Makes sense. You don’t strike me as much of a “reader.”

If I got to control how the story was told and had better writing/storytelling skills? Or if you had a really skilled writer with access to my brain and memories? I could probably get a 75-85 out of it. I’ve definitely had some interesting things happen in my life. The lack of thematic journey would be where I struggle though. The best stories have payoff and a struggle to overcome. Which, of course I have. But none so large that I could base my entire life story on it. Maybe someone embellishing a little bit could scrounge one up, but tell me any biopic that doesn’t do that.

Man, these guys have changed their sound. I didn’t realize they put out a new album. I’ll have to give it a new listen. Honestly A Laughing Death In Meatspace was the last I really got into, but after listening to The Drones and getting such a similar taste, I think a change in direction might be good for them. I like their sensibilities, but maybe got a little tired with their specific sound—which was pretty unique, but doing a unique thing is only unique for so long. Thanks for the post, I’m putting their new stuff in my roto

Wow. Didn’t see this coming. Guess The Hacker is back in La Liga

Steel fuckin *guts.

It’s a nuanced issue. Because before VAR, the quality of the first impression calls were altering entire seasons. Entire tournaments. Now, the rules are followed to a T. Which absolutely alters the game in a different way, but now it’s not about one asshole’s probably obstructed or misjudged view in the moment. We all get to see exactly what needs to be called, and it gets called. So that means you’re getting PKs for what was ultimately a dive, but there actually was a grazing contact. We need to change the rules to adapt.

We need to give the officials more discretion over carding for diving. So ultimately: that graze didn’t impede your movement and you felt the light touch and dove. Yellow card.

We need to say that contact isn’t the determining factor, but obstructive contact. If that glancing touch clipped your trailing foot and you ultimately lost balance because of it, yes that’s a foul. Because with slow motion and human reaction time, it’s so clear when that touch was embellished and you decided to go down. But the officials are basically looking past the dive to see if even the slightest contact was made. The rules need to be updated. Kill two birds: eliminate problematic diving and make the game more honest.

We’d need way more VAR officials per game and the first official would lose some power, but it’d make way more sense seeing as how it wouldn’t just be one opinion changing things but a small team of professionals making the best call.

But this is just one man’s opinion. Yes it can be problematic and it’s changed things, but utilized properly it can change things for the better.

They’re just a publicly funded lynch mob.

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Insane. Fucking disgusting.

They didn’t include it in the article, but this fuckin “good squad” was called to the place because “two black men were staying with a white woman.” Thats was the call.

Who the fuck made that call? They obviously knew this type of outcome was likely, because that’s not fucking illegal. No one makes that call without knowing these types of fucking scum would be responding. So where the fuck is that indictment.

Oh man. Their first two are fuckin stellar. I think the third one is just watered down. They went indie pop, shifting away from their more indie roots.

It’s hard to describe. They got more melodic? That doesn’t make much sense, but her voice changed from kind of a little more atonal/flat (but also full of emotion) to a more sing-songy thing. And the guitar tones were smoothed out. They just got shinier. It doesn’t work for me. Their first two albums speak to me, the emotion is raw and her singing really complements the poetry. The third album feels like…I dunno. She’s singing but doesn’t have as much to say? It’s weird and it’s all personal preference. Someone below was saying they think Hop Along’s third studio album is their best. Where I think their first is their only actually good one. I bet personally attached to whole albums.

Now, there is a kind of thing that happens with art, where you get personally attached to previously existing works and are wary of anything that comes out later. And maybe that’s factoring in some (although CC I paid attention to the last two out of three)—but id also argue that some of my favorite bands kept making newer stuff that continued to stay good and fresh. I can actually think of quite a few. So I take his entire paragraph back, I’m definitely right about the third one sucking lol

Lol holy shit Vitaly Chernobyl? Of Vitaly Chernobyl and the Meltdowns? Kings of the nuclear fuzz-grunge movement?!

(Admittedly, this is a party down reference for me. I know nothing about snow crash.)

Fuck yeah. I wouldn’t really call them indie nor alternative though. Still, great mention.

Wow. So have you been diagnosed with terrible taste or are you living in denial?

Just kidding. But go back and listen to their first major release, Get Disowned. A near perfect indie album, with enough punk sensibilities and amazing lyricism to set it apart from the pack. Not to mention it’s unique cadence, where you can tell Frances wrote the songs with her guitar, and then had the band fill in. So it’s not as produced, because the structure was there. Using the band to fill in those spaces gives the amazing lyrics a true punch of sound, because he music follows the words around the tune. It’s very unique in that right.

Compare the lyrics of Get Idsowned to Bark Your Head off, dog. It’s so clear GD was thought out, not rushed, and it was cared for and labored over…And then everything they’ve done since signing to a bigger label was so obviously written with the whole band, probably IN the studio, under the nose of a producer. It’s so…pop. Which, if you listen to Frances’ early solo stuff and the first ever “Hop Along” album, Is Something Wrong?, you’d see that’s not what she does best.

The Hop Along, Queen Ansleis album is really rough and pretty juvenile, but you can still get a sense of what set her apart in songwriting. She had a unique sound that’s been either bought out of her or that she just lost as she ran out of stories to tell.

We can have different opinions on this, but I’m very much of the opinion that even Painted Shut sucks. They lost their sound. I’ll always wonder what would’ve happened if they never signed to saddle creek and stayed on an even smaller label. I saw them a few times, they were opening for Apples In Stereo and they played Johnny Brenda’s. These are all before Painted Shut came out. But I heard the singles from that album and got that sinking feeling. It just…changed so much. And I really can’t say enough about how much the lyrical talent was sucked out of her. Because look at the poetry of GD. And then at a song like…Powerful Man. Which is one of he worst songs I’ve ever heard, not even just from bands I like otherwise. Like…the song sucks. The lyrics are trash. And they haven’t gotten better since.

I’m gonna submit at least one more because this is a great question and it got me thinking about it. This is a newer band, but they made two great albums and then made a third shitty one and broke up (yeah, they got popular after the second).

Camp Cope - Trepidation

Oh man, I probably have a lot of these. I have a habit of falling in love with random EPs and early albums of bands that went nowhere (or got big and totally ruined their sound. So they’re dead to me. cough hop along cough)

Here’s my submission, I love, love, LOVE this EP. And this one is a slightly easier blow to take because Shilpa Ray has had so many iterations if her bands and they’re all fuckin amazing. But I first discovered her through her first band:

Beat The Devil - Raging Bull Blues

Amazon is definitely the one behind this. This is all part of their “vertical integration” bullshit I bet. They’ve been taking tons of money off the top for years. Where to go besides taking 100% of the money?

In related news, as part of its recently publicised cutbacks, BioWare has “let go of” Lukas Kristjanson, the lead writer behind Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, and the writer of the first three Dragon Age games, Mary Kirby.

Oh it wasn’t Larian, that name was mentioned to me so I just assumed from the quote above without rereading. I dunno the connection between larian and BioWare, but they’re obviously releasing games together? Or sharing titles?

I was saying I’ve been hearing good things about BG3 and saw they fired a lot of people to “streamline” the company. I was just deriding capitalism for that insane mindset

I dunno, I’m not a huge gamer. I’ve had just FIFA and gta v on my console for years happily. Rdr2 is a newer purchase for me and I love it. But I don’t really like fantasy games, so I’m not really larian’s audience.

I like shooting and driving and open worlds. And soccer. I put off getting rdr2 for so long because I couldn’t drive. I regret writing it off because I was definitely wrong about it

I mean, I’d argue that GTA V didn’t have the most emotional storytelling, but it wasn’t a character driven game like RDR2. The characters had the stories they did because they each opened up different avenues into different types of crimes. They didn’t focus on it. The characters were all insufferable. But that doesn’t mean the writing for the story itself wasn’t good. Yeah, the characters all kinda sucked, but the storytelling propelled the tension and wasn’t just some lame bullshit that felt like it needed to be there. The characters don’t develop that much, but the backstory was great, the intrigue and the vastness of the word made it great. That’s all writing. But you’re right, it couldn’t stand alone as a character driven story.

RDR2 on the other hand is a character driven story at its heart. You definitely need to play it because it’s incredibly well done. If you’re looking for good storytelling, emotional connections to the characters’ trajectories, and a great fuckin game, RDR2 is where you wanna be.