RPS

I feel like I'm going to sub to PS+ and try something there. FF7 remake or Returnal. Any other suggestions?

100% Vampire Survivors. What to play next on XBox?

De La Soul's 3 Feet and Rising is streaming now. Go forth and listen my friends. In my opinion, the best album of the 80s and one of the most influential hip hop albums. At times, it feels less like an album at times and more like 3 friends shooting the shit and goofing around for an hour. Even at their most serious and profound, you can still each of them has the biggest grin on their face.

Me and the hubby are almost caught up. We just finished episode 5. I think the show is fine. My hubby thinks it's great. I feel a bit like the show is being treated with kids gloves because it's a video game show that is good. I think the acting has been hit or miss outside of Joel and Ellie. I also think the script is unnatural and bad at times. I also think that it's being told in very bizarre ways - the whole FEDRA/Henry/Sam plot fell very flat for me. It felt very half baked, which works as a video game but not as a TV show. At times, I feel like the show is leaning into tropes rather than bucking them. Also, maybe it was just me, but I felt like the special effects/green screens were flat out bad It is an enjoyable TV show. I think there is a lot interesting experiments with the cinematography. I think they are playing with perspective and camera angles that I think were heavily borrowed from the game. The performances of Ellie and Joel are extraordinary. I buy into the relationship between the two, even when the dialogue is not great.

Has anyone listened to Model/Actriz album Dogsbody. Wow. It was certainly an experience. It feels very inspired by early Liars. Intense melodies, intense vocals, scuzzy around the edges. I could imagine my husband would ask me to turn it off.

I have listened to a lot recently. Most of it was good, but very little to rave over. The Gorillaz album is pretty terrible. It feels uninspired. It feels like Damon Albarn has been reusing the same ideas since Plastic Beach and sounds like he's going through the motions. The Bad Bunny track was great but thats because Bad Bunny is the best pop star going right now. The Skrillex album Quest For Fire was a fun distraction. I listened to this EP by an electronic musician Santa Muerte. It's called Eslabon. Check it out if you want a breezy mix of genres. Caroline Polacheks album is fantastic and flawless. Definitely the AOTY. I'm still infatuated right now with it, so I'll probably write something more detailed when I'm out of my obsession.

I believe there is an easier mode for most of the non platforming levels.

Beating the first four shrines and seeing how the world of BOTW opens up.

Characters are cuter in FE.

The Men's album New York City was a nice rock album. Very heavy and crunchy. No real standouts for me. Lil Yachtys album was enjoyable. I get the criticism of rappers turning away from hip hop to be taken seriously. But it's a good psychedelic pop album. RAYE's album titled My 21th Century Blues is a fun little pop album. Not life changing but personal and enjoyable. The best album I have heard this year is the Young Father's Heavy Heavy. I liked their last album. This one is in a similar vein. Straddles the line between hip hop, pop, and experimental music.

What are songs that sound ahead of their time? Need You Tonight by INXS has tremendous production values on the percussion it's unreal. The vocals and that slide guitar definitely sound a tad dated but the production on the percussion makes the song sound like it was recorded in the 21st century.

I don't mind the Spotify suggestions, but I find that they try to find more like something, which is not always what I want. Like after I have listened to Fiona Apple or Saves the Day, I don't necessarily want artists like that. I like to vary it up a bit.

I agree with DFF. I don't just use RateYourMusic, but a mix of what's new from trusted reviewers (Resident Advisor for electronic music, Exclaim for indie, Pitchfork for what's popular), or fan/critic aggregate sites like RYM or Metacritic or Acclaimed Music for new stuff. I work from home 3 days a week and I just find random stuff to listen to that I never heard before. Pitchfork does a really helpful service every Friday of the top 7-9 albums go listen to that week. I find that super helpful. Listening to 3 new albums a week is easy... You just need to avoid relying upon the old faithful albums. There are times I become hyper obsessed with a band or album and listen to it a dozen or so times but otherwise I just try to listen to new stuff.

I am listening to I Feel Cream by Peaches. I wanted to write a little post because I think it's an excellent album. Peaches is known for being incredibly explicit. I don't find her approach to shock or to be grotesque. In done ways Peaches and her act had always been celebratory. On a track from an earlier album Slippery Dick, she raps "call it a queeb, call it a queef, big chuck, young buck, fist fuck, cock suck" over a lo fi electro punk track. But it's not meant to be shocking - I think a big part about her is normalizing sex and admitting that we all have our favorite aspects of it. You would think that with a bold proclamation of I Feel Cream, this would be an explicit. And she does put her sexualized self front and center, but she also ensures to explore loss, love and romance. Yes, there is a song called Mommy Complex that absolutely should never be listened to near your mother ("going to get your bone enlarged because mommy wants to take a ride"). But she also sings about not wanting to lose partners and begging a partner to simply just talk to her about their problems. There is an exploration of the suffocation of domesticity. On Lose You, she keeps repeating she doesn't want to lose a romantic partner but she says it so disinterested that you have to wonder if she would be better off without the person anyway.

My oldest has always been liking video games, but it's not her forte. When asked, she would rather putter around on her tablet or watch a movie than play a game. So she doesn't have her own Switch like her siblings. Last week on Friday she asked what game we could play together. Her choices in games are very single player - The Sims or Stardew Valley. I decided - why not show her Undertale? I knew this years ago when I played Undertale, but it is an example of a perfect video game. It is by the best video game released this century. There is not a single flaw in the game. It's absolutely enjoyable for a middle aged man and it's absolutely enjoyable for a 10 year old girl. It has bar none the best video game soundtrack ever. I listen to the Undertale album on Spotify when I need to smile. It is so charming and sweet. We has been howling laughing at Sans and Papyrus. She lost her mind at the Dog Marriage and wanted to quit so she could redo the battle. She spent a half hour speaking to every person in Snowdin valley. She on purposes engaged in random encounters to see all the characters, all the interactions. She has killed some characters and I have remained mum knowing what has happened. The art style is so simplistic yet so iconic because of character design. It's simplistic character design but done in a way that clearly conveys who each character. I remember the same feeling when I played Undertale coming up on a decade ago. The pure joy and bliss of each character interaction, the outstanding and recognizable music, the puzzle of each battle. It's outstanding.

Vampire Survivors. Inject it directly into my veins.

My playlist of my 15 favorite songs of the year. Top 3 albums are: Black Midi - hellfire: This is the best rock album released in decades. It's perfect in every way because it refuses to compromise. There is no hit single. No attempt to make a song to narrate a TikTok video. It's not really even intended to be performed at Coachella. It's an experience to punish, alienate, push the audience as it explores themes of toxic masculinity, entitlement and the order of society we live in. Take Sugar/Tzu for example - it starts off as a relatively lovely song, before slowly crescendoing to complete chaos. You think you'll get some expert pay off moment, but the song constantly changes directions, refusing to give us the audience even one moment to reflect. Welcome to Hell is just a masterpiece of song writing. It makes my skin crawl, the sinister tone Geordies voice as he taunts me that he's mocking me telling me not to tell him of my grief or my emotional grief. Every instrument is perfect - the bassline harrowing, the drums chaotic and impossible to follow, the guitar building that anxiety inside of you. It's just extreme excellence in recording history - refusing to chase trends, compromise or reward their audience. Charlotte Adigery and Bolis Pupil - Topical Dancer: This is an album unlike I have heard before. It is a breezy electronic album that would not fit out of place in a mid 00s DFA or Soulwax dance party. It is raw, catchy, yet ever so abrasive. Where it really thrives is how cutting, uncomfortable and bizarre it is. Listen to It Hit Me and name a song that even resembles it. Using voice alteration, they both examine what it felt like to understand the sexual gaze. It hit them, as they say. Which they repeat over and over again. It's so on the nose, but in a way that is so outlandish and unexpected. Both male and female perspectives are explored - it hit both them and we hear both perspectives. Ceci n'est pas un cliche is just Charlotte dead pan singing a bunch of nonsensical cliches with little to no meaning. HAHA is just Charlotte laughing for three minutes with bizarre interjections here or there, before pronouncing guess you had to be there There is so much here to grapple with - one can enjoy it as a stand alone bizarre track. Or you can look at it from a critical lense. When Charlotte laughs at me and says - guess you have to be there - I am being othered and excluded. Why would a singer release a track designed to mock, exclude their audience? It's all so fascinating. Alvvays - Blue Rev: what a delightful pop album. I don't have deep thoughts on this album. It's a picture perfect pop album made with crunchy guitars, a raw bass guitar, and a subdued drum. Front and center is the fuzzed out vocals. Superb.

You are playing with my son evidently.

I watched Isle of Dogs with my kids. This was my second time watching. Putting aside the problematic plot elements (why do the dogs speak English? Why is this foreign exchange student the person pushing the resistance forward? Why include the references to Aboriginal dogs being cannibals?) - this has to be one of the most visually stunning movies of all time. My kids LOVED the movie.

I agree, but I do not think the quality has dropped off. I think what has occurred is that instead, 1) there is far too much out there to watch, 2) the zeitgeist is not focused on one TV show because there is so much out there and 3) there is a diversity of what is good on TV, so something may be good but not appeal to everyone. I am positive my brother would love Succession. However, he has no time to watch Succession because of all the other shows he watches and it is not something he would instinctually be gravitating towards.

I stopped this most recent season and went to Overwatch. I still squad up with my son. But I'm glad I did with the weekly challenges ending after the week.

I beat Pokemon Violet yesterday.

Cinderace is hard!

Everything Everywhere All At Once was outstanding. Definitely a transformative piece of film. Anyone who likes action movies and/or experimental film should watch it. If film wasn't in the shitter because of Marvel and Disney, this would change the landscape of film like the Matrix did. I also watched The French Dispatch last evening. I have watched every Wes Anderson movie and it felt like the most unlike a Wes Anderson movie. It certainly wears it's influences on its sleeve. I do not really know if I would recommend it. It was certainly interesting.

Edge of Innocence by D. Tiffany and Roza Terenzi is a real incredible album. I guess it would be chalked up to being a techno album, but it borrows quite liberally from a couple of generations of electronic music. Certain sounds or portions of songs wouldn't feel out of place in an album from the 90s but with modern design choices (house music still has a huge influence) and a certain level of sophistication. It sounds like a track that could be on the Matrix soundtrack, but what if it took into account 20 years of musical history. Check out a track called Gravity Bongo for a great example. It falls somewhere between a house and techno song, but you can see the influences of bass, dance punk, electro, hyper pop, etc. It doesn't work like modern electronic tracks fixated on a drop, but rather layering on more and more interesting elements to the track. Some of the album goes back further than the techno of the 90s. The whole albums use of vocal and samples feels indebted to the raw, sexual nature of house music from the 80s. Random moans, unintelligible words from a sexy sounding male voice, or several random voices singing "Beat on the drums" on Liquorice Skritch. Its truly fantastic stuff. I would say to listen to the standout songs - Gravity Bongo, Liquorice Skritch, Grains of Sand, Paparazzi - but the whole album feels essential.