Music from 2019

Surprise, friendos. Gotta make my $10/yr domain fee worth it with a single post!

Hit up my profile: https://open.spotify.com/user/fmchubs?si=ikBpbui7TY6bu0A0w8oZ7A

And then check out public playlists. You’ll see them all in order. Not gonna lie: I got snatched up into some podcasts this past year. My resilient brain is finally succumbing to the blanket of silence draped over my life, and so it’s like I have chatty roommates that I can tune in and out as needed. Plus, singers don’t ever piss me off, and it’s important to experience a full range of emotion.

But the playlists live on. It’s a strange sort of ear journal.

Here’s November 2019, which was a solid month scattered across genres:

And I’m ordering the Best of 2019 now. Songs are selected, merely need some ordering.

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The New York Times, “’60 Minutes’ Chief Ousted for a Threatening Text as Upheaval at CBS Continues”

“There are people who lost their jobs trying to harm me, and if you pass on these damaging claims without your own reporting to back them up that will become a serious problem,” Mr. Fager wrote in a text message, which CBS News aired on Wednesday’s “Evening News” in a segment reported by Ms. Duncan.

This story also reports Fager’s co-workers at 60 Minutes stunned that a text message could undo years of good work. How is this a fireable offense? they ask.

Anyone willing to threaten a fellow professional is more a criminal than a colleague. That’s all there is to it. If you’d wield your power as seen above, how else are you brandishing it? I wouldn’t dare work with Fager if he hints at his behind-the-scenes power as a bludgeon. Stockholm Syndrome is real. Get a replacement who would deny allegations without gesturing at violent mythmaking.

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(I’m going to lift the point of this essay wholecloth, so you really should read it.)

On a week seeing attempts at rehabilitation of war hero (as in he’s a hero to wars for always supporting them) John McCain and candy-man George W. Bush, I was lucky enough to read about Samar Hassan. She’s pictured above. During the Iraq war, her parents were gunned down in front of her because dad was thought to be a suicide bomber. He was driving a little fast, after all. The photo captures the immediate aftermath.

Samar Hassan was interviewed for a 2017 documentary. Then eighteen years old, she was asked how she would reply if men like McCain and Bush told her they were sorry. She says:

I will never forgive them. I will just leave it to God. God will punish them. If they were in front of me, I would want to drink their blood. Even then I wouldn’t be satisfied.

 

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Machine Girl, “Bullet Hell”

It seems like the older I get, the more sound I demand from my music. It does need to retain a semblance of construction, though, it can’t drone or wash or dissemble. But spastic, violent, overwhelming– these are applicable adjectives. Preferably more computerized than instrumental; I’ve yet to be drawn into metal and all its subgenres (though I was into Dragonforce for my mid-to-late teens, thanks YTMND!), and I think it’s because guitars and growls don’t do enough. They can’t engage me!

Last month’s discovery of Machine Girl was tremendous. A stuttering, jolting clash beast that feasts only on rainbow Nerds, an uzi fired through a motherboard. This album’s title is Because I’m Young Arrogant and Hate Everything You Stand For and even that conveys the sound: knowingly over-the-top and proud of it.

I can’t really listen to happy hardcore for the repetition of the beat, that spring-bounce beat found in every. Happy. Hardcore. Track. But I’m highlighting “Bullet Hell” today for its use of that same beat in bursts, and this classic, overdone sound feels rejuvenated for it. That’s all it took!

And the album cover has to be appreciated in all its glory. Sometimes I feel like this is my POV:

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