franny helps her mother feel better. It’s a strange way to go about all of this, especially when considering the previous episode’s Debbie and Franny material, but it never steals too much focus away from the episode’s many other plots.

Despite the smaller scenarios that consume “Frances Francis Franny Frank,” things spiral out of control in a way where characters are left in various places of stability and instability as the episode comes to a close. Everyone is in fine form here, especially Frank and Carl, but at times this installment feels more like a collection of smaller pieces than it does a cohesive story, even if there is a unifying theme to tie it all together. There are many half-plots going on that I assume will receive payoffs in what’s to come, but Liam’s cafeteria revolution from before seems to be over, so it’s hard to say. 

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Shameless episodes always feel incredibly crowded and it typically doesn’t work in the show’s favor. It shouldn’t be afraid to leave characters out of the spotlight or find more ways to bring characters together rather than jump between a mess of disparate threads. The season is getting better in this department, but there’s still a ton of excess when it comes to characters and stories. Shameless needs to focus and figure out where it wants its characters to end up more than it needs to worry about who is the man or woman. 

The post Shameless Season 11 Episode 3 Review: Frances Francis Franny Frank appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[zalrb]

What do you think are the most tragic love stories in tv shows and movies that you've seen?

OK, so, spoilers. I’ve mentioned all of these couples already so I’m sorry if it’s repetitive. And this isn’t in any particular order.

Jax and Tara, Sons of Anarchy

I mention them a lot but Jax and Tara had such an embedded love and an intense pull, it had been ten years since she left Charming but when she got back they were immediately drawn into each other.

Their relationship was a source of hope for Jax while also a source of conflict because it was the only other thing that he loved as much as his club while with Tara, her love for Jax was undeniable but it took her to really dark places yet provided a lot of good in her life like her two sons and the love of a man who would do anything for her, anything except leave his club. But when he finally puts her first, finally puts his family first, when he’s finally being just a husband and a father and they reconcile after the amount of damage they inflicted on each other, she’s brutally murdered:

Noah and Rosalee, Underground

It’s only the second season of Underground so the fate of their relationship hasn’t been decided yet but it’s tragic because well Underground is about enslavement and about the various avenues taken to dismantle it and the main characters were a group of enslaved people who ran away from their plantation. Noah was the ring leader, passionate and devoted and committed and he believed in Rosalee when she couldn’t even see her own strength. Throughout the period of them running from the law and slave catchers and just white civilians, they have these moments of respite where they can gaze at each other or touch one another but then they have to keep moving because they’re fighting for their lives. When they finally are like a step away from freedom, they can finally have a moment long enough to consummate their love.

However, Noah is recaptured almost immediately after they have sex and Rosalee spends a lot of time and makes a very risky plan to get him back and you think that she will succeed because Noah escapes

but then he’s once again recaptured and she doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead.

Alisha and Simon, Misfits

Alisha was originally very mean to Simon because he was an outcast and a loner and frankly, weird, but then Simon from the future comes to the present to save Alisha’s life because in the future Alisha dies and she ends up falling in love with Future Simon which helps her fall in love with Present Simon except Future Simon dies protecting Present Alisha while Future Alisha had already died so basically they were both doomed to die.

Jal and Chris, Skins UK

Jal and Chris are a relationship in which the “overachiever” and “screw-up” relationship works really well because Jal is supposed to be uptight and focused and she’s very critical while Chris parties and does way too many drugs so one day they decide to help each other, where Jal has to say “Yes” to things because all she does is say “no” and Chris has to stop saying yes or his tagline “fuck it”

and try so they actually nuance each other and they go through a lot, he deeply hurts her and she goes through some unexpected challenges but they manage to make it through and then he dies:

Naevia and Crixus, Spartacus

Crixus and Naevia are tragic in two parts. The first part is Spartacus: Blood and Sand (this is the Naevia I prefer, they changed actresses in Spartacus: Vengeance) so Lucretia who is the domina, mistress, of the household uses Crixus as her sex slave, he’s only supposed to belong to her but Crixus falls in love with Naevia who is Lucretia’s “most trusted” personal slave so there are moments for instance where Naevia has to watch Lucretia and Crixus have sex and stand guard in case Batiatus, Lucretia’s husband, comes home. If that isn’t enough Batiatus gives Naevia to Ashur who is Crixus’ enemy and Ashur rubs it in his face so Crixus goes ballistic which lets Lucretia know that Naevia and Crixus were together so Lucretia beats Naevia

and then sells her off to be a sex slave, she’s used as a “gift”, being dragged to different households for esteemed men to rape in order for the House of Batiatus to gain favour.

When Crixus and Naevia finally reunite (this is the new actress), they end up dying.

Spartacus and Sura, Spartacus

Spartacus defied a Roman and was condemned to slavery along as his wife (but separately), Batiatus trains him to be a gladiator and says that if he fights and wins in the arena, he will be reunited with Sura. However, Spartacus is disobedient and rebellious, he has no regards to actually “honour” his master, he just cares about Sura and that’s a problem because his fights in the arena are gaining favour for Batiatus so he needs him so Batiatus has her delivered to Spartacus but tells the man who drives her to slit her throat before entering the gates so Sura dies in Spartacus’ arms.

Pietros and Barca, Spartacus

Pietros is a soft, young slave and Barca is a formidable gladiator who only shows his softness with Pietros and Barca wants to wins enough money to buy him and Pietros freedom but Ashur owes Barca a lot of money that he won’t pay so Barca threatens to kill him so Ashur creates a series of events that end with Batiatus slitting Barca’s throat, they then tell Pietros that Barca bought hiss own freedom and left him behind so obviously Pietros is heartbroken but then because Barca isn’t around to protect him he is consistently raped and beaten by another gladiator so Pietro commits suicide.

Silas and Amara, The Vampire Diaries

They were barely onscreen together and their story is really short but it’s really sad and that Dobsley chemistry, man.

Cesare and Lucrezia, The Borgias

OK, Cesare and Lucrezia is an interesting case because it’s incest and I usually find the inclusion of incest in narratives gratuitous, like, why  but the reason why Cesare and Lucrezia worked for me is because I thought the show did an excellent job in showing the shame and the guilt and the self-disgust that comes out of a dynamic like the one they have, Cesare is inwardly torn to shreds about how he feels for Lucrezia but it’s this overwhelming force that Lucrezia describes as, “a dark cloud descended upon me” and I find them tragic because who wants to feel this way? The situation is entirely fucked up and it affects them fundamentally:

Mickey and Ian, Shameless

No one dies, just, they don’t end up together and after all the shit they went through and everything they mean to each other, it’s just tragic that they’re not together.

Stefan and Elena, The Vampire Diaries

No explanation needed.

Buffy and Angel, Buffy The Vampire Slayer

I find it both beautiful and messed up that as long as Buffy and Angel love each other they can’t be together because the minute Angel experiences any form of true happiness, he loses his soul so they have to stay away from each other, it’s an inherently doomed relationship:

Robb and Talisa, Game of Thrones

I mean, *sigh* I have conflicting feelings about Talisa and Robb because Robb was my favourite character until Talisa because he was such an idiot and short-sighted and just, he was such a badass until he fucked up over her and that pissed me off but I still liked their scenes together and it did not need to go down the way it did.

That’s all for now.

#stelena #gallavich #simon x alisha #jal x chris #noah x rosalee #robb x talisa #pietros x barca #naevia x crixus #spartacus x sura #silas x amara #simara #cesare x lucrezia #the borgias #the vampire diaries #shameless #skins #misfits #underground #game of thrones #spartacus blood and sand #jax x tara #sons o anarchy