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IN 2019 I WILL LISTEN TO YOUR ALBUM OF THE YEAR.


Lamp, broken circa 1988

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Last year, some people said that they didn't notice this was happening again in the same thread and ended up submitting records late.

BEHOLD, A NEW THREAD. NOW I COMMAND YOU TO SUBMIT (to this thread). YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE.

Rules:

  1. First Come First Serve
  2. If you nominate two, I'll listen to zero
  3. No guarantees that my review will be positive.

If you want to talk about a bunch of records, that's cool, but please bold the one you want me to listen to.

For example, I liked a lot of records this year! Like Lightning Bolt's "Sonic Citadel," or Black Milk's "DIVE" EP (which low key might be better than FEVER, and I thought FEVER was amazing). For a while my album of the year was Tyler The Creator's "IGOR" because I was so happy that he was making good on the promise of Flower Boy's strongest moments by making a huge sprawling genre-mess pop record about love and queerness, AND that the album hit #1 in the US in it's first week.

Ultimately though, my favorite album of the year was "Guns" by Quelle Chris. The shortest explanation I can give for why is this: it addressed an idea I had for a symphony so well that I threw out the symphony because I didn't think I could express it better than Quelle Chris could. EDIT: I wrote this before legal problems forced Chris to change the beat for one of the best songs on the record, Box of Wheaties. It is a damn tragedy that this version of the record doesn't publicly exist anymore.

also i put out a record that i thought was really good but i've talked about that a lot already

Your turn!

Edited by Lamp, broken circa 1988
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Really wish I could torture you again this year, but I got nothin'.

EDIT: Shit, I forgot I gave you Wytch Hazel last year. I was thinking of 2017.

This year has just been pretty dire for me and new releases. Few new bands with full albums I've liked a lot, a few established favorites like Saint Vitus and Possessed, who came out with a real surprise with their new one though it was way too long. Lots of good 7"s that have not enough songs and are too expensive. The new Teitanblood is coming in the mail but that would REALLY be torture...

Edited by Curt McGirt
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A day late, but, we're here. By the way, for this thread, I'm gonna put a reaction on your post when I've posted your specific review.

I heard Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” for the first time in 2018, and thought it was a fun song and was pretty sure at some point she’d be a star. Unfortunately, the first time I’ve ever mentioned that thought anywhere was right now, so it looks like I’m pulling some “I KNEW LIZZO BEFORE EVERYONE KNEW LIZZO, BUNCHA BANDWAGONERS” type of thing.

I’m conflicted on Lizzo, and not because of any like plagarism thing (fuck the marvin gaye estate for making this litigious hell songwriters are now at risk of, but also fuck robin thicke in general (especially for that record about his ex-wife, holy shit that thing’s gross)). There’s like multiple facets to the conflict here.

  • I have a lot of misgivings with the body positivity movement because while there are people who mean it and are coming from the right place with it, the arrival of body positivity in pop culture has come along with a lot of capitalist recoup and I feel tense about the marketing aspect.
  • I also feel like it’s a thing I don’t get to claim for myself. Before I say anything further on that, let me assure you that I’m super aware of the hell that the pursuit of thinness puts on young women and the literal harm it can cause. I understand that my needs aren’t first in line. I’m still in that same line. I’m a self-conscious fat man who has seen on more than one occasion someone be radically body positive and supportive towards women and then degrading towards fat men.
  • I also am suspicious of body positive art. Again, it’s meant from a lovely, well meaning place, but like… okay, for every style of human suffering and vice and problem, there’s art about that state of being. With the exception of, like, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, the only art I know of that has anything to say about how hard and painful fatness can be is mine. I’m sure there’s others out there. They don’t get elevated in the same way that like records about addiction do.
  • And all of this is kind of moot when it comes to Lizzo, because the “BODY POSITIVE ARTIST” thing is a thing that’s forced onto her. She’s not out here being a deliberate radical activist. She writes catchy love songs, but because she’s larger than what society dictates is an acceptable person to make songs like that it becomes a radical act.

All of that is to say I’ve heard Juice and Truth Hurts and never checked out the record until now because the conversation around it when it came out was mind-numbing. Here we go! As always, one paragraph per song.

Alright I’ve mentioned this in past reviews, but I love records that start with phrases like this, because it has this feeling of like “I DON’T HAVE TIME, I’VE GOT A LOT TO SAY AND WE NEED TO GET STARTED RIGHT NOW.” Still true. This song’s also neat because last year, one of the records I listened to had a lot of really peculiar 808 usage in the middle of more bluesy tunes, but this song does that a lot more tastefully than that ever did. This is a really strong introduction to the record. Lizzo’s trying to blow out her voice immediately.

This is alright. Lizzo’s personality carries this song, which I imagine is going to get me through a lot of the songs on here when they end up as tonally generic as this. I harp on instrument choice a lot in songwriting and this is like instrument choice for maximum demographic spread. It counts as a purpose, even if it’s not an interesting one to me. Still, the lyrics and Lizzo’s voice make it work.

Juice is a fuckin’ Jam. I don’t know how else to describe it, and you’ve probably heard it by now so you know. Also, I cannot hear about Grey Goose in any context without laughing for reasons not worth explaining.

Hey wait I’m a Gemini ? nah uh this is an alright song. The beat doesn’t move me but it’s not wack or anything.

For a ballad it’s alright. I harp on the repetition of ballads a lot, but actually on this record the ballads are the place where the sound deviates from the modern pop format, using doo-wop structure with subwoofers and treated horns. So that’s nice.

OH MAN. See, this is what I mean with the slower tracks having the space to sound different on here. This is an excellent song. I can’t tell if that’s an actual guitar, so let’s go look. … can’t track down the actual credits. Whatever. This song is the best song on here so far. The chords are gorgeous and the rhythm section is trying to punch holes in speaker cones. Only thing is I wish it was longer.

I also love this. I know there’s a Missy Elliot verse coming but it sounds like there should be as well. Just sounds real mean and grimy. Whoever’s actually engineering the sub on this record is doing a killer job, they’ve made it sound warm which is a hard trick.

Three straight good songs. The structure feels like it’s swelling to a point of explosion every time it adds something, from the first verses to Gucci Mane showing up. I bet there’s a version of this song where the outro is just this enormous horn explosion and that’s how her concerts close.

Again, the sub bass on this record is just fantastic. I’m not into the rest of the sound on this song, but again when the song is dipping, Lizzo seems to put on extra personality and pulls it back up into something that fits on this record. I’m envious of that talent to just like fix a song with your own personal style. This tune without Lizzo feels lifeless.

I like the structure of the hook on this one. It’s a return to the subwoofersoul sound from the other ballads, just turned all the way up. The beat switch at the end is also a good touch, but it’s touching on something that I’m struggling with on this record. I know pop music has given people a complex about attention span, but the idea of this song- and Crybaby for that matter- could expand so much further past the pop song limitations. Yet, the songs are hurried and pulled down to earth to avoid wearing out their welcome, and I’d like to see her have more confidence in her own compositions to let a song like this really last.

I usually groan at ending ballads, but there’s a good amount of funk and expansion in this one so instead of sounding like a comedown it sounds like, well, a climax. I don’t like the sudden cut at the end, but I get it; on a record full of huge endings, the most intimate song has the smallest. So, not mad.

= = =

Overall, it’s good. There’s some great songs, and there’s also some stuff that sounds like a test sample for mainstream radio styles. Hopefully she’s made note that the songs of hers that blew up escape that pop radio style and she pushes further down those paths, because when she’s doing that it can be downright amazing.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm not 100% decided on it being my AOTY yet, because it's too damned short, but nothing else has properly supplanted it so far despite that, and they say it's an album not an EP, so - Bible Songs 1 by The Austerity Program.

Edited by SturmCRF
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On 10/28/2019 at 3:37 PM, Brian Fowler said:

That reminds me that I really need to listen to the new The Avett Brothers album that came out a few weeks ago before I commit to anything.

Was maybe their weakest album for me. Goes very political and not in a good way for a band that is fun escapism for me.

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LETS GET BACK TO IT

1. Solange – When I Get Home
2. Lizzo – Cuz I Love You

I mean, okay, “yes I know who solange is” isn’t interesting because of the nature of her family. If you follow music in America you’ve probably at least heard the name and who her sister is. As for past experiences, I liked A Seat At The Table though it has a lot of slow stuff on it, and we’ve talked about the hole in my head for ballad adjacent music in these threads for long enough to be worth meditating on it again. I heard this album once earlier this year and I’d marked a few songs on it for mix material, but this’ll be my first time just sitting with it with no distractions on my good speakers.

I usually do one paragraph per track, but since there’s a lot of interludes and things around 30 seconds, those wont get mentions. It’s not because they’re not important to the tone of the record. It’s strictly about time management and where I think I’ll be spending most of my energy writing. Here we go!

So the intro is an interesting structure, of like a simple phrase floating in space and reiterating itself over and over, developing in the song as a Laurence Weiner piece would develop in the mind of the spectator. There’s an artist named Yves Jarvis who did something similar on his record this year to a really powerful effect. I’d really recommend checking that record out. We’ve also talked about my propensity for records that Just Start and this counts, even if the purpose is slow and dreamlike.

So the first time I listened to this record, this is when I started making notes like “this’ll be good for a mix” because it addresses a thing I wasn’t a huge fan of on A Seat at the Table: The drums didn’t hit as hard as it felt like the songs deserved. That’s extremely not a problem on this record. The use of chopping (or maybe pseudo-chopping?) in the song is absolute dynamite. It makes the hook hit that much harder. Oh right, Tyler’s on this song. Man, speaking of albums I could scream about this year, IGOR. But anyways, this song is great. I love the blurry outro.

This is the first song I put on a mix (to explain: I DJ my friends parties since we have two a year, one in the summer and one in the winter) and it’s because the bass and drums on this song are FILTHY. I’m in this space of my life right now where I’m listening to a lot of funk, 70s prog rock, and fusion. So, considering that, this song hits me just right. This is like one of the top three songs on this record to me. I’m not talking a lot about the lyrics btw because my understanding is they’re very much about Houston and I try not to talk when I don’t know what I’m talking about.

This is the second song from this record I put on a mix. It’s just a gorgeous club love song. It’s REALLY hard to have a song that repeats musical phrases this often and still feel like it’s developing and growing, but they nail it. The other thing I love about this song is that it’s pop instrumentation without having to rely on verse-chorus-bridge like that.  Also top three on here for me.

God, the synths on this record. We go back to the phrase meditation on this song and it works perfectly. It’s also continues playing with the dream-like motif that’s been going through this record that’s made the sound pop so much.

GOD THE SYNTHS. Sorry, I just got lost listening to this one for a second. This song is fantastic and monolithic in the best way. I will say that I am not earth’s biggest Playboy Carti fan, and this song does very little to change that. However, when the beat switches for the outro, his voice does compliment that change.

Ballad time. It’s at least still got that synthesizer on it cranking away so it keeps my attention better than a lot of ballads do. The chords are beautiful as well, making this track sound like some kind of future jazz bar’s weekend singing attraction. Also, credits here say that Sampha’s on this track, and Sampha is kind of the reason I listened to A Seat At The Table in the first place. Sampha is a genius and I will listen to any song he’s attached to at least once. When the beat switches on this it’s jarring in the right way, it gives the song a menace that I love, capitalizing on the bass that’s been dancing around the slow piano all song long.

This song is the first duet I can think of where it just sounds like friends having fun instead of some weird performative “WE’RE GONNA SINGFUCK” thing, even though it definitely turns sexual in the back half of it. It’s a lot of levity after how that ballad ends so savagely.

Another ballad, again with the dancing bass synthesizer. I think it’s fine to return to this sound because it’s so well detailed but the last appearance wasn’t a complete exploration of everything you could do with this sound. Also, I love the line “You’ve got a lot of static / you’ve got it in your bones.”

UGH that transition is so nice. The drums hit hard as fuck. This is another song that feels like it was just fun to make. I used to feel weird about musicians talking money in a flaunting way, but I’ve softened on that over time because it just makes sense to talk about what’s changed in your life, and in some populations that money change is a Whole Lot.

This feels like a longform intermission but the synths are still completely beautiful and it’s a good speed transition from the last track, back into the dreamy sounds and fading sense of time.

That intro is jarring as hell but it works to snap out of the chorale of the Exit Scott interlude. This is another excellent track where the rhythm section gurgles underneath these dreamlike melodies. By the way, I haven’t made a lot of mention of this, but Solange’s voice is fucking amazing and the whole record is written to compliment it so, so well.

So it’s an ending ballad, but, it’s a surrealist one that revisits parts of the introduction to link the whole album together as a single document, while also resolving that hanging chord from the intro. It feels like it makes the whole record let go.

= = =

All of the songwriting on this record is just immaculate. If I was going to explain to someone my position of how you can make pop music without having to rely on radio structure, this is an album I could use as a central example. It’s not a commodity, but you can’t say it doesn’t work beautifully. Content wise, it wasn’t made for me so I cant say that it moved me in that way, but for people that can relate to the songs more than I can I imagine this record’s got healing powers. Either way, completely worth checking out.

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I went through all the shit I have from 2019 to find something -- anything -- and besides giving you a long, disgusting death metal record, or some proper and boring power metal that might be more appealing, here's an NYC punk band singing in (I believe) Arabic about the shit they've had to put up with. In 7" format. Don't tell me you will only want to listen to it the once. 

https://haramharam.bandcamp.com/album/where-were-you-on-9-11

EDIT: And if you do want a full album you'll get something very long

Edited by Curt McGirt
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@SturmCRF Hey homie, you’re on the clock. I wont start on yours until thursday at the soonest, but after that it could go up at pretty much any second. If you want me to hold off until you’re absolutely sure, now would be the time to let me know and I’ll go on to the next record in line.

@Curt McGirt Stop trying to hit me and hit me. ? If that's your album of the year, that's fine, I'll listen to it. It doesn't gotta be so hard.

Okay!

1. "When I Get Home" by Solange
2. "Cuz I Love You" by Lizzo
3. "Jade Bird" by Jade Bird

I have no idea who Jade Bird is. I assumed folk, and like a jade-ish album cover. I got the cover wrong, obviously, but the first sentence of the wikipedia article says “Jade Elizabeth Bird is an English singer, songwriter, musician, and former Stage School pupil.” Given the crushing existential dread that accompanies every experience I’ve ever had looking up anything about the English school system, I’m not going to go learn what “Stage School” means. That said, singer/songwriter sure leads me to think that we’re going folky. Let’s see how long I can get into this record before I start ranting about how much I hate British music production techniques.

Uh, post-script, this is just a reminder that I make no promises that what I write about a given record is gonna be positive.

Well we’re at least starting there. Short intro phase establishing the rest of this song qualifies for that “records that get started thing.” I love the use of ‘You sure you wanna do this now” between the verse and the chorus. It’s such a specifically tense question that it curdles the song without having to change a second of the tone or key. The gradual introduction of instruments is nice but I feel it’s a bit rushed? Granted I’m into what I’m into, but I think they really could have put more into the moments before the instruments came in. It had a symphonic breeze in it and oops it ended already next song.

This is very rote. I’ve been letting it go, trying to find something to grab onto. The bridge is really lush and beautiful but it feels like it’s from some other song with how different it is. The lyrics are the kind of non-specific stuff that has to be to make love songs palatable and damnit I promised not to rant about British music. Not yet.

Oh boy. Okay yeah we gotta talk about the british music thing. A lot of British pop and rock just gets my hackles up because it feels exactly like you’d expect individualistic music from a caste society to come from. It’s perfected under threat of exile. The recipe says verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro. The song is alloted one thing to stand out. Here, it’s the super-fast verse in the hook, and it’s also in the bridge in case you forgot what the gimmick was. This song is That: The Song.

Okay, I waited the verse-chorus loop and I think the songwriting here is, while exactly the same structurally as the last song, is a more interesting selection of chords, and so that’s keeping me interested. This sounds like the song that the bridge from track 2 escaped from. The outro is also better off for structuring itself as an extention of the bridge instead of just a straight up reprisal of the chorus.

Ballad time. This does nothing to change my opinion on ballads. Like, okay, I’ve tried to write a single ballad in my life, and it was explicitly as an extremely dark joke (you may be able to hear it next year, depending on the summer). I can’t put myself in the headspace to do that more than once. And yet there’s a world full of songwriters that are capable of writing these things with ease. Maybe it’s a gift.

Oh god please don’t get slower after the ballad. Okay I’m gonna try to hone in on the lyricism because I feel like I’ve been ignoring the content of the songs because I’ve been so distracted by the roteness of the writing. Aaaand I’m not picking up on anything. The bridge is a good image (“Lady on fire / Waiting it out”) but the return to the chorus is jarring. It feels like a brief cameo from An Emotion.

When I googled her this was one of the songs that come up. The lyrics in this are trying to thread a specific line and it doesn’t work for me at all. Specifically the line that soured me is “She wears short skirts so you don’t ask her if you can check her phone.” That the phone-check is just totally acceptable behavior makes my skin crawl. When the song transitions to “you’re falling for the same thing I did” it ends up changing the tone even worse. I actually had to take a break after this song to reread the lyrics and make absolutely sure I understood the song correctly and was more dispirited to learn that I had. The only thing that would ease me about this is seeing some hint that she was trying to write from the perspective of a character, or a demographic. Otherwise it sets off all my “abuse survivor” alarms.

Yeah uh this record has shifted from making me uncomfortable on account of the industry-structured songwriting and into the context. Granted I tend to view breakups as less "split" and more "escape," so I'm struggling to understand the perspective of trying to talk to an ex. I'm also confused about "are her lungs made of steel so when she says she loves you, you forget how I made you feel?" I am trying to see the connection other than "More like made of STEAL haw haw" and I'm not getting it.

more ballads. "Stay, let me explain why I act so mean."  I have very little positive to say about this song, other than "it's all brilliantly produced and perfectly in tune."

I'm really struggling to find any of this positively relatable. Like at least there's sentiments in this song I've run into, right? I guess I feel put off by the weird friendzone-esque posturing of "you're good but I need bad," like it's not understood that attraction is completely random. The outro made me sigh. There are multiple things on this record that have been done before.

Okay so the googles suggested that Jade Bird did some amount of Americana and it's all right here on this record apparently. It feels better than the last few songs rhythmically but I'm still too disquieted from the last few songs approach content-wise that I feel like I can't give this a fair shot. It all feels like trying to generalize a way-too-specific story and it ends up feeling like a justification.

ENDING BALLAD. ? At least it's about death instead of some vague other kind of ending.

= = =

So, with a lot of records, I understand how a certain year can make a certain album feel like armor. I get how this could be someone's year. There's parts of it that make me really worried about what specifically was happening that year and like what they've been up to? But, I get it. And there's no complaints with the performances or the musicianship of anyone on this record. This is a lot of things I can't stand, but nothing that puts it in some kind of objective Bad category. I would just prefer to never hear this person again.

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I've probably listened to the fewest albums ever this year, so I don't have a definitive and need to run through stuff. I've anticipated a new Tool album for 13 years, and I doubt I've still yet to play that in full (evolution of taste I guess).

With that said, if I had to pick one for right now, I'd probably go with someone who consistently finds his way into my AOTY discussion: Mr. Justin Vernon.

Bon Iver - "i,i"

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On 12/16/2019 at 12:24 PM, Lamp, broken circa 1988 said:

Given the crushing existential dread that accompanies every experience I’ve ever had looking up anything about the English school system, I’m not going to go learn what “Stage School” means.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Well we’re at least starting there. Short intro phase establishing the rest of this song qualifies for that “records that get started thing.” I love the use of ‘You sure you wanna do this now” between the verse and the chorus. It’s such a specifically tense question that it curdles the song without having to change a second of the tone or key. The gradual introduction of instruments is nice but I feel it’s a bit rushed? Granted I’m into what I’m into, but I think they really could have put more into the moments before the instruments came in. It had a symphonic breeze in it and oops it ended already next song.

This is very rote. I’ve been letting it go, trying to find something to grab onto. The bridge is really lush and beautiful but it feels like it’s from some other song with how different it is. The lyrics are the kind of non-specific stuff that has to be to make love songs palatable and damnit I promised not to rant about British music. Not yet.

Oh boy. Okay yeah we gotta talk about the british music thing. A lot of British pop and rock just gets my hackles up because it feels exactly like you’d expect individualistic music from a caste society to come from. It’s perfected under threat of exile. The recipe says verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro. The song is alloted one thing to stand out. Here, it’s the super-fast verse in the hook, and it’s also in the bridge in case you forgot what the gimmick was. This song is That: The Song.

Okay, I waited the verse-chorus loop and I think the songwriting here is, while exactly the same structurally as the last song, is a more interesting selection of chords, and so that’s keeping me interested. This sounds like the song that the bridge from track 2 escaped from. The outro is also better off for structuring itself as an extention of the bridge instead of just a straight up reprisal of the chorus.

Ballad time. This does nothing to change my opinion on ballads. Like, okay, I’ve tried to write a single ballad in my life, and it was explicitly as an extremely dark joke (you may be able to hear it next year, depending on the summer). I can’t put myself in the headspace to do that more than once. And yet there’s a world full of songwriters that are capable of writing these things with ease. Maybe it’s a gift.

Oh god please don’t get slower after the ballad. Okay I’m gonna try to hone in on the lyricism because I feel like I’ve been ignoring the content of the songs because I’ve been so distracted by the roteness of the writing. Aaaand I’m not picking up on anything. The bridge is a good image (“Lady on fire / Waiting it out”) but the return to the chorus is jarring. It feels like a brief cameo from An Emotion.

When I googled her this was one of the songs that come up. The lyrics in this are trying to thread a specific line and it doesn’t work for me at all. Specifically the line that soured me is “She wears short skirts so you don’t ask her if you can check her phone.” That the phone-check is just totally acceptable behavior makes my skin crawl. When the song transitions to “you’re falling for the same thing I did” it ends up changing the tone even worse. I actually had to take a break after this song to reread the lyrics and make absolutely sure I understood the song correctly and was more dispirited to learn that I had. The only thing that would ease me about this is seeing some hint that she was trying to write from the perspective of a character, or a demographic. Otherwise it sets off all my “abuse survivor” alarms.

Yeah uh this record has shifted from making me uncomfortable on account of the industry-structured songwriting and into the context. Granted I tend to view breakups as less "split" and more "escape," so I'm struggling to understand the perspective of trying to talk to an ex. I'm also confused about "are her lungs made of steel so when she says she loves you, you forget how I made you feel?" I am trying to see the connection other than "More like made of STEAL haw haw" and I'm not getting it.

more ballads. "Stay, let me explain why I act so mean."  I have very little positive to say about this song, other than "it's all brilliantly produced and perfectly in tune."

I'm really struggling to find any of this positively relatable. Like at least there's sentiments in this song I've run into, right? I guess I feel put off by the weird friendzone-esque posturing of "you're good but I need bad," like it's not understood that attraction is completely random. The outro made me sigh. There are multiple things on this record that have been done before.

Okay so the googles suggested that Jade Bird did some amount of Americana and it's all right here on this record apparently. It feels better than the last few songs rhythmically but I'm still too disquieted from the last few songs approach content-wise that I feel like I can't give this a fair shot. It all feels like trying to generalize a way-too-specific story and it ends up feeling like a justification.

ENDING BALLAD. ? At least it's about death instead of some vague other kind of ending.

= = =

So, with a lot of records, I understand how a certain year can make a certain album feel like armor. I get how this could be someone's year. There's parts of it that make me really worried about what specifically was happening that year and like what they've been up to? But, I get it. And there's no complaints with the performances or the musicianship of anyone on this record. This is a lot of things I can't stand, but nothing that puts it in some kind of objective Bad category. I would just prefer to never hear this person again.

great brutal review and also a stage school is basically what it sounds like: a private school at which aspirant actors, singers, dancers, etc. go to to have their talent nurtured away from the screaming riff-raff at a normal school. it generally pumps out soulless nobodies with odd exceptions.

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