Lamp, broken circa 1988

At least the attack has given us one fascinating thing in awareness of this website, which provides real-time maps of where traffic attacks are coming and going in the world. Try not to read nationalism into this. the Lizard Squad guys are just paying other services to essentially fire DDoS cannons at Microsoft Headquarters in Seattle. Where the computers are stationed doesn't matter so much.

Thanks Metal, I really do appreciate that. Still, I'm going to pimp less stuff than last year, but I'll do it harder. So let's talk about the best thing anyone's done with rock tropes in 2014! I shook Carla's hand this year. She was opening for Swans in Los Angeles. I went with my best friend and my band-mate who is a bigger Swans fan than I am, and I remember saying The Seer was the high waterbar for excellence in albums. So she was freaking out about seeing Swans, and I kind of was, but I was way more freaked out about seeing Carla. Both of those idiots I went with started pressuring me to say hi to her if I saw her, cuz it was gonna be a small venue (The Roxy) so she'd be around at some point. I refused. I try not to meet people I admire, because the relationship I have with their work is probably not going to carry over to any kind of interaction. So I've gone to plenty of shows and then left them like I was storming out of a fucking house. They kept saying I should say hi to her. I think my best friend was just giving me a hard time, and my bandmate was completely serious but I can't tell. To back up for people who don't know, Carla Bozulich has been making music in some form (electronic, country, rock, experimental art, noise) since 1982 and, as is the ideal, she has been approaching greater and greater talent with every successive release. I won't lie and say I like all of what she's done, but what matters is that where we are right now speaks to me. Then she announced a record called "Boy," and she called her pop record. I later learned the album was finished in my city. What I'm trying to say here is I'm biased. The album itself is glorious: it is career spanning work that trends towards blues and folk at it's most gentle, and Swans-y thud at it's loudest. It's simultaneously experimental and reverential in a way that is like almost nothing else, except Tom Waits. And like Tom it's the middle point between all these western forms of music, shifting wildly but always thematically together. Proof: here's the first three tracks, in order. Ain't No Grave One Hard Man Drowning To The Light So none of those are really rock songs in a traditional way. Here's what I mean by how it uses rock tropes- it's a pronounced inversion of the male power fantasy parts of rock history. It's taking a form that was sexualized from a male perspective, knocking that shit down, and saying "no, motherfucker, I put a spell on YOU." It inhabits everything male about rock and uses that power for good. In a world where Jack White's still allowed to be successful, this is the shit we need to keep things balanced. Anyways, I've got some body issues (shout out to fatphobic doctors) that make all sorts of physical activities really, really hard. So I don't really get to go to shows too much anymore. I went to Swans and Carla cuz it was fuckin' Swans and Carla though. Anyways. Despite the pain from my legs and back I stood for all of Carla's set. When we got in line they were rehearsing and I got to hear what was coming. It was... everything I'd hoped it be and a little more. She closed her set with "One Hard Man." In a live video, she said all of the songs on Boy were for girls she knew, except that one which is for the guys who weren't assholes. As she repeated "the one hard man" she would point at different people she saw. At one point she pointed near me, and that was enough to make me fuckin' shake. My leg gave out a few minutes after her set and I had to sit down on the ground from the pain. I tried to stand up during Swans but I knew they were going to go twice as long. For the brief time I was standing though, Carla and her band passed by my best friend and I (my bandmate fought her way to the front row for Swans, because of course). I waved. She waved back. I extended my hand. She took it. I thanked her. She smiled and bowed her head, then walked away. "we’re fucked in the balls we’re ripped in the sewn up cunt by the boundaries of just exactly how strange it is cool to be. how uncool it is to be strange. fuck me. now. goddamn it. the word is love. we used to call it punk rock." (source)

so we're doing Dean like this because Roman's back, right?

so like last year I think I pimped way too much stuff that no one listened to, so I'm going to slow that roll a little bit, but since I also listen to lots of fucked up shit no one is going to listen to anyways I figure I'll put that in one big ol' post. White Suns - Totem listen: "Carrion" The king is dead, long live the king. Now that it takes Lightning Bolt like five fucking years to make new songs, there's space on noise rock mountain now and White Suns is on that shit. A legit disturbing album that I actually can't finish after the sun goes down. At many points it takes after This Heat in how they have a mostly coherent guitar track and drum track going, and another member pushing waves of noise out of the wires, but White Suns takes those moments to add more metal and dissonant flourishes. This is an album that makes me laugh at the idea of extreme music, basically. IF YOU DON'T LIKE/CAN'T DEAL WITH NOISE, THIS WILL NOT CHANGE YOUR MIND. Pregnant - John Raw listen: "Heavily Disguised" "Two years ago, Daniel Trudeau received a weird, cryptic email. Someone—or something—named John Raw needed help committing suicide from the digital world." Despite this you don't need to go in ready to make like concept album notes. It's just the theme of the record, of the blurring of digital and physical life, of a revaluing of base human behaviors and ideas. It's at points the most dense sample based music I've heard outside of Oneohtrix Point Never. At other points, it sounds like the record I've been waiting Animal Collective to just sit down and make. I'm in love with this record and in a less crazy year it'd be #1. Gazelle Twin - UNFLESH (not the full album, sorry) listen: "Belly of the Beast" Like the horrible inverse of the last record, which is about aspiring to be something more. UNFLESH is about an all consuming need to be something less. It takes a very industrial sounding electronic template and applies a generous amount of Body Horror to the lyrical and visual themes. It's very hard to explain. All I know for sure is that it makes me really nervous that I enjoy it, and the cover art is amazing. Jenny Hval and Susanna - Meshes of Voice listen: "O Sun O Medusa / A Mirror In My Mouth" Before I say anything else, know that I am basically a Jenny Hval fanboy. Anyways. This is, somehow, a live album made from two performances in 2009. Pieces of this material exist in other places, but the nature of the collaboration and their setup has made the pieces that do exist significantly different than anything on records. That's not important. What is important is the made a gigantic, wide ranging sound they've created, from solo piano balladry to massive drone metal to ghost-like folk and even more. Andrew Pekler - The Prepaid Piano & Replayed listen: "Replayed (excerpt)" I have no idea if this will actually make my top ten but I feel like I have to share it, because it is a piece of perfect Bowie-like balance between super experimental and super playful. Pekler's last art project was called "Cover Versions," which is explained here. This new album similarly rises from an art installation: he set up pianos and placed burn phones (set to vibrate) on the piano strings. People who came to the installation could call whichever phones they wanted to. Side A (The Prepaid Piano) is made entirely from samples gathered from the installation. Side B (Replayed) is a little more... sarcastic, I guess? He took acoustic sounds made from the pianos from the installation, and ran all of that sound and data through a MIDI transposer, which is supposed to take the sounds and turn it into synthetic instruments. What it makes instead is rhythmic, somewhat tonal, totally chaotic and energetic electronic music. There's something so silly about all of this that I love the record, and I had to make sure people know it exists even if I'm pretty confident no one else will like it.

Monaco was a fucking dollar, so I bought 8 gift copies for later.

it's more of a Drake sweater anyways

The following is a stupid vent: Every time I see anyone say that this has been "a weak year for ______" I want to shake them. Buddy, if you had to hunt to survive, would you give up when the animals moved, or would you follow them? If you are disappointed by how your medium treated you this year, maybe it's because you were expecting the good shit to fall into your lap. The point is the thrill of the hunt, because then when you find something that resonates with you, you fucking found it and that feels great. In this analogy, TV shows are berries and they're just in the same fucking spots all the time and that's uninteresting but some people just really want berries. Y'all hold down the berry fort, I'm going hunting.

So since me participating in a ballot thing would basically be "here's about ten games no one has played or will play," here are about ten games no one has played or will play that I was quite fond of. 10. MARIO GOLF WORLD TOUR, which went through the motions but I was down for it this time. 9. FRACT OSC, which is a puzzle game about someone who got asked "what is it like to make music" too many times. 8. LEGEND OF GRIMROCK II, which I didn't finish because I am scared of oversized bugs. 7. THE FALL EPISODE 1, which is Flashback with a story worth a dang. 6. THREES!, which makes me smile every time the blocks say hello. 5. SUPER SMASH BROS FOR 3DS, which is about trophies and the acquisition of them. 4. LUFTRAUSERS, which is a game about feeling like pressing buttons harder makes you do better. 3. THE TALOS PRINCIPLE, which I am not finished with and completely in love with. 2. KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO ACT 3, which finishes an incredibly bleak mid-story twist with the single best visual gag a game has managed in over a decade. 1. TOMODACHI LIFE, because I bought a 3DSXL to play it so it kind of has to be #1 just on an "investment in to investment returned" scale. When I'm done with THE TALOS PRINCIPLE I'll have a lot to say about it. For now I'll say "if you think you might like this but think $40 is a little steep, do not fear."

I only played one of those games (Shovel Knight) and thought it was depressing. Comfortably out of touch in 2014. Although Bayonetta 2 has done the most to make me want a Wii U that anything else has so far.

on that fusion jazz tip, i'm gonna pimp my by-far Album of the Year. first, to explain, I've discussed/yelled in the past that the noisy emotional part of Yeezus is derivative of a few artists, such as B L A C K I E All Caps With Spaces who's been on the noise rap sound since 2005. The only difference is with some of those artists they think it's derivative. An engineer working with Kanye on Yeezus straight up told B L A C K I E that he was an influence. The punchline here is that by the time Kanye was making Yeezus, B L A C K I E has already transformed again into an artist no one is doing anything like. His last album, Gen, was an entirely acoustic version of his sound, where he played every instrument on the beats himself. This year, he threatened repeatedly that he was going to make one of a couple different albums. It wasn't clear which was closest to being done until suddenly he announced "IMAGINE YOUR SELF IN A FREE AND NATURAL WORLD," what he called a jazz record. Then it came out, and... there's not a lot of other good names for what he's done other than jazz. It's him, his rage, a bass guitar, a saxophone, and a drum kit. Later there's an electric guitar, but only for the slow jam "Cry, Pig." And then over the summer, Earth got lousy with injustice, and this album ended up feeling like a soundtrack to witnessing all of it. Anyways, here's "IMAGINE YOURSELF IN A FREE AND NATURAL WORLD" by B L A C K I E All Caps With Spaces

Hey my semester's over. Unlike this year, this thread is for clarifications AND pimping. Having two threads won't be necessary until it's results time. RULES * Ballot size between 10 and 15. Scoring will basically be the inversion of a hypothetical top 15, with a slight bonus given to your #1 rated release. The upper limit was lowered from 25 to 15 is to cutback on the Tie Festival from last year. * Eligible Releases include Albums, Mixtapes, EPs and soundtracks of largely original compositions. -Compilations are OK if the material was unavailable up until this point (rarities, b-sides, demos, covers). -Live albums are OK if the material is either currently unavailable as a studio recording or significantly different than the existing recordings. Realistically I'm not going to have time to check that, so scout's honor on this one, eh? * The initial release date of any piece MUST be within 2014. Format doesn't matter: if it was available digitally in 2013, it's a 2013 album. Exceptions granted to releases sold on tour that only became commercially available later, and 2014-intended albums that leaked in late 2013. * I will accept ballots FIVE ways this year. -Post it in this thread. If you do this, let me know when you are posting your finalized list. -Send me a private message. Let's face it, I haven't made lots of friends on here despite coming here every day, so 99% chance that there won't be any inbox capacity issues. -If you have a RateYourMusic account, send me a friend request (account name BL88) and I will use the list labeled as 2014. When your list is finalized, PM me on this message board and I will add it. Maybe put the link to your list in that PM if you want to be nice! -The same goes for anyone with a Discogs account. Same account name, same procedure as above. I only just made an account on discogs for this, so please do not try to talk to me through that. I imagine I'm not going to remember it exists most of the time. -Send email to DVDVRBestMusic2013 at gmail dot com. I am too lazy to make a new account, and didn't have the foresight to make a general one last time. Anyways, put “BALLOT” and your account name in the subject. I'm going to check it every Friday, and I'll reply with some gibberish to let you know when I receive it. Treasure this gibberish. It is for your eyes only. * Please try not to do a bunch of last minute changes. If you have to take it to the deadline, do it, but if you get it right the first time it'll make this all go faster. Also if you're using one of the list making sites above, PLEASE tell me when you change something. Once I have it entered into the spreadsheet I'm probably not going to look at that site again, and if I do I might not notice any changes. SUPER NEAT SUGGESTIONS * Seriously, RateYourMusic. Once you get a hang on how Early Internet that site is it's really easy to check information on albums and maintain lists. * If it's an album you think has gotten passed over or is relatively obscure, include sample tracks. Music requires hearing, so you need to suppliment your praise for a thing with a chance to hear it. At the same time, if a lot of your (my) releases are obscure like this, don't embed like twenty youtube videos into a post or something obnoxious like that. Just like make it a really obvious hyperlink or something. Or if the whole album's just availible somewhere like bandcamp or a huge youtube video, use that. *** I wouldn't recommend using Spotify for this. I listen to a ton of music and I don't have a spotify account, so don't assume it's a common thing. * To avoid burnout, don't make your queue rigid. Listen to whatever genre feels right that day, and do not force yourself to listen to stuff outside that genre if you don't want to. DEADLINE March 30th, 2015. I can move up the date if pressed to. REMINDER: Full-time college student. No idea how my work load or life load is going to shake out by March 31st, so if I can't get it done it'll be delayed until May 19th. I'll let you know in advance if this comes to pass. OKAY HAVE FUN WITH MUSIC NOW

What's weird is I went into the Pinkprint being a fan of Nicki the rapper and not the popstar, and ended up feeling pretty much the same way except for liking the Beyonce track and not liking Bed of Lies. I guess leaving the best rap track she made this year off the album (Yasss Bish) should've been a warning for me. I assumed this record would be doing more for the pop fans so it's interesting to see that's not entirely true either.

the stairs match was adorable. just adorable.

I have been waking up with nervewracking anxiety every day since november 30th. fuck this.

when my finals are over I'll start it up

fuck that "marking out" chant rest of the show was good EDIT: oh, kenta and devitt looked like the cyborg ninjas from mortal kombat 3

cuz when i think geek culture i think ska

my whole list with explanations, sample tracks and download links is over here, but so far here's my top 10 1. B L A C K I E - IMAGINE YOUR SELF IN A FREE AND NATURAL WORLD 2. White Suns - Totem 3. milo - a toothpaste suburb 4. Carla Bozulich - Boy 5. Lil Ugly Mane - The Weeping Worm EP 6. Young Fathers - Dead 7. Jenny Hval & Susanna - Meshes of Voice 8. clipping. - CLPPNG 9. Busdriver - Perfect Hair 10. Cymbals Eat Guitars - LOSE

I was plotting on it, but like when I did a thread in June I got the sense mostly no one was interested in music this year or listening to anything or... fuck, I dunno. If I'm wrong I'll do it. I might do it anyways.

out of the ruins blood grown heavy from his past his wings stripped by thunder but those storms keep coming back singing birds in sickness sing the same blues songs when they fell out of the emptiness they must have brought along space's loneliness space's loneliness gotten so good at hiding it even he does not admit it that glittering flash in his eyes makes it look like he might be alright if the blues are you hunter then you will come face to face with that darkness and desolation and the endless depression but you are not helpless and you are not helpless try to beat it try to beat it and live through space's loneliness and live through space's loneliness you are not helpless you are not helpless i'll help you to try to beat it

what, did i fuck something up last year

a healthy "fuck off" to the idiot who told my friend he'd be her girlfriend, was completely amazing to her for the first like two weeks, then spent four months treating her like a pen pal who don't write back unless you send like three letters and a contract. congratulations on shitting in an amazing heart.

I tend to refer to ODB's "Brooklyn Zoo" as a diss track on existing. Anyways, on the Dre Day tip, i'm surprised someone didn't immediately respond with this and also what the hell, no Hit Em Up?!

finals are trying to kill me, so, congratulations, moving the date back to JANUARY 10th.

Buy one from a burn phone company and never turn on the data plan. s'like $80 with no contract. although that's not a great option if you're looking for iOS stuff.