Isbjørn

Maybe I can find a space for them in my new journal section, Essential Emo Albums I Have Never Heard (Trollheart's Classic Albums I Have Never Heard is *cough* unrelated).

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Anteater

butthead, if you ever want to hear music that has a lot of great emo touches yet isn't emo at the same time, check out my fellow Texan buddies The Panic Division. Similar melodic sensibility to the best 3rd wave bands, but with an 80's synth/alternative rock blended aesthetic (think Tears For Fears). I have a feeling you'd love 'em, but its hard to know...I'll leave you a few songs here and see how they strike ya.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

butthead aka 216

...does porn. Her name is Belle Knox, and she's an 18 year old freshman at Duke. I'm not exactly sure how or why this became semi-news considering Arizona State coeds have been choking down meatswords since the beginning of time, but this story crept it's way onto my radar recently. The story is that she does porn to help pay her tuition. Because a lot of what I am about to say relates to the garbage she wrote, here is a link to a piece written by her. I don't make it a habit to respond to complete strangers, especially when I know they will never read my response anyways, but I view her article sort of like a microcosm of thoughts of all the people I loathe: Social Justice Warriors, /srs/, Tumblr users, extreme feminists, etc.

For those of you too lazy to read the article I just linked (AKA all of you), the rundown of the piece is this: Over Christmas break some frat guy at Duke saw her in a porno, told his buddies, news spread around campus, she got harassed online, and now she is explaining herself. It's a pretty well-written article, but it kinds of reads like a Martin Luther King Jr. speech. At parts during my reading, I imagined her on a stage with a microphone with scores of minions beneath her, gradually moving from head-nodding in agreeance to clenching their collective fists, and at the end of the speech storming the castle of the patriarchy with their bloody tampons to avenge the oppression they have suffered at the hands of the evil penises.

I do agree that nobody should be sending death threats or whatever to her, or anyone for that matter. I think society is basically a bunch of whimpering pussies when it comes to online bullying, but I do recognize that certain lines shouldn't be crossed and certain things can be serious matters. But there's also something to be said about people who know what the reaction will be to their actions, do the action anyways, and then complain about the reaction they already knew was coming. I wouldn't park a brand new Mercedes on a Detroit street corner, leave it unlocked with a roll of $100 bills on the passenger seat, leave for a few days, then be shocked and outraged when I came back and saw it stolen. Would it still be wrong of the scumbag who jacked my ride? Of course. Should I have expected that to happen? Yep. I think you see where I'm going with this.

I don't have a beef with sex workers, but let's just call a spade a spade. They do a job that requires little-to-no skill, credentials, qualifications, etc. In short, pretty much anyone could be a sex worker. I believe the lack of respect has less to do with a 'fear or womens' sexuality' (lol), and more to do with the lack of skill required to do that job. When I see a woman in porn, I assume she isn't smart enough to do anything else with her life. The assumption that they are dumb is a legit one, considering they are doing a job that requires no intelligence whatsoever. But sex workers and sluts in general, I find super insecure. Like they will overcompensate for their whorish ways by really celebrating their lives in the way an ex would exaggeratedly show off with her new boyfriend to make an ex angry.

For those of you reading this who want to argue that beauty or whatever is a 'qualification' for sex work, I will direct your attention to Facial Abuse, a rough (understatement) porn site that this Belle Knox chick shot for. I've watched tons of videos from that site, and trust me, about 10% of those girls are remotely attractive. That estimation might even be a on the generous side because there are truly some warthogs and crack whores on there.

I guess part of why the story got big is because she responded with her own interviews and articles pretty quickly and a group of idiot feminists tagged along at her heels to make sure they could yell "empowerment!" at anyone within ear shot. If licking a toilet bowl or barfing on yourself in an internet video is empowerment to you.... umm good for you. Again, it's the insecurities coming out. They know it's not, but what else can they really say or do other than admit they just disgraced their family and whored themselves out so they could get $200 for blowing a guy 3X their age.


The part of the article that made my jim jims a little bit rustled, was when under a bolded headline that said "Patriarchy fears female sexuality," she wrote: I am well aware: The threat I pose to the patriarchy is enormous. So, I guess men are actually just scared of women's sexuality and it has nothing to do with her throating a 48 year old on film??

Whatever, I'm done writing. I feel like I had more to say but got tired and now don't really care. Feminists blow. Later.

14232949

You know what?
I'm going to start reading this more often.
Really liked the piece about your relationship with the girl who moved away, I imagined the sport she played was hockey. It seemed right.

It's odd to think that you only cried three times when certain songs hit, if I had written that journal post, it would probably have never ended. I now have four different "crywank" (my term for trying to make my sad playlists seem ironic, they're not) playlists. I think we live in a world now where it's cool to cry and it's interesting to read about your experiences. I've always found it hard to place you as a person in the world outside of Music Banter. I guess sometimes it's hard to remember that everyone here is a real person and has a life outside of the forum.

I also enjoy that you can look back at yourself with honesty and a sense of self humor. Really well written piece.
I also like Taking Back Sunday, I just f*ck with the debut album though. Some really big songs on that record. I'm not sure I'd classify them as emo. I never saw Brand New as emo either. I don't want to call them pop rock or pop punk either because they're not really.
Hmm, alternative rock? But then that's far too vague.
The lack of wanting to associate them with emo probably comes from their douchey teenage girl fans who think painting your nails black and getting angry at your parents is embodying the spirit of emo.

The vocalist left after the first album you said? Shame. The vocal delivery is, as you pointed out, a definite highlight. I might listen to their second album, if it's close to the debut, I'll enjoy it.
I know they've just brought out a new album. I assume they're alike Weezer or Jimmy Eat World in that they just lost the spark they had as they got older? Or would it genuinely be worth a look in?

djchameleon

You are most definitely missing out especially with their third album Louder Now. The second album has a few good tracks on it but the third album is a more solid consistent record.

I don't mind the vocalist leaving because they still have that harmonizing arrangement that they do with their songs and that's the reason why I love their vocals.

Risk listening to everything after Louder Now on your own. I can't really endorse their material after that.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

butthead aka 216

Thanks for the kind words. I would classify Taking Back Sunday as emo, but wouldn't classify Brand New as such. Maybe it's easier to look back after they have each put out a handful of albums and make that judgment, but I still don't see how anyone could think that Taking Back Sunday wasn't the perfect progression for emo with their first two albums. It seems to fit so smoothly into that genre for me. I think most of the negativity towards 'emo,' from earlier emo bands and fans alike was the marketing of the genre. Dyed black hair over the eyes, weird clothing, etc. Kind of like what happened to grunge, and what happens to all genres once corporate America starts profiting too much off of it. When it transitions from music genre to mass appeal as a lifestyle or something as a selling point, I think that's where things get ugly.

I consider Brand New's first album to be more pop-punk and less emo, but I definitely see why some would classify them as emo. If you listen to most Brand New songs, especially from YFW and Deja, you can hear how Jesse Lacey records most of his songs in layers and overlaps the vocals. One is a strained, yelling version of the lyrics and the other a much softer version. Kind of gives the vocals a subtle but different sound to them and I've always enjoyed it.

If you liked TBS's Tell All Your Friends, there is virtually no way I can imagine you not liking their second album, Where You Want To Be. It's really along the same lines as their first, and just as good. The vocalist has never changed, it was the backup vocalist/guitarist who left. In short, if you listen to TBS's first 3 albums, almost every song has overlapping vocals between the lead singer and backup guy. I think it honestly defined TBS's sound as a whole throughout their career (partly why their last 2 albums blow really fat cock, because they rarely do it anymore). The secondary vocals were done by John Nolan on the first album, but then he left with some other guys to do Straylight Run. The new guy, Fred, was awesome in the 2nd and 3rd albums, but then he left to do The Color Fred and Nolan came back. The lead singer has always remained Adam Lazarra, and DJ is right, their album called Louder Now is great too.

Louder Now is different from their first two in the sense that I felt a concerted effort to make 'big songs' but it didn't make them any less good for me. The songs still went through progressions and mountains and valleys, and there is still just a lot going on in each song. Nowadays, they are just mailing it in and getting to the chorus as easy as possible. I rarely give suggestions because I know people don't care or don't want to be bothered, but I will always push TBS's first, second, and third albums on anyone because I think they are awesome. Definitely give them a listen, I can't imagine you would at the very least think they were decent.

I listened to their new album, Happiness Is, and it's not worth your time. I understand people get older, things change, but these last two albums have been turds. Before, it was like TBS was finding as much cool shit to fit into a 4 minute song as possible, and now it just feels like they are mailing it in. It feels lazy and uninspired, and I've always been a guy who welcomes change in bands and understands that a band can't write the same song for 10 years.

Here are some cool Taking Back Sunday related things for anyone to listen to.

Here are 2 songs that were never released on any of their albums:

The Ballad of Sal Villanueva
-Sal Villanueva was their original frontman before Adam Lazzara but I don't believe they ever recorded anything with him.



Follow the Format
-Unreleased song


CWTE: Live From Orensanz
A more recent thing they did. The backup vocals/guitar is a guy named Matt Fazzi who is in a band called Happy Body, Slow Brain. He was in TBS a short time, and has a killer voice but it's a lot different than other people who have filled that role. It works really well though in this song setting. The entire performance is on YouTube, and it's called Live From Orensanz.



^ Right around 1:23 is really cool btw

butthead aka 216

Butthead, why do you hate feminists so damn much? Why do you constantly mock Tumblr? Why do you laugh heartily at social activism through social media?? Why do you trash social justice warriors? Why do you loathe professional victims?

It all stems from guilt. Not my guilt, of course, because I have none. I've said in other threads, but I have no shame or guilt with any of my feelings or who I am as a person. I don't feel bad about being White, Straight, Cis-Gendered, Hung, American, etc. The guilt I am referring to comes from the Tumblr tards of the world who bark about 'male/white/cis/whatever privilege" and want people like me to feel guilty about it. If you are one of those people, please take direction from the one and only Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, and shove your opinions straight up your candy ass. You people are as smart as a bag of cheese curls.


Because I am privileged enough to have a social life, family life, and work environment where I very rarely run into one of these turds-for-brains, most of my interaction with these fools comes via the internet, and strangely enough they usually aren't even interactions at all. More often than not, it's me reading an article or comment on Facebook/Twitter/Reddit. For that, I feel fortunate, and though I realize the pointlessness of allowing my jim jims to become slightly rustled, this is my journal and I just want to vent.

So, back to the guilt tripping. The main agenda of the internet armchair activists is mainly two things. 1) Make people like me feel guilty and 2) Discredit the hard work and success of people like me. It's so obvious once you break past the walls of stupidity and wade through the trenches of hypocrisy and irony. These people will never admit that because they have convinced themselves it's not true through the power of the hivemind and their strength in numbers.


In the rare event that a young man or child is reading my journal, I will present you this warning about the internet: Nobody who mentions your privilege is being genuine or sincere. The reason privilege is brought up at all is because of the two reasons I listed above the picture of the two white guilt losers. It's a way for someone with a loser lifestyle to justify their shitty life to themselves, while at the same time discrediting any hard work you've done. I know I shouldn't, but I do take it personally because I know the hard work I've put in through many years to get where I'm at in life. My hardships aren't on par with any starving Ethiopians or Congo War victims, but I know how hard it was to get from A to B and I'm a proud person. You can actually be proud of yourself while still acknowledging that people helped you along the way. Who would have guessed?!?!

The idea is to subtly trivialize your success and chalk it up to privilege and luck. Which is ironic, because the very fact we are using the internet makes us all extremely privileged. Of course, these shart stains can't realize that because they have developed a victim complex and can't see themselves in any light that isn't dimly oppressive. They almost always lack a solid perspective and aren't able to see the big picture because of the blinders of pseudo-oppression.

Not everyone is created equal. Some people have hardships that are nearly impossible to overcome. Some people are born into terrible situations. I recognize all of these things. But living life as a victim will never get anyone anywhere - it's unhealthy and unproductive. Dwelling on what you don't have won't get you what you want, it's that simple. So, a lot of this BS I'm talking about comes from that victim complex, which whether it's actually more prevalent or just seems to be, is still harmful for everyone. The problem is that it's convenient for the lazy.

Time to wrap it up for now because I am feeling uninspired and lazy. tl:dr anyone who mentions priv is a loser, ignore them and strive for glory.

Dr_Rez

Would read again. It is the people that are constantly talking about how hard it was for them growing up or how much they have to work more than everyone else that bothers me. Everyone has problems, sure some face way more than others but just because you were more/less blessed in the beginning doesnt mean you should go on telling everyone else about it. There is something impressive about a man coming from bad circumstances, making something of himself and then staying humble and non judgmental of the people who had it easier.

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*Best chance of losing virginity is in prison crew*
*Always Checks Credentials Crew*
*nba > nfl crew*
*Shave one of my legs to pretend its a girl in my bed crew*

djchameleon

So it's okay to stay humble and non judgmental towards people who had it easier but fuck those that have it harder right?

Also just like how you and the other one don't like when people constantly talk about their struggles growing up. No one really wants to hear how you feel like you should be credited and awarded for going places in life and advancing further than other people just because you don't have the same glass ceilings as other people.

Just another case of you not recognizing the benefits you are awarded in society just for being who you are.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

Dr_Rez

That is not at all what I said. I don't care where/what you have come from, only where you are now and what skills you have.

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*Best chance of losing virginity is in prison crew*
*Always Checks Credentials Crew*
*nba > nfl crew*
*Shave one of my legs to pretend its a girl in my bed crew*