I don't want to devote much brain power to blogging today so there's this:
ITEM! A strange, hypnotically repetitive pigeon with chilling blood-red eyes that I filmed at Maruyama Zoo.
ITEM! I've been dropping down something of a well of Japanese pop culture. After years spent assuming that Neon Genesis Evangelion was the kind of impenetrable saga that I'd be better off leaving well alone and sticking to my own impenetrable sagas (oh Clone Saga, how I love you) I've finally watched some of it. And I really enjoyed it! In a way. The main character is a scrawny high-school kid, who is comically... nay (unintentionally) hilariously angst-ridden, and who is piloting a giant robot in order to fight off possibly celestial threats that are bent on wiping out humanity in order to win the approval of his unfeeling father. It's fairly ham-fisted, but if you're going to have a giant robot vs. giant monster slug fest, you might as well do a disection of human insecurities while you're at it. Also, while the series seems to have been going forever, they've actually just been telling the same story again and again, progressively refining it, changing the plot and improving the animation. I'm glad I can just jump into the new movies and not worry about the original series which was completed, revised, the revisions postponed, remastered, released as one film, then two films, then...
ITEM! Also I've been picking through a bunch more Japanese hip-hop and finding a bunch of good stuff (easily outweighed by the bad stuff admittedly, but still, the good stuff's really good). Kreva has such a great flow when he's on, I wish he would stop making R&B. And man, he's making autotune sound bad. And I'm finally listening up on M-Flo, since I always dig Verbal's verses for the Teriyaki Boys, and I was talking about him being a deranged prince of fashion. However, it turns out... even princes can make mistakes - like on this early best of:
I don't know what happened there, I can only assume he was drawing on his eyebrows and got a little playful. Then someone jolted his arm. Then he ill-advisedly ran with it. Christ.
ITEM! I found a new American rock band I like too - Self. I'm blown away by a few songs on each of their albums, and that's enough to get a thumbs up from me. However I read a bunch of posts about them talking about how they're indie-rock, or pop-rock or electronic-rock (absolutely not). Genre discussions are just a terrible, horrible idea in any situation but seriously, people - this is Power-Pop. And people wonder why Self kinda failed - Power-Pop doesn't sell! The best you can do is Fountains of Wayne, and they're still pretty humble. The fact that Power-Pop is entirely about feel-good spirit lifting joy and yet it still doesn't sell is one of those mysteries of the ancients that I've always wondered about.
ITEM! I've been dropping down something of a well of Japanese pop culture. After years spent assuming that Neon Genesis Evangelion was the kind of impenetrable saga that I'd be better off leaving well alone and sticking to my own impenetrable sagas (oh Clone Saga, how I love you) I've finally watched some of it. And I really enjoyed it! In a way. The main character is a scrawny high-school kid, who is comically... nay (unintentionally) hilariously angst-ridden, and who is piloting a giant robot in order to fight off possibly celestial threats that are bent on wiping out humanity in order to win the approval of his unfeeling father. It's fairly ham-fisted, but if you're going to have a giant robot vs. giant monster slug fest, you might as well do a disection of human insecurities while you're at it. Also, while the series seems to have been going forever, they've actually just been telling the same story again and again, progressively refining it, changing the plot and improving the animation. I'm glad I can just jump into the new movies and not worry about the original series which was completed, revised, the revisions postponed, remastered, released as one film, then two films, then...
ITEM! Also I've been picking through a bunch more Japanese hip-hop and finding a bunch of good stuff (easily outweighed by the bad stuff admittedly, but still, the good stuff's really good). Kreva has such a great flow when he's on, I wish he would stop making R&B. And man, he's making autotune sound bad. And I'm finally listening up on M-Flo, since I always dig Verbal's verses for the Teriyaki Boys, and I was talking about him being a deranged prince of fashion. However, it turns out... even princes can make mistakes - like on this early best of:
I don't know what happened there, I can only assume he was drawing on his eyebrows and got a little playful. Then someone jolted his arm. Then he ill-advisedly ran with it. Christ.
ITEM! I found a new American rock band I like too - Self. I'm blown away by a few songs on each of their albums, and that's enough to get a thumbs up from me. However I read a bunch of posts about them talking about how they're indie-rock, or pop-rock or electronic-rock (absolutely not). Genre discussions are just a terrible, horrible idea in any situation but seriously, people - this is Power-Pop. And people wonder why Self kinda failed - Power-Pop doesn't sell! The best you can do is Fountains of Wayne, and they're still pretty humble. The fact that Power-Pop is entirely about feel-good spirit lifting joy and yet it still doesn't sell is one of those mysteries of the ancients that I've always wondered about.
If you've been listening to that Japanese hip hop sampler, then you can appreciate this somewhat properly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHlzpqYA5NI
ReplyDeleteMaybe I already sent you that, but...no harm in that.
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