Shut Up, Dude: This Week’s Best Comments

Took a break from spinning ANOHNI non stop and am now spinning Julie Byrne non stop. I’m not sad or anything just doing some light afternoon crying.

I grew up in a town of 11,000 in an area of around 50,000 people. When the leadership at the church I went to decided to add drums to the worship band, people left death threats on the pastor's home voicemail and left to start a new church.

Jason Aldean, his fans, and all their dog whistles and lies can get fucked.

"4 Seasons of Loneliness" was a 4

"9 to 5" was between 9 and 5

"One Week" was a 1

"Torn Between Two Lovers" was a 2

BRB my fellow thieves and I are going to steal Jason Alden’s guns on our way to the small town anti-police protest. Probably going to do some gay shit too.

History was made on this day, Monday July 17. No, I am not referring to a video on YouTube that got over six figure downloads.

Rather, let’s all give a huge congratulations to Tom on being the first columnist here on the ‘Gum to achieve

1,000 TNOCS Articles!!!!

😃😎😍🤓🥰😊🥰😊😉👍

This is quite a cool achievement.Back to our usual programming on what was the #1 hit in South Africa during Halloween 2010.

I'm starting to get the impression that Drake doesn't think much of women.

"My first concert was playing with Bradford Cox's guitar pedals while wearing a Cryptkeeper mask." is going to be an incredible flex one day.

When I was about 9, I was rifling through my Mum's DVD collection and found a compilation DVD of all of Blur's music videos from "She's So High" to "No Distance Left to Run."That afternoon, Blur became one of my first favourite bands.The breadth of the music, the iconic nature of those visuals, the coolness of those four guys utterly enraptured me and was one of the first times I realised how weird and meaningful pop music could be (even if I was a bit young to fully understand it all).And though it would take another half-decade for me to start investigating the albums those singles came from, I treasured that collection and internalised as much of those songs as possible.(They'd be go-tos at karaoke, including when I broke my left hip last year doing "Song 2.")

Whilst Gorillaz ended up being the Damon Albarn project which I would most connect with (still my favourite band of all-time), any Blur news would be a "drop everything right the hell now" event over the years.I bought my first copy of the NME for the issue where Damon & Graham announced the 2009 reunion.I lost my mind when "Fool's Day" released because it meant there was somehow new proper Blur music out in the world; ditto "Under the Westway."I tried to drag my parents to a cinema well outside town to watch the No Distance Left to Run documentary (had to settle for buying the DVD).I actually snuck away from a uni social to stream "Go Out" when The Magic Whip was first announced because I just couldn't wait...

And I never thought I'd end up seeing them live.Those first reunion shows occurred when I was much too scared by large crowds and live shows to want to go, and I missed out on getting tickets to The Magic Whip tour.Even when they first announced last week's Wembley shows, I didn't think I'd manage to get tickets.Yet, on Saturday, I finally got to see Blur.And it was amazing.

I could quibble about being so far back (Golden Circle took up a full third of the pitch), the sound being iffy, most of the openers being a bad fit... but then I'd see Damon & Graham share giant schoolboy grins, hear Graham shred one of his famous anti-solos, or yet another stone-cold classic cue up and nothing else mattered.They are an astonishingly good band, not dimming in energy at all 30-odd years in, and they played so many of my deep cut faves and personal wishes: "Villa Rosie"! "Trimm Trabb"! "Stereotypes"! "Out of Time"! "Westway"! "POPSCENE"!

I cried at the climax of "The Universal."I've never cried at a gig before.But the combination of 20 years of fandom, my growth as a person over that time, the reality of hearing it performed live, and the sentiment of the lyrics broke me down completely.Just the single tear (which I know makes it sound like I'm making this up), but a wealth of emotion.One of those moments where you just feel so happy to be alive.

And I didn't break my other hip.So, yeah, perfect night.Sorry to get indulgently sappy.

I grew up in a small town, and the thing I'll always treasure about my upbringing are all those times when I joined my fellow community members in viciously beating anyone who violated the unspoken moral code that we all lived by.

Pretty sure this is that phishing scam thing the IT guy at work was talking about. He said not to click on it but maybe that’s what someone did here. Lesson learned.