These Wretched Games We Play

                             Pony - Orville Peck (2019) Country  8/10 This boi got a voice that could lullaby a bison come noon-up(?) The instrumentation is... nice , but sometimes it feels like the softer production is betraying Orville's vocal range. The Masked Ranger can hit booming power notes (going full Whitney Houston on "Hope to Die") as easily as sweeping melodies ("Dead of Night", "Roses Are Falling"). There's a lot of classic country hits infused with modern sensibilities: "Buffalo Run", "Kansas (Remembers Me Now)" and "Take You Back (The Iron Hoof Cattle Call)". It's enough to make a young man... Another flaw is a small stretch of weaker songs in the middle, but the beginning of this album yanks you into the starlit prairie night and ends with some legitimate tearjerkers, especially the bittersweet "Nothing Fades Like the Light". Hopefully Mr...

New terminology: Platinum Saga Banger . I feel like some albums are best as holistic projects, particularly concept albums (Lingua Ignota's Caligula  for example). Thus, it's unwieldy to take view the songs as singles of their own strengths instead of part of a unified whole. When Platinum Saga Banger!  is in the "Fave Tracks" section, it means that I enjoy the songs not as individual pieces but part of one larger performance.  Charli - Charli XCX (2019) Hyperpop  8.5/10 Charli's songs don't always land on this album, but when they do, holy shit . I don't quite hail this project as a masterpiece like some do, but I still thinks it's an incredible showcasing of Charli XCX's skill, range and creativity. The last time I heard of Charli XCX, she was still boom-clapping hearts and being featured on Iggy Azalea songs. Now she has ascended the world of commercial pop, sacrificing her Top 40 Hits potential for Hyperpop's experiment...

Added something to the "Fave Tracks" section: When a track is italicized, it indicates my favorite song on the album. If a track is bold , that means it's a certified diamond level banger, in that it has emotionally resonated with me on a deep level. I listen to these bold songs a lot. Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys (1966) Chamber Pop 8/10 fuck The Beatles Fave Tracks: Wouldn't It Be Nice , Sloop John B, God Only Knows The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance (2006) Emo / Pop Punk / Power Metal 9.5/10 Why hasn't this been adapted for theatre yet? What we have here is a rock-operatic story of death and loss, but also the unshakable resolve to power into the abyss, and maybe even come out the other side. "The End" is the perfect tone setter, functioning like an expositive narrator in the world of The Black Parade . "Dead!" is a macabre but incredibly energetic jam that turns the process of dying into an ascension into...

I spend a lot of time on my job driving around. That enables me to listen to a lot of new music. So here's the first installment of a series, a quick round-up reviewing albums that I listen to: Buena vista! Caligula - Lingua Ignota (2019) Opera / Neo-classical / Death Metal / Noise 9/10  (With the possibility of being 10/10 upon relistening) CW: Themes of Domestic Violence & Abuse I've described my emotional reaction to records with many terms; "terrified" has never been one of them. You've got your creepy albums, spooky albums, albums that fill your stomach with dread. But Caligula  made me flinch and jump with its spontaneously violent music. I'm no stranger to crying to heartbreaks music, but I've never heard a song that's driven me to tears out of fear. It's hard for me to even conceptualize the torture that Ignota has survived, but her soul-rending screams and overwhelming orchestra posses me to feel maybe a minuscu...

Jessica's Mongoose : A Solution to Roko's Basilisk  A spectre is haunting the internet, the spectre of Roko's Basilisk. A majority of internet denizens can agree that the problem of Roko's Basilisk ranks among their top concerns. To the uninitiated, the wiki of the website where from the problem originates, LessWrong ,  provides an overview of what Roko's Basilisk is.  An alternative explanation/rebuttal of Roko's Basilisk  can be found on RationalWiki. In essence, Roko's Basilisk postulates a superintelligent A.I. that utilizes efficiency and what LessWrong  users refer to as "quantum morality" to end humanity's worst crises: war, hunger, poverty, etc. A major obstacle is that building a superintelligent A.I. is difficult, as evidenced by the number of superintelligent A.I.'s in operation (0). The Basilisk, being so smart that it realizes this before it is invented, creates an incentive for its future (or past?) developers.  ...

I really didn't want to make a decade retrospective list. The inexorable march of time fucks me up something serious. Not the idea that something bad will happen in the future, but knowing that something, anything will invariably happen as anything and everything already has. Time stalks me like a flame, nipping at my spine. Why are we cosigned to become the dust we came from? But then I remembered that there were some pretty neat things this decade! So I'm making some Top 10 lists, starting with video games, and then moving onto movies, albums and NFL moments. To disclaim, this is going to be a subjective list of stuff based on its personal impact. So I'm not measuring on any basis of "greatness" or "influence" (although I'd like to think some of these entries have those qualities!). I've placed entries on here because I think back on them and they make say "Yooooooooooooooooooo, that was crazy." I also recognize the ...