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Liner Notes (May 8th, 2021)

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Melody Bot, May 8, 2021.

  1. Melody Bot May 8, 2021
    Melody Bot

    Your friendly little forum bot. Staff Member

    This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply.

    I hope everyone had a good week this week. Today I sit on the couch and write up some thoughts on the music, movies, and TV shows I spent some time with over the past week. As always, there’s a playlist of ten songs I liked, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

    If you’d like this newsletter delivered to your inbox each week (it’s free and available to everyone), you can sign up here.

    A Few Things

    • This week was the 18th anniversary of Fall Out Boy’s Take This to Your Grave, and there’s a excellent article that does a deep dive into the evolution of the album’s artwork, including alternate covers and titles. And, there’s also a podcast episode with the artist with even more information. I find this sort of stuff extremely interesting, and there’s tons of trivia that even I didn’t know.
    • Somehow, the link to one of the articles I posted in last week’s newsletter didn’t end up working in the email version. Here’s the link. Good article.
    • Matt Levine’s latest article on cryptocurrency is a good encapsulation of how I feel about it. It’s inherently silly. As someone passionate about technology, I just can’t get myself to care much about this stuff.
    • This profile of Seth Rogan is very much worth your time.

    In Case You Missed It

    Music Thoughts

    • Back-to-back weeks with Dropkick Murphys and then The Mighty Mighty Bosstones releasing new albums. I have similar feelings about both, that they sound like late-stage albums from bands that continually put out good, if not familiar, music. I don’t think there’s much of anything here I’ll come back to on the regular, but we’ll see.
    • I continue to enjoy this new While She Sleeps album more than I ever could have expected. It was just a melodic aggression kind of mood, I guess.
    • Fickle Friends’ new EP is fun. I keep waiting for them to drop something that can take it to the next level, and while I don’t think this is that, they’re good songs, and that track with Nightly is a highlight.
    • I made a crack on the website about Lucky Boys Confusion this week, which lead me to return to Commitment on Friday. I am still confused about how this album didn’t breakout when it was released—ideally suited for where music was at the time, with multiple potential hits. When I think about this style of music, I could go for more albums that walk in this path.
    • Stars Hollow have a nice little emo sound on their debut record. “Through the Windshield” is probably my favorite from it on first glance.
    • There are some bands that get intense critical love from certain publications, that I’ve never quite understood. Iceage is one of those bands. They seem to just get penciled in as a BNM, 8+, and try as I might; they just don’t do anything for me.
    • Drew Beringer likes the new Weezer album.
    • Kennyhoopla’s new single “Hollywood Sucks” has such a Blink-182 feel to it. I’m growing increasingly excited for this upcoming EP.
    • New Sigrid this fall? Hells, yeah.
    • I’ve only been able to spin the new Half Waif once so far this morning, but I’ve been enjoying what I hear. It’s a little more upbeat than the previous, and I look forward to digging into it even more.
    • Rise Against released “The Numbers” this week, which might be my favorite song on the new record.
    • Next, I’m going to go listen to the new Aly & AJ album, which I have heard pretty good things about and seems like it should right in my wheelhouse.

    Entertainment Thoughts

    • I’ll watch Michael B. Jordan in just about anything, and I’ve always enjoyed the Tom Clancy novels for what they are. So, we gave the Without Remorse film on Amazon a try. It’s an alright action film but didn’t really have anything to set itself apart. A few good scenes but a mostly blah plot, and it seemed far too obsessed with setting itself up for a sequel instead of focusing on just making a good origin film. The epitome of a “yeah, that was fine, I guess” kind of film.
    • I was extremely impressed with Shiva Baby. It’s a comedy/drama that has all the tension and uncomfortableness of a horror film. The way it builds, each scene becoming more claustrophobic, becomes an impressive debut for the writer/director.
    • I enjoyed every episode of Invincible, and wow, was that an intense final episode of the season. Just brutal. I’ve been impressed just how much character work went into this season, not only for a cartoon but for any show. It’s not easy to do, but it was pulled off masterfully. If you like cartoons and are interested in a new superhero, this is definitely worth your time on Amazon Prime.
    • We’ve watched the first three episodes of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers on Disney+, and it’s a Disney show that feels like a Disney show, and I don’t really have any complaints about something that knows what it is, and just owns it. It reminds me of watching the Disney channel as a kid, with the line between cheesy and heartwarming walked relatively well.
    • I was impressed with everything Wandavision did to try and be unique and feel fresh for a superhero TV show. For all that Wandavision did right, I think The Falcon and The Winter Soilder gets wrong. It feels paint by numbers, completely exactly as expected, network-level superhero TV. It’s fine, I suppose, but there’s not really anything there that makes it stand out. It at least does deal with the aftermath of the “blip,” and that’s maybe been the most interesting thing so far. I was expecting more.

    Random and Personal Stuff

    • Not much on my mind this week. Hannah is taking some family photos with her mom and grandma this morning for Mother’s Day. I plan to see my mom tomorrow for some backyard hangs. So at the moment, I’m just watching some baseball and enjoying the day off.

    Ten Songs

    Here are ten songs that I listened to and loved this week. Some may be new, some may be old, but they all found their way into my life during the past seven days.

    1. Frank Turner – The Gathering
    2. Dropkick Murphys – SMash Shit Up
    3. NoMBe – Something to Hold Onto
    4. While She Sleeps – You Are All You Need
    5. KennyHoopla – Hollywood Sucks
    6. Fickle Friends – Turns Me Bad
    7. Joy Oladokun – Sorry Isn’t Good Enough
    8. Justin Courtney Pierre – Promise Not to Change
    9. Rise Against – The Numbers
    10. Chaser – A New Direction

    This playlist is available on Spotify and Apple Music.

    Community Watch

    The trending and popular threads in our community this week include:

    The most liked post in our forums last week was this one by stoits in the “Dogleg – Melee (March 13, 2020; Triple Crown)” thread.

    Hmm, I feel very much on the outside of all the internet music drama stuff these days. And honestly, I feel so much better off being removed from it all. After the last two decades of these sorts of things being way too much of my life, I can’t even put to words how much it’s helped my mental health to just not even worry or think about it anymore. Anyway, Dogleg is good!

    Previous editions of Liner Notes can be found here.

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