metalman

Yes sorry for being silly. 😕 Anyway, I think the interesting thing about this is that, really, when you think about it, the overwhelming majority of singers or bands are only known to the overwhelming majority of people for one song. Obviously, this might not work on us because I imagine we have a higher tendency to be music nerds, but to most people Alice Cooper might be no more than the guy who sang School's Out, Shirley Bassey no more than the woman who sang Goldfinger, David Bowie no more than the guy who did the Laughing Gnome. Even those who have sold hundreds of millions of records might be reduced to a handful of songs. The Rolling Stones did Gimme Shelter and Jumping Jack Flash, maybe Tumbling Dice and Honky Tonk Woman, but what else? When Paul McCartney performs on a TV show they'll generally get him to trot out Hey Jude. Songs that were huge back in the day - Je veux tenir ta main, Band on the Run, even his career peak We All Stand Together are, to most people, forgotten. To some, even an artist as versatile as Stevie Wonder may be no more than the guy who sang Superstition. Mozart the chap who wrote Alla Turca.

That would be really cool if it was 2007 and Spotify didn't exist.

Oh fuck I completely forgot the World Cup has a 3rd place match. When I used to get these on football manager I’d go on holiday.

He’s the missing Wink(s)

I don’t think Modric said it was unfair for the English to be cocky. I don’t think he was suggesting that it was morally wrong for them to underestimate Croatia. I believe the point was that the cockiness got under the Croatians’ skin and inspired them to perform against England. Lovren himself may well be cocky, but one’s own cockiness doesn’t invalidate the possibility of being annoyed at another’s cockiness. We are all motivated and rewarded by different things. Perhaps the English team were insufficiently inspired by Lovren’s cockiness, or perhaps - not having the same knowledge or access to Croatian media that the English speaking Croatians have to British media - they were unaware of it. But I’m a Scottish Kilmarnock fan so you’re probably wasting your breath.

I'm also glad that this World Cup has made a lot of English people happy. It seems to me that there haven't been a lot of opportunities for English people to celebrate being English. In Scotland and Wales we have a parliament and a government: distinct institutions that are a big part of our identity and play a big role in what it means to be Scottish our Welsh. These provide a benign outlet for Scottish people to celebrate being Scottish and the ways in which we are different (though still mostly the same and still friends obvs) from the rest of the UK. England doesn't have that. And as such, expressions of English nationalism have taken quite a negative shape in the popular mindset: the English Defence League is an obvious example. And this is obviously unfair and frustrating for English people who want to celebrate their country, the vast majority of whom are wonderful people. They didn't have much of a competing narrative - and those that they did have were coopted as British, not English. And sometimes this frustration can boil over. Brexit was a roar into the void from many English voters, frustrated at the political consensus and at their powerlessness (much as the independence referendum almost was for Scotland). This is why I think England's World Cup run is more important than just being a sporting thing. It gave English people a positive outlet to celebrate being English. Not only that, it was done in the form of a young, diverse team that showed a different story of England from the one that Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg had been telling us. And a calm, grounded, everyman manager that did a wonderful job of contextualising the exact thing that I'm posting about. Culturally, this cup run could be more important for England than 1966. This is a crucial time. There's now a mainstream, positive narrative of Englishness that the progressive majority can seize upon. And that could be a very good thing. (Although the sooner you get your own parliament the better #takebackcontrol - but properly, obviously.)

There was a lot to like about this England team. Commiserations guys.

Tbf Scottish people still go on about Bannockburn 1314

"We're 2-0 down in the World Cup quarter-final. We need a solution, and we need it now." *John Guidetti starts warming up* Oh Sweden... 😕 (Mind you I thought the same with Nacer Chadli in Bel v Jpn)

You’re an idiot. ^ Rich, i mean

But why mention that now? Nobody else brought up bagpipes. Nobody was playing bagpipes It’s completely irrelevant, unless you’re aiming to be xenophobic. Can’t you just enjoy your team winning a game without feeling the urge to be unpleasant to others?

What’s your point?

I’m not the only one who finds that brass band playing the same song over and over again a bit irritating, am I?

So, EWB. Most of us have been around the block a bit. We're getting old. Maybe there was a time when we used to think "I'll never be like my dad/uncle/whatever, dismissing everything new and refusing to listen to anything that was released after 1972". I used to think that. Between the ages of 15 and 23 (or thereabouts; so 2006-2014) I used to get my hands on everything I could. Sometimes, this wasn't even a particularly meaningful experience: often, I'd listen to an album once and never think of it again, because I was far too keen to have a listen to something else. There were, of course, also those that stuck with me. But I don't really care about new music anymore. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not saying that my music is better. I'm just not particularly bothered about finding out. Perhaps this is a bizarre reaction to the rise of music streaming services. Perhaps, intimidated by the sheer, limitless scale of music to listen to, I've retreated to what I know. Or maybe I'm just getting old. I usually listen to the weekly new music playlist that Apple Music puts together for me. I like most of the songs. But I've never been motivated to look into an artist further or dig out an album or something. There's probably only one new artist that I've discovered over the last three or four years that I regularly listen to (Kamasi Washington, if you're curious). Aside from that, I don't really care. But aside from all that, the way I actually consume music has changed completely too. Where, only five years ago, music was my main interest, now it's usually something that I have on in the background as I'm reading or working. With it being something in the background, I'm not too bothered about having something new. It's also led to me listening to far more classical music than I did before. If I'm exploring new music - or music that's new to me, at least - I'm only going backwards these days, not forwards. How do you lot feel about this?

That is good. Nice to see Neymar getting singled out. I don't think I've ever seen a game with him involved where his behaviour hasn't been pathetic.