Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

ohtani's jacket

Members
  • Posts

    967
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by ohtani's jacket

  1. I started working through Gene Colan's run on Batman. There aren't any classic stories, but I simply love Colan's artwork. I was enjoying the stories by Gerry Conway and Klaus Janson inking the pencils, but I just reached the point where they changed the writer and inker, and the artwork is nowhere near as good. I also finished Transmetropolitan. Warren Ellis can be smug at times, and the humour didn't always wash with me, but overall it was an excellent series. And scarily prescient of the Trump administration. I've also started reading the 90s reboot of Starman. And I am continuing to enjoy Ennis' run on Hellblazer. I've been slowly making my way through Mark Waid's run on The Flash. At first, I couldn't understand what the hype was about as I preferred William Messner-Loebs' run on the title with its quirky cast of supporting characters. However, that arc where Barry Allen returns. That was a great story. So I'm glad I stuck with it. I have also been revisiting the 5 years later era of Legion of Superheroes, which I know a lot of people hate, but I've always loved those types of resets. Giffen's art hasn't aged that well, however.
  2. I'm slowly trudging my way through 70s Marvel -- trying to finish Man Thing and Son of Satan. I recently began reading Omega the Unknown. I'm not a huge fan of Steve Gerber, to be perfectly honest (except for his Defenders run), but if you like his take on superhero comic books then Omega is perhaps the best encapsulation of it. I recently added Conan the Barbarian to the 70s slate. I love Savage Sword of Conan, but I had never checked out the main title. So far, it's enjoyable. Barry Smith tries a bit too hard to be Kirby at times, but I usually enjoy Roy Thomas comic books. Sticking with 70s Marvel, I watched an interview with Byrne today, so suddenly I want to check out his 70s work, which was before my time. I started reading Squadron Supreme today. I can understand the Watchmen comparisons, but man, how many word bubbles can a guy read before his eyes dry out? I also started reading Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's Wolverine. So 80s. Ninjas! Japan! Yakuza! Plus I've been reading J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck's Captain America, which has been a bit boring, but Zeck's art is nice. Captain America seems like a difficult character to write, to be fair, like Superman or Wonder Woman.
  3. Welcome back. I've been binge listening to nothing but 1994 Memphis Rap and Black Metal since you left. I lived through the whole Brit-pop era but wasn't British, so didn't take sides. Oasis was huge in New Zealand, but I was still heavily into grunge at the time, especially after seeing Pearl Jam live. From that point on, I started growing my hair out and wearing a corduroy jacket. The Oasis song is okay but sounds like Beatles wankery. The book ignored so much great country that I think we can safely ignore Garth Brooks. I have a soft spot for Ash. I saw them open for Garbage in '96. They were a great pop act. I especially like Girl from Mars. That Smashing Pumpkins song holds up remarkably well. I suspect it's because of the way Corgan sings it. I imagine the Smashing Pumpkins' songs that don't hold up well are the songs where Corgan whines. That was a massive album, though. I remember buying it the day it came out. Common People is one of the best singles of the 90s. I also love Disco 2000. Hell, they could both make my 10 ten for the decade. Disco 2000 has the catchier chorus, but Common People is probably the better song overall. I'm not sure if Pulp ever lived up to their promise of being a Smiths or a Cure for their generation (or New Order, Pet Boys, etc.), but they nailed it with those two songs. And you can tell from listening to their earlier stuff that they were really building to those triumphant moments. The narrative was building and the music caught up.
  4. Recently, I've been reading Jim Starlin's Captain Marvel & Warlock runs. They're good, but I wouldn't really rate them alongside my favorite stuff from the 70s. I can understand the appeal if you like cosmic superhero stories. I liked Starlin's work on Strange Tales best. What really impressed me was the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel. That was a beautiful piece of work and deeply moving. Definitely up there with Dark Phoenix Saga, Miller's Daredevil, and the other great works of the era.
  5. 1994 was arguably hip hop's greatest year. I've always preferred East Coast Hip Hop to West Coast, but '94 was the year where most people believe there was a East Coast renaissance. It was also the year where Southern hip hop rose to prominence. Check out some of these tracks: And that's just the tip of the iceberg:
  6. I was talking about the Russian band. It was something I came across when looking up the best albums of '93. They only released the one record.
  7. 1994 1994 was the year that alternative music became mainstream. It was an important year for me because it was the year I started buying records the day they came out. I don't think you can ever recapture the feeling of being a teenager listening to a brand new record. I'm not sure how much of 1994 alt rock holds up anymore. I'm not fond of revisiting pop culture from the 90s -- music, movies, TV, comic books -- I feel like I lived through it the first time so what's the point in revisiting it? I don't really feel like picking my youth apart. I mean people talk shit about Nirvana Unplugged, but I listened to that record every day for at least six months after I bought it. Sometimes you had to be there. Glancing through the list, there are a few things that stick out to me. I like Scott Weiland's voice. I feel like he got a bad rap. TLC were easily the best thing to happen in R&B since New Jack Swing or maybe even Prince. Sabotage had a great video clip and it's a good song, but I don't think it's a great representation of what the Beastie Boys were capable of after Paul's Boutique. Hole may not be a great band, but they had some catchy songs. I found myself randomly singing "I wanna be the girl with the most cake" at various points during the past week. Strangely, I was never into Nas or Nine Inch Nails. A lot of these songs remind me of working at my part time job in '94 where they played Jeff Buckley and Portishead endlessly, or watching afternoon music TV where a bunch of these song were on endless rotation. I can also remember endless Grant Lee Buffalo videos too, for what it's worth. I love Pavement. I don't know about that next Nirvana crap, but I always loved this video: There were a few songs that could have easily made the list -- Weezer's Buddy Holly, Green Day's Basket Case, something by Offspring maybe -- but this is an absolute banger: Here are a few others:
  8. Y'know what's hard? The Cannibal Corpse Hammer Smashed Face EP.
  9. Another potential knock on the run is that he gave up penciling it. It's always disappointing when a writer-artist resorts to doing layouts. Klaus Janson was the next best thing, however, and I was surprised that you skipped those issues.
  10. I've been listening to quite a bit of '93 metal over the past few days. Aspid, Death and Demilich also had great albums that year.
  11. You should check out Daredevil: Love and War, Elektra: Assassin, and Elektra Lives Again at some point. It's also worth checking out What If Elektra Had Lived?
  12. Wu-Tang Clan was the right pick for '93 if you were picking one hip hop track. This is a classic too: ATCQ had a huge follow up to Low End Theory. I remember Tribe really popular with guys who didn't listen to a lot of hip hop: Snoop could have easily made the list. WOOP! WOOP! Some more:
  13. @LiamAccording to other sites, song 787 should be Streets of Philadelphia by Bruce Springsteen. Laid should be 788. 1993 I liked most of their picks for '93, especially Stereolab, Mazzy Star, PJ Harvey, The Breeders, and Wu-Tang Clan. Laid is one of James' better songs, and I don't mind Loser. Beck fell off my radar a long time ago, but I remember everyone fawning over him at the time. I was surprised they didn't include any Bjork. I know she appears soon, but similar to Tori Amos, I feel she made the biggest impact with her debut. Also on heavy rotation in '93 but not in the book -- Today by The Smashing Pumpkins and Sober by Tool. Personally, I would have gone for some Yo La Tengo. Tindersticks: And this amazing lost Irish shoegaze group: Some other stuff I dig: I was really into Porno for Pyros in '93. I remember seeing them play a small live gig before a festival and being in awe of Perry Farrell.
  14. I finally finished 100 Bullets. The story isn't that great but the art is fabulous.
  15. Despite being a huge X-Men fan growing up, I had never read God Loves, Man Kills. It's pretty good, but I guess Claremont went on to incorporate the core ideas into the monthly books because there was nothing revolutionary about it.
  16. J. M. DeMatteis has been talking about Kraven's Last Hunt on Twitter during the past few days. I actually went back and read his run on Spectacular Spider-Man, and he gets heavily into the psychology of the characters. It's a bit angst ridden, but it makes more sense to me now why Peter was so edgy in the 200th issue. I swear he makes one joke during DeMatteis' run. Loved the art, especially those wordless pages. There's a great Vulture story in the run that's almost as good as the Goblin stuff.
  17. The British writers could be far too verbose. I started reading Hellblazer recently and Delano was killing me towards the end of his run.
  18. @Liam Congratulations. These '94 picks are a trip down memory lane. Reminds me of after school music TV.
  19. I was curious about this and started reading some of the pre-Miller stuff. I was expecting it to be be hokey Silver Age shit at its worst, but there are some really good stories, and Colan's art is fantastic. I've only been reading selected issues, but they compare favorably to the other comics Marvel was putting out in the late 60s-early 70s.
  20. @Curt McGirt Curt, I realized I haven't listened to much metal from '92, so I've been working on rectifying that. Got any recommendations? So far, I think I've liked Bolt Thrower and Darkthrone the best.
  21. As for hip hop, T.R.O.Y. should have been in the book. I would have also put something from The Chronic over that movie soundtrack (although that track was supposed to be on the Chronic but was too controversial.) Why is there no Ice Cube in the book? Hip hop was amazingly great in 1992: A few more:
  22. 1992 These early 90s picks have been strange, to say the least. Almost like a bizarro world version of the music I grew up with. I can't figure out whether the authors are fond of early 90s music or think it's completely overrated. There were some positives, however. I liked that L7 song enough to listen to the record it came from. Plus, I hadn't heard Cesaria Evora before and definitely want to listen to some of her records. And the chorus to Motorcycle Emptiness is beautiful. The worst pick was that Was (Not Was) track for the simple fact that they were actually a pretty decent group, but the book makes them seem like a joke. I would have included Dreams because I think it's a beautiful song. I would have also included something from Tori Amos. I know they include her later, but 1992 was the year she burst on the scene like our generation's own Kate Bush. I thought it would have been interesting to some shoegaze era Verve as well: And I really like what Nick Cave was doing around this time: I was surprised they didn't include any of Tom Waits' stuff from Bone Machine. But the biggest omission seems to be Alice in Chains. I was never really into them as a teenager outside of watching their music videos on television, so I was surprised to discover how critically acclaimed they are. Some other songs: These guys actually dressed like Mummies. I went to a lot of live gigs in my teenage years. These were two of the best:
  23. As for metal, Metallica went mainstream and Ozzy had his biggest solo album, which the list reflects. I have little interest in either of those. 1991 is the year metal returned to the underground with Death Metal records by Death, Dismember, Autopsy, Atheist, Carcass, Suffocation, Entombed, Morbid Angel, Immolation, Pestilence, and other bands with ridiculous/awesome sounding names. Here's one for the romantics:
  24. For Hip Hop, they should've waited til '91 to drop some Tribe Called Quest. The best track of 1991? A few more favorites:
  25. 1991 It's impossible to overstate the impact of Smells Like Teen Spirit. We've listened to a lot of great artists up until and heard a lot of great songs, but few of them ahad the impact that Nirvana had. For my generation, Nirvana was our Elvis Presley or The Beatles. The book has gone to great lengths to show there was more to 90s music than grunge, but I think they could have included a few more songs to reflect how big it was. I suppose any generation that was on the ground floor of a music movement would feel the same. I may be overstating how important grunge was in the long run, but it was an important chapter in the history of rock music and should have been represented as such. One Pearl Jam song and it's Given to Fly? Before Smells Like Teen Spirit hit, it seemed like Shoegaze was going to be the next big thing. The three big acts were My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive, but there were plenty of other groups making similar music. This time of music always struck me as the natural marriage of Dream Pop and Jangle Pop. Here is a bunch of other stuff from '91 -- some of it features on the list later on like Pavement and PJ Harvey. A lot of this stuff reminds me of listening to college radio for the first time. More indie pop and things: Last batch:
×
×
  • Create New...