Sonic Highways by Foo Fighters. First things first, general impressions, you can definitely tell they’re aging. The album feels older, Something from Nothing gives me vaguely Motorhead vibes.
However this is definitively Foo Fighters, they’re consistently putting out great new musical ideas but without losing sight of who they are.
The album opens very strong with the trio of Something from Nothing, the Feast and the Famine, and Congregation, and following the classic Foo Fighters album format, it goes from edgy, energetic and crunchy to a mellower, smoother sound.
What Did I Do/God as my Witness seems out of place, it’s a closer with a fade-out (which you don’t hear too often anymore) in the exact center of the album, but a great song nonetheless.
Here I noticed we seem to be moving backwards in time in Foo Fighters Albums, going from a “Wasting Light” sound in The Feast and the Famine, “Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace” in Congregation, to a general “Nothing Left to Lose” vibe in the second half of the album.
Outside is fun, but definitely seems like a filler, and In the Clear reminded me why I love Dave Grohl so much. Throughout the whole album his lyrics are on point.
I also noticed, they’re also getting that “grand” sound, that the Black Keys, Fall Out Boy and OK Go suffer from, but unlike those three, Foo Fighters made it work, they didn't change their entire sound, they supplemented it.
I loved Subterranean, and how it faded into I Am a River. I Am a River is a fantastic, if a bit repetitive, closer and again, I love how they mixed it up with the subtle guitar picking and chords, something I don’t remember ever hearing from Foo Fighters.
The album as a whole has a very transcendental progression, starting from gritty, grounded themes, to an abstract, grand biblical ascension, and, surprisingly, the end of the album reminded me a lot of Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible album. My final rating is 9.3/10, with a footnote that says “Foo Fighters is a river, constantly changing and flowing, but still the same river.”
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Change
Much has changed since my last post. Right now it is December, I have a Calculus final in about four hours. I'm wicked stressed. I've decided I need to start writing again.
So what's changed?
Well, a lot, as it turns out.
I'm officially a WUML DJ, so I'm going to start posting new album reviews as I write them, I've become more social, and a bit less of an introvert, which is part of the reason I stopped writing, and a lot of the reason I stopped gaming. I also came out as bisexual.
I've also gained a new perspective on the universe and how it works (completely because of this channel which everyone should watch, it's incredibly enlightening).
I have new friends, new places to go, new things to do, a hell of a lot has changed. I can feel myself growing as a person, and it's got me thinking, what kind of person do I want to become? Should I even aim for being a specific person or just go with the flow?
I've become more reserved in my opinions, I try to be pragmatic in my views and actions, I try to listen more than I speak, I do my best to avoid arrogance and breed humility. I'm a better student than I ever was, I think about the future a lot more, and I try to enjoy the moment whenever I can.
I'm completely aware that I will likely look back on these years as the best years of my life.
I think more, I see more, and I try to be more.
I feel myself becoming a different person. Better? Maybe. Older? Absolutely.
This post is a bit on the shorter side, but more will come.
Welcome back to The Man who Rules the Universe
So what's changed?
Well, a lot, as it turns out.
I'm officially a WUML DJ, so I'm going to start posting new album reviews as I write them, I've become more social, and a bit less of an introvert, which is part of the reason I stopped writing, and a lot of the reason I stopped gaming. I also came out as bisexual.
I've also gained a new perspective on the universe and how it works (completely because of this channel which everyone should watch, it's incredibly enlightening).
I have new friends, new places to go, new things to do, a hell of a lot has changed. I can feel myself growing as a person, and it's got me thinking, what kind of person do I want to become? Should I even aim for being a specific person or just go with the flow?
I've become more reserved in my opinions, I try to be pragmatic in my views and actions, I try to listen more than I speak, I do my best to avoid arrogance and breed humility. I'm a better student than I ever was, I think about the future a lot more, and I try to enjoy the moment whenever I can.
I'm completely aware that I will likely look back on these years as the best years of my life.
I think more, I see more, and I try to be more.
I feel myself becoming a different person. Better? Maybe. Older? Absolutely.
This post is a bit on the shorter side, but more will come.
Welcome back to The Man who Rules the Universe
Friday, June 27, 2014
This Generation is Awful
It really bothers me when people say they hate things, but don’t really have a legitimate reason for doing so. Everyone has heard someone else do this, and most people are guilty of it. Posts of “I hate this generation” or “people are stupid” plaster social media sites, aggregate this trend of social disapproval. It is cool to hate.
Some might call me a hypocrite for this post, and they’d be right. In the past, I have fallen into and followed trends of hatred, but only recently have I looked at them with a grain of salt, and asked myself, is this really all that bad? More often than not, the answer is no. Not to say that I like everything. There are several things and people I despise, but for damn good reasons. (You know who you are).
Haters are common because of its ease, and its implications. When you hate on something, you put yourself above them, you are attempting to establish your superiority by dismissing the subject as somehow worse, worthy of pity and ridicule. People hate because it’s an incredibly easy way to feel that sense of superiority, further validated and fueled by the volume of other people doing the exact same thing. Tossing out a good insult can be surprisingly relaxing and relieving. In a heated argument, the punch of an original and well placed slur can be satisfying to the point that your body respond to it. Saying something like “Listen here, shitdick” at the right place and time can be amazingly therapeutic.
Maybe that’s just me.
Regardless, it’s human nature to enjoy that sort of superiority, that sort of power. Selfishness is part of our nature, and its fun to be selfish, but when you look at it from the right side; we lose so much from this hatred. There was a time I took a firm stand against any music that you can’t play with a physical instrument. Blindly, I hated it because I was on the bandwagon of “old music is good music”, listening to bands like Tool and Nirvana. I was very nearly one of those “born in the wrong generation” kids, Wishing I was born a decade or two earlier. I hated by generation, because I thought the only true culture was the culture that existed before me. I was surprised to enjoy Dubstep and EDM when I gave them a fair chance, and took them for what they are. They are my generation’s mark on history, this is how our music will be remembered, and I’m okay with that. I like Dubstep, its energy, its heaviness. I am content with it representing my generation, because I do not hate this generation, we’re an alright bunch of kids. Had I stayed on the hater bandwagon, part of who I am today, and a huge part of what I enjoy, would be lost.
My initial hatred bias of music is only one example of a phenomenon that happens in every generation. The older generations create their culture, and then look down upon the ones that came after them. That younger generation looks up to them, sees their culture, and envies it, before growing up and doing the exact same thing. It’s a cycle, perpetuated through every generation, looking down upon the new kids on the block doing exactly when the old guys were doing in their own youth. Every generation creates their culture and claims its better instead of just agreeing it’s different. In the grand scheme of things, it seems a bit pathetic.
How ironic of me, hating on hatred. Now I have to ask myself, is this post a legitimate criticism of this culture? Am I simply fulfilling my desire to feel superior to the world by using the very same means I attack?
Maybe.
Maybe this entire blog is just an attack on the world, maybe what I perceive as my love of culture is, in reality, just a hateful rejection of societal norms, fulfilling the exact same function as hating on Rebecca Black. I can think of no way to reconcile this possibility, no way to dispute it, besides the word
maybe.
Some might call me a hypocrite for this post, and they’d be right. In the past, I have fallen into and followed trends of hatred, but only recently have I looked at them with a grain of salt, and asked myself, is this really all that bad? More often than not, the answer is no. Not to say that I like everything. There are several things and people I despise, but for damn good reasons. (You know who you are).
Haters are common because of its ease, and its implications. When you hate on something, you put yourself above them, you are attempting to establish your superiority by dismissing the subject as somehow worse, worthy of pity and ridicule. People hate because it’s an incredibly easy way to feel that sense of superiority, further validated and fueled by the volume of other people doing the exact same thing. Tossing out a good insult can be surprisingly relaxing and relieving. In a heated argument, the punch of an original and well placed slur can be satisfying to the point that your body respond to it. Saying something like “Listen here, shitdick” at the right place and time can be amazingly therapeutic.
Maybe that’s just me.
Regardless, it’s human nature to enjoy that sort of superiority, that sort of power. Selfishness is part of our nature, and its fun to be selfish, but when you look at it from the right side; we lose so much from this hatred. There was a time I took a firm stand against any music that you can’t play with a physical instrument. Blindly, I hated it because I was on the bandwagon of “old music is good music”, listening to bands like Tool and Nirvana. I was very nearly one of those “born in the wrong generation” kids, Wishing I was born a decade or two earlier. I hated by generation, because I thought the only true culture was the culture that existed before me. I was surprised to enjoy Dubstep and EDM when I gave them a fair chance, and took them for what they are. They are my generation’s mark on history, this is how our music will be remembered, and I’m okay with that. I like Dubstep, its energy, its heaviness. I am content with it representing my generation, because I do not hate this generation, we’re an alright bunch of kids. Had I stayed on the hater bandwagon, part of who I am today, and a huge part of what I enjoy, would be lost.
My initial hatred bias of music is only one example of a phenomenon that happens in every generation. The older generations create their culture, and then look down upon the ones that came after them. That younger generation looks up to them, sees their culture, and envies it, before growing up and doing the exact same thing. It’s a cycle, perpetuated through every generation, looking down upon the new kids on the block doing exactly when the old guys were doing in their own youth. Every generation creates their culture and claims its better instead of just agreeing it’s different. In the grand scheme of things, it seems a bit pathetic.
How ironic of me, hating on hatred. Now I have to ask myself, is this post a legitimate criticism of this culture? Am I simply fulfilling my desire to feel superior to the world by using the very same means I attack?
Maybe.
Maybe this entire blog is just an attack on the world, maybe what I perceive as my love of culture is, in reality, just a hateful rejection of societal norms, fulfilling the exact same function as hating on Rebecca Black. I can think of no way to reconcile this possibility, no way to dispute it, besides the word
maybe.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Life.
I suppose I should start writing again.
The past few months have been a blur, thankfully, because if I stopped to pay attention to what I actually want, I wouldn't know what to do. I've barely had a moment to breathe, but I do now, and I realize how stagnant this air is.
I've become a bit of a workaholic because I need distractions. Anything. I need to do something that distracts me from several things that have been on my back for a while now. Because as soon as I stop, they rise from my subconscious and fill my mind. The only solution I've found is distraction. Anything to just make it go away, at least for a little while.
What is it?
Dread, fear, frustration, anger, paranoia, loneliness, a writhing potion of pent up bottled emotions that I don't know what to do with. I just sit and struggle with it until I think of something better to do. It started when I learned about how the universe will (probably) end. It's called Heat Death. In about 10^100 years, particles will be too far from each other to interact, there will be no transfer of energy, no activity, no information, and nothing or no one to observe it. It is the inevitable conclusion that the universe will come to. A complete dilution and deletion of everything anyone knows, has known or will know. Any impact any of us have on the universe will ultimately disappear.
When I learned about heat death, the concept of mortality really hit me. For the first time, I truly realized that my time, influence and experience is finite. I always had a sort of vague sense of this idea, but it had hit me with a new clarity, and filled me with a sense of urgency to the point of fear and panic. I was filled, and still am, with this overwhelming yearning to mean something. To have a permanent impact on the world, to defeat death, and somehow have my influence break beyond the confines of this doomed universe.
Yet I know this is impossible, so all I am left with is this frustration, this overwhelming insignificance, this overpowering dread. Every night I lie in my bed, knowing that I will be forgotten. There is a point in the future where my name will be spoken for the last time.
I want to explain this to someone, but I also don't want to ruin anyone's day with my problems. So I write.
Beyond this existential depression, however, I find comfort in humanism. I've found that I not only like culture, but the very idea of it. Everything man-made, I embrace. There is such a variety of life that never fails to bring a smile to my face. Every painting, every song, every poem, every building, every car, every street, I look and I can't help but connect with the human that made, designed, lived in, drove in or on them. Humanity is beautiful because despite what everyone wants to believe, there are so many good people out there.
I want meaning in my life, and to leave something behind. Though I may not have the means to do it, I know what I want to leave. I want to tell the world to live.
The past few months have been a blur, thankfully, because if I stopped to pay attention to what I actually want, I wouldn't know what to do. I've barely had a moment to breathe, but I do now, and I realize how stagnant this air is.
I've become a bit of a workaholic because I need distractions. Anything. I need to do something that distracts me from several things that have been on my back for a while now. Because as soon as I stop, they rise from my subconscious and fill my mind. The only solution I've found is distraction. Anything to just make it go away, at least for a little while.
What is it?
Dread, fear, frustration, anger, paranoia, loneliness, a writhing potion of pent up bottled emotions that I don't know what to do with. I just sit and struggle with it until I think of something better to do. It started when I learned about how the universe will (probably) end. It's called Heat Death. In about 10^100 years, particles will be too far from each other to interact, there will be no transfer of energy, no activity, no information, and nothing or no one to observe it. It is the inevitable conclusion that the universe will come to. A complete dilution and deletion of everything anyone knows, has known or will know. Any impact any of us have on the universe will ultimately disappear.
When I learned about heat death, the concept of mortality really hit me. For the first time, I truly realized that my time, influence and experience is finite. I always had a sort of vague sense of this idea, but it had hit me with a new clarity, and filled me with a sense of urgency to the point of fear and panic. I was filled, and still am, with this overwhelming yearning to mean something. To have a permanent impact on the world, to defeat death, and somehow have my influence break beyond the confines of this doomed universe.
Yet I know this is impossible, so all I am left with is this frustration, this overwhelming insignificance, this overpowering dread. Every night I lie in my bed, knowing that I will be forgotten. There is a point in the future where my name will be spoken for the last time.
I want to explain this to someone, but I also don't want to ruin anyone's day with my problems. So I write.
Beyond this existential depression, however, I find comfort in humanism. I've found that I not only like culture, but the very idea of it. Everything man-made, I embrace. There is such a variety of life that never fails to bring a smile to my face. Every painting, every song, every poem, every building, every car, every street, I look and I can't help but connect with the human that made, designed, lived in, drove in or on them. Humanity is beautiful because despite what everyone wants to believe, there are so many good people out there.
I want meaning in my life, and to leave something behind. Though I may not have the means to do it, I know what I want to leave. I want to tell the world to live.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)