Weekly Recap (May 7th - May 14th, 2023)

On Sunday evening, after writing last week's recap, I watched The Charismatic Voice reacting to a Spiritbox recording session and I agreed with her on that the singer sounded very very good! She has amazing technique. I haven't heard any of their songs before, but based on this alone, I think I might check them out at some point!

Then I scrolled TikTok and saw this queer rock band called Artio performing their song Product of my design. Tbh, I don't remember much about it. I do these recaps by writing stuff down on my notes app and they were good enough for me to write their name down, but apparently not memorable enough for me to still remember them now, a week later. But at least I've heard the name now. I am aware of their existence and have documented it here that I like at least one of their songs. In fact, I'm gonna like the song on Spotify rn, so I'll remember them even better. I remember being too tired to do that on the day. I was just scrolling Tiktok, just about to go to sleep.

Discover Weekly (Spotify)

• No Name Faces - Nobody's Property (very specific lyrics! I need to google them at some point to see what is this song about...)
• The Dali Thundering Concept - God Is Dead (This. This was the musical highlight of the week. I listen to loads and loads of music, from dozens of different genres, the very hip and pop sounds and the very weird and unconventional sounds. It's very rare that music will make me go "what the fuuu-??". But this song did just that. I have no idea what is going on and what the heck are those time signatures... In fact, I'm gonna google the band rn. Their YouTube bio says: "The Dali Thundering Concept is a four member band founded in 2010, offering a symbiosis between Deathcore's brutality and the areal vibes of Progressive Metal". They had the genres capitalized like that, btw. I did guess it was progressive and that metal had something to do with it, but that was about it. Very very interesting music. This is going on my three-song listen list, and from there possibly to my deep dive list.)
• LADYBABY - Haten ni raimei (FUCK this is catchy!! In case someone hasn't heard of them, they're a kawaii metal band.)
• Call Me Karizma feat. Mike's Dead - Six Feet (I have no notes. I'm very hungover and tired rn, so I'm not gonna listen to it again rn, either, but yeah... I have a vague memory from Monday of liking this very much, but being a bit speechless and deciding not to write any notes on this one.)
• The Anchor - Rip & Tear (Metalcore food recipes. Need I say more?)

I happened to notice that Spotify has artist descriptions and they are hilariously over-the-top. :'D I recommend choosing your favourite band and reading what Spotify staff has written about them in the bio. I assume it's written by the staff, at least most of them. They're very eloquent and posh... I might some day go over what they're saying about some very raunchy artists, like Cupcakke, Sex Pistols, etc...

000 (pronounced "zero") had published a new song called Flowerboy, and Spotify had not recommended it to me. :( I hate how the app leaves out smaller, indie creators like that, even if you Follow(TM) them on the app... She has an amazing personality and her songs are quite good, too, and I'd like to support her my likes on the songs... I heard the song on TikTok and then went to Spotify to like it there's too.

Tommy Lindgren from Don Johnson Big Band has done solo work (mostly rap songs aimed at children) and features on other people's songs and I went through those early in the week. Here are the ones that were so good I wrote them down:

• Paleface - Muista! (probs going on my translation list)
• the album Nyt kolisee, which is a mixtape made on J. Karjalainen's songs from a specific album and features a bunch of rappers, including Tommy. He made a song called Mitätön. Internal rhyme scheme genius. I have to add it to my translation list.
• Q-Continuum - Nuthing but a Q-Thang. Amazing. Not that I could say I knew at all what the hell I'm talking about, but somehow this gave me, like, very old school hiphop kinda vibes. I dig it.
• Tuomo - Cute baristas 2020. I'm not sure if I think this is cute or creepy :'D I guess it's pretty harmless.

There was a YouTube video on the best female rappers of all time and I really need to go through it again and add some of those amazing women on my three song listen list.

The Charismatic Voice did a video of a Bullet For My Valentine song. They were my absolute favourite band in my late teens and early 20s. I even went to see them when I was 18, but that's a story for another day. I'm not feeling so well. I love writing and talking about music, but today I don't feel like going super deep into any story or anything like that, so... Another time.

Knox Hill did a video on Jack Harlow's Jackman album, which sounded interesting. Going on a list, somewhere... I don't know where, since it's one album... maybe the deep dive list is a better than the three-song listen list. Three song listen takes around 10-15min and is for a mood when I want new music I haven't heard much before. Deep dives take days or weeks and are for when I really really want to dive deep into someone's lifetime of work and immerse myself in it. 

Knox also reacted to another Harry Mack freestyle video, and Harry freestyled a rap song about a small avocado tree named Todd. As I guessed before he begun, there were also deeper metaphors there. I don't remember exactly what they were - I was watching this on the bus on my way home from an evening shift, so nothing deep really stuck with me in the moment, but I remember having a vague understanding on what the meaning was, at the time I was listening to it. It was my personal favourite of his freestyles. The most wholesome and adorable rap song I've ever heard.

Knox also reacted to Ren reacting to him on his stream last Thursday, so I finally watched the stream. I did open Knox's video on a separate tab, liked it immediately and let it play on mute on the background, though :D Just to let him and the YouTube algorithm know, that this is the type of content I want to see more of. I watched the stream and then actually watched Knox's video. On the stream the audio was cut off a bunch of times, because he played music on there, but I still watched the whole thing. He played the song and said some things, but the audio was cut. Then he answered some questions, then reacted to Knox's video by popular demand, and then started to talk about music because a lot of people were asking him about it. He's like me - when he starts talking about music, he just won't stop. Hence why I have this blog. He showed us Lauryn Hill's MTV Unplugged, a particular song from there, where Lauryn is crying while singing, and then Ren teared up a little bit watching it... Lauryn is one of his favourite rappers of all time. He picked up a guitar and played along Lauryn, and tried to sing along but didn't know the lyrics, started singing/rapping his own song, then just kept going... It was amazing. Phenomenal. He just went from song to song to song, by what popped into his head at the moment and by what people asked him to play. It was like a private concert. He should do that more. 

Ashnikko suddenly dropped a video for Weedkiller. I checked afterwards and there had been marketing, it just had not reached me. But the video was amazing. Movie quality effects and acting and camerawork... And also visualizes the story nicely. I tried to do a deep dive of the lyrics this week, but it's pretty hard, not knowing the full story. Gonna have to wait a couple of weeks for the album to drop out and then do a proper deep dive into it.

Ian Taylor was a guest on Black Pegasus' channel, they were reacting to Hi Ren. He seemed like such a nice person, I checked out his music. He's an amazing technical spitter rapper. I can't really catch many bars, though, because they go so fast, but I like the songs anyway. One of the videos had some very naked women in some pretty compromising positions (as props, pretty much, to highlight the success he dreamed of having in a dream sequence in the video). Which is a bummer, since I liked him very much initially. I thought he'd been cooler than that. I don't mind when artists talk about sex or brag that they get a lot of action, etc, but there are multiple ways of approaching these topics and what he did there is such a cliché, it's been done a million times and it's not just getting old, it's... very much hindering the progress we could be making as a society, and where male rap artists could be taking things, if they wanted to. It's hard explaining why I have a problem with music videos like this and why I don't have a problem with music videos like Scene Queen's Pink Panther (where the entire song is about her "getting pussy like Pink Panther"). Maybe I'll figure it out some day. I still like Ian, but I didn't become a superfan, and that's entirely due to his lack of societal progressiveness. He's very young, though, so maybe he'll grow. I think he was 23 or something, when that song came out. I was a dumbass at 23, too, so... There's hope. He's not a bad person by any means, just a bit immature and naive (not seeing the bigger picture).

Release Radar (Spotify)

• Crimson Adored feat. Arankai - The Price of Power
• Dorian Electra - Freak Mode (they're kinda rapping?? I'm so excited for this, hyperpop artists tackling rap. They're like... they can take any genre they want and do a musically perfect, lyrically hilarious parody of it. Their pop is the best over the top camp thing ever, their metal is metal as fuck but has their own non-biased twist on it, and now Dorian is rapping... YES. We need more queer, feminist rap in the world. To counter-act the Eminems and Ian Taylors of this world, who are technically the best ones out there, but lack societal progress and will therefore be left behind when kids (the consumers of the future) don't vibe with their sexist bs. I hope this becomes a thing and young guys like Ian see this and take notes. I'd hate for the talent to go to waste just because you are stuck in a time you were barely even alive to see... The 1990s, early 2000s when women were ridiculed about everything and movies were all about the male gaze.)
• Avenged Sevenfold - We Love You (I wrote: "WTF, this is different... electronic, progressive, alternative")
• SOM - Policy of Truth (pretty good, very calm)
• Lil Mariko feat. Deijuvhs - Shiny (lol, this was funny)
• Todrick Hall - San Diego (yey, more rap from Todrick!)
• Lord of the Lost - Cha Cha Cha (the band that represented Germany in Eurovision covered the song Finland's Käärijä performed in the Eurovision... impressive, since the song is in Finnish :D)
• Lead Horizon - Sayonara (Finally, Russian rap! I listen to Russian music a little bit, to keep up my language skills, and the algorithm is catching up that I'm into rap now :D Need to google the lyrics at some point.)
• Vision Video - I love cats (:'D Yes. #relatable)

I'm gonna do a separate post on Eurovision, but that has to happen another day. I'm supposed to be asleep already... Same thing with the translation. I have a draft on it, but it's on paper and not finished, so it's gonna happen early next week.