Shut Up, Dude: This Week’s Best Comments

Clearly this album was inspired by Thom Yorke's love of sport fishing in the Upper Midwest. Wall of Eyes = walleyes. The eyes on the cover? Those look like scales to me. The waves? Obviously a reference to the windy conditions said to be most hospitable to fishing for walleye, aka the "walleye chop." And the spikes? Clearly a reference either to walleyes' famously sharp teeth or the fact that they are also known as yellow pike.

Alvvays are just so great. That album is a classic. Should have been nominated for best alternative album, but it's all good. Happy for them.

And Flying Up The Modern Rock Charts On Its Way To Peaking at No.4… it’s “No Myth” by Michael Penn!

Who is Michael Penn? Why it’s Sean Penn’s brother of course! Who was predominately famous at the time for being married – and then very much not married – to Madonna! Also “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

I guess this means that Michael Penn is a nepo-bro?

I’m not sure how much being the brother of Sean Penn would have helped Michael in 1989. He wasn't exactly Mr. Popularity at the time, what with his alleged domestic assaults on Madonna, believed to be the reason behind their divorce. “Mad” magazine had an alternative theory: they joked it was because he was sick of being referred to as Mr. Madonna.

Enough about Sean, let’s talk about Michael and his luscious piece of Crowded House-esque poetry in which he appears to mostly want people to know that he reads books. Not only is he “Romeo in black jeans” but also “Heathcliff”; or “HEEEeeaathcliff” as Michael puts it towards the end, in his best Dylan impersonation. The lyrics are rather Dylanesque as well, what with all the private investigators speaking Chinese and taking junks to Soho and whatnot.

“No Myth” is an 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxkJHX7ukKE

I had a wonderful time at Homobloc last week! My friend let me borrow one of her dresses to wear and helped do my make-up, and it was the cutest and least-self-loathing I've felt about my body in ages!Strangers even complimented me; wild!

Everyone was so free and kind and good vibes!Jessie Ware did a special 25 minute house-style megamix of her hits with drag dancers, a mic lead that looked like an umbilical cord, and her "Believe" cover!Confidence Man continue to be camp iconic incarnate!Romy did a half-DJ/half-singing set which, despite her mic being near-inaudible, I really enjoyed (she played Madonna's "Get Together" in the DJ part which made me lose my shit)!Horse Meat Disco ended their set with back-to-back "Call Your Girlfriend"/"Voulez-Vous"!I had one of those moments where you first walk onto a dancefloor and the DJ (Kath McDermott) drops the perfect song to just make you feel euphoric for the rest of the night (tho I haven't been able to ID it)!Even tried poppers for the first time, but my more-experienced friend says they must've expired cos we didn't feel anything.

So, so glad I went.Already making plans for next year.

The night after was Little Simz.Best rapper alive, still finding new levels to peak at, and by far the best of the four times I've seen her live.Pretty excellent 48 hours.

Spent most of this week struggling through Sackboy: A Big Adventure.No idea why I thought I'd enjoy a LittleBigPlanet that's only platforming - the worst part of LittleBigPlanet; just feels constantly awful - but more fool me and my insatiable lust for collect-a-thon platformers.Loved the music levels, though; reminded me a lot of Rayman Legends.

Btw: Desert Bus for Hope, the yearly charity marathon stream by LoadingReadyRun based around Penn & Teller's notorious Desert Bus, starts tomorrow!It's always a good time, for anyone wanting a chill background thing for the next week!

Rap verses are the few things Leo likes born before the year 2000

Oh boy.It's the song that I could care less about and makes me look like the coldest bee-yatch ever when I tell people that.MrDutch loves alot of Adele's songs; "Someone Like You" is a favorite on his playlist.I tend to wind up rolling my eyes and thinking - ugh, this again - when it comes on.Zero connection for me at all.

Look, I get it.I get the rawness of it, the pain of trying to be a grown up when you feel utterly destroyed, but I just feel completely numb listening to this song myself.It's probably equivalent to EMT's who see god-awful, gut-wrenching accident scenes and find a way to detach their feelings to get the job done.If my guts were in the passenger seat and a limb is in the backseat after I was in a car crash, I'd rather not see EMT's blubbering over my situation, you know?!I'm just saying, it's not a terrible thing for a person to have that detachment. I'm not an evil person or a psychopath for not getting any feels while listening to "Someone Like You".😄

The song itself is damn near immaculate. The plaintive, soul bearing piano-and-singer only approach is not an easy thing.It ONLY works when the singer is believable, rather than showboating.This song was huge and remains huge because sooooo many people can relate and want to do nothing but grab a container of ice cream, curl up under a big bulky throw blanket, and ugly cry to this song on repeat until the pain is out of their system for the time being.It's therapeutic, cathartic, and free - no insurance claim filing required!To be able to have that kind of connection to listeners is a rare gift for an artist, and I'm glad Adele is able to be that conduit for so many.

Me?I remember all the words, I can sing along to it, but it just becomes white noise I can nap to.

Me personally,"Someone Like You" is about a 4.

But on the grand scheme of pop chart history and its impactfulness on the greater population, I'd agree with Tom's 9.

Everybody needs to get waaaay off their high horse here. I am a touring guitarist, and at this point the cost of touring is so inflated that it is often barely lucrative. These private events often fund MONTHS of touring and ensur3 that folks like me can get paid a decent wage in 2023, stay in decent hotels, get fed decent food, etc. I have played tons of these with many pop artists. It isn’t fun, but it’s part of existing in this world. Music is the only industry in the arts where people get called a sellout for actually making a living! Everybody has access to all of recorded music basically for free. If Neil Young wants to make a payday, God Bless him.

I’m trying to come up with a reason why a beautifully written and performed song like Someone Like You just doesn’t work on me the way it seems like it hits most of the public.

Maybe it’s overplay. Maybe it’s the topic of that SNL sketch, which I remember well; there was a consensus that SLY is The Saddest Song of All Time, and I’m always a little resistant to cultural consensus.

But I really think that it’s just that I personally already had a song I listened to when I needed this kind of catharsis: I Can’t Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt. Same basic topic, but ICMYLM just pierces my heart in a way that this one doesn’t. I think it just hit at the right point in my very early 20’s (like Someone Like You would have for a millennial, now that I think of it).

It’s still an 8, though, just due to intrinsic quality and Adele’s terrific performance.

https://youtu.be/nW9Cu6GYqxo?si=ALBvpxP4Rk7FP-sO

Now we'll always remember 2023 as the year when one of the greatest rappers of all time made a jazz flute album with screamo song titles

I'm not a big Adele fan (I like her songs, never go back to listen to them, and a few have been overplayed IMO), but this might be her best.

It was also #1 when I got married. It was NOT played at our wedding.

I'd been friends with my wife for three years on social media, but had only met in person six months earlier. She came to the bar where I worked in May with her younger sister (whom I had taught), and turned to tell her sister "I don't see the big deal" about me. Her sister responded, "Give it time - his personality will win you over."

When she left, she walked across the street to my house, dropped a note through the mail slot with a kiss on it and a note: Call me. When they got into the car that night, she told her sister she was going to marry me.

Although we married in a quick six months, the plan was to get married the following summer, or maybe the one after, but her grandmother was very ill, and if there was ONE person who had to be at the wedding, it had to be her.

We decided to get married on her grandmother's birthday: November 7th, 2011. It was a Monday night, and when she told her grandmother, her grandmother smiled and said, "I guess I have to stick around for a while."

This was September. Her grandmother hadn't eaten in over a week, and hadn't left her bed for a couple of days.

She bounced back, and danced the night away with her husband of 54 years. We played their wedding song that night, and instead of a wedding cake we had a birthday cake for her, and the crowd of 150+ sang "Happy Birthday".

It was an amazing night - I didn't invite that many people (only eight weeks' notice, wedding was on a Monday like I said), but friends of mine flew in from around the world to attend my wedding. It was a very emotional night for my wife, me, and my grandmother-in-law.

She passed away six months later.

You think those cigarettes are expensive? What if I told you a pack of cigarettes could cost you (spins chair around and sits in it backwards, facing the class) YOUR LIFE???