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What have you been listening to this week?
What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)
Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.
You can make a chart if you use last.fm:
http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/
Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.
I reconnected with The Flashbulb - Arboreal this week after a long repose. I vaguely remember it winning a few best albums, whatever that's worth.
Really varied genre-wise and the whole album is so good.
One of those albums for me, where it's hard to pick a favourite because there's so many favourites so here's a sampling. Unusually for me they're all pretty short and sweet :)
Oh yes, Transient by Bad Beach ........
Arboreal is so good! Probably my favorite Flashbulb album.
A Strange Loop
It has grabbed me like no musical in a long time (probably since Come From Away). It's a story about someone attempting to write a Broadway show, with the characters in the play being the writer's own thoughts.
This might be my own hang up, but "writing about writing" can sometimes grate, and I'll admit that I went in a bit guarded on this one on account of its metafictional framing. I'm happy to report that those walls were completely mowed down by the play, and I ended up being blown away by it. The show is smart and fantastically written -- both lyrically and musically.
Also, it hits HARD.
It is explicitly rooted in issues of queerness, body image, race, sexuality, and identity. The opening song identifies the play as a "big, Black, and queer-ass American Broadway show" and it hits every single word in that list with meaningful fidelity.
As I listened I was taken aback at the show's uncompromising point of view and perspective. It doesn't shy away from anything, and there are some truly, genuinely uncomfortable moments that force the audience to confront some difficult topics.
The climax of the show hit me like a fucking sledgehammer, and I was a sobbing mess.
Also, all this happened and I wasn't even watching the show, just listening to the cast recording! I can only imagine how much is added actually seeing it live.
I posted the cast's Tiny Desk Concert which is a great entry point if any of this sounds interesting.
The world's largest girl group, Blackpink, released their first single in a long time today.
Pink venom got something like 60 million views in the first 12 hours today.
The song is... not good.
Lots of Cory Wong. I'm not going into detail but his music is solid, and frankly even better than anything Vulfpeck put out (which is great, don't get me wrong). I love his YouTube channel because when he's talking about how songs are approached you get the full picture, and he's one of those artists (with his backing band The Wongnotes) where every track is a goldmine.
I was doing some work yesterday and was listening to El-P's Cancer 4 Cure and decided to listen to Run the Jewels 1-4. I've gone through phases of like and dislike, but I'm definitely a fan now, because it's more of El-P's style with Killer Mike. While I don't listen to Mike's solo work, they're great together.
Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version is now definitely a favorite album. I'd listened to Enter the Wu-Tang but not much from the individual members, but thought ODB's delivery was great. Anything Wu Tang is pretty solid anyway, but ODB just feels very different.
I have a few actual play (tabletop RPG) podcasts that I listen to, and am always looking for more, especially non-D&D ones. My current set:
Adventure Inc: Despite me looking for non-D&D, this is, in fact, a 5E podcast, following a group of adventurers (currently a wizard, ranger, cleric, and bard) out to save the world.
Astronomica: A Stars Without Number podcast following a group of spacefarers making their fortunes among the stars.
7th Star From The Right: Similar to the above, just with a different cast of characters.
Resting Glitch Face: A Shadowrun podcast about three women all running ops in a partially post-apoc St Louis.
Eventually, I need to add more (as I catch up, I have to find more to binge!)
According to my listenbrainz profile, I've listened to a handful of songs. I'll only report on the ones that were memorable.
Megadeth released a couple new singles from their upcoming album. The music is great, but also showcasing ideas and ideology from Dave that won't get much applause on this site. Just like the last 5 albums 🙃 Makes great lifting music though!
Queens - Stone Cold Crazy is a song that I've been trying to find for a couple months. A song that many consider to be one of the first ever "thrash metal" songs, and it sounds great to-boot!
Freakout/Release is a surprisingly catchy, "crunchy", new single from Hot Chip. Not as good as "Over and Over", but still quite good. Also, realized as I was writing this comment the album "Freakout/Release" was dropped today! Gonna give it a listen through, see if they have anything else good on there.
To round it off, Middle Man by The Atomic Bitchwax is one of those songs that immediately catapult themselves back into my listening rotation after I've gone a while without hearing it.