My wife introduced me to THE AVALANCHES, well before we were even engaged, and as it was all sampled-laden heaven, I loved it.
A few lines have stuck in my craw over the past few years:
The stuff about a bird hurts, because I stupidly and absolutely grew up around exotic birds. Climbed a tree to rescue one as a youth. And yeah, of course a parrot talks because it’s reaching out. I am literally written into a will to receive a parrot, which I’m sure our neighbors are not looking forward to.
The “tighten your buttocks” riff is something I can’t help but think HARLEY QUINN cribbed from.
Original:
Reanimated:
Frankly, I’m of the opinion that the original is far stranger than anything served up in the multifaceted rendition, but I applaud its efforts!
I don’t know how much you know about goth or industrial clubs — at least in Chicago (and excepting EXIT) — but the general rule is: don’t fucking touch strangers, which I realize sounds antithetical for dance clubs. (I’ll note: movies definitely misrepresent these spaces, almost to a dangerous degree.)
Sure, there’s the accidental bumping, but for the most part? The great part of these clubs are: let people dance their dance and don’t intrude. That was kind of a strange idea for clubs when I was growing up, in the age of MTV groping, but damn I’m so glad they had that ethos. I have a lot of issues, but these clubs were safe spaces which — again — I realize sounds antithetical for dance clubs. It helped that most of them were nested in queer communities. I’m stupidly physical, but also extremely wary of anyone who comes into my radius, so it was delightful to have clubs where I could just feel free. (It also helped that I occasionally was the DJ.)
The Chicago club bouncers are very good at their jobs, at being mindful of bad behavior. Hell, even my wife and I were kicked out of NEO [R.I.P.] once for being way too rambunctious, and rightfully so.
To me, that’s what U + UR HAND — both the song and video — is emblematic of:
“Don’t touch — back up.”
While I love the song, I adore the video, especially with it leaning on all sorts of characters and dystopian design. It’s a video I return to time-and-time again, and not just because it’s also heavily riffed on in the severely underrated and under-watched 12 MONKEYS TV show.
I was lucky enough to enjoy this song when it aired (even as an older dude and absolutely knew what this was fully about), but read the YouTube comments and see how influential P!NK has been. She doesnot get enough credit.
Let me be upfront about GOTHAM KNIGHTS: this is not a great game. The primary issue isn’t its lackluster visual design of the major characters, which some have generously stated as looking like a generic mobile free-to-play game. Nor is it due to Gotham feeling oddly empty for a metropolis. (That said, given the fact that Gotham seems to be a villain paradise, why would one choose to live there as a civilian?) It’s simply that the game is trying to do too much, and manages to falter at almost every step. I feel for the devs because this is very clearly an extremely expensive game that took a lot of time and effort and money to make, but it never quite manages the effortless flow of the Rocksteady Batman games.
It doesn’t help that the game commits multiple cardinal sins such as bullet-sponges, bosses with fake-out health meters, cheap insta-deaths, and is brazen enough to recreate a spiritual successor level to one of the worst Batman levels of all time: the Batmobile levels of BATMAN RETURNS. (Ironically, this is definitely one of the most enjoyable Batmobiles of any Batman game I’ve played, but the one Batmobile level goes on for way too long.)
To be reductive, GOTHAM KNIGHTS feels like it’s cribbing from the recent ASSASSIN’S CREED games: it features a new leveling system, including superficial crafting of armor and weapons, on top of what was already a byzantine litany of combos and combat approaches. Every minute you get some new alert or notification or useless mod or unlockable. It’s not just that it’s overwhelming, but that very little of it actually matters.
Additionally, goddamn, some of the boss fights are the roughest — and I played the game on easy mode because life is too short. I hard-quit during both the Mr. Freeze and Clayface fights, and the end of the game — while abiding by the rule of threes — felt like a tad too much.
That is an absolutely perfectly commissioned needle-drop. I’ll also note: the Harley Quinn here? Not my favorite Harley, but I still found her to be intriguing!
I’d also like to note that, unlike many other games, GOTHAM KNIGHTS has a bunch of women goons of all shapes and sizes, and I can’t help but appreciate that because — usually — it’s all dudes.
I bought GOTHAM KNIGHTS despite having read the lukewarm reviews because I was in a mood where I just wanted something I could zone out to and mindlessly mission back-and-forth to and it delivered, as so many middlingly-reviewed games are prone to do. It’s not perfect, but it does have moments of brilliance, and in-between it’ll rarely frustrate you which, frankly, is all I need from a game, and hell, I may just replay it with the alternate characters! (I’ve read that Nightwing is especially delightful to play as.)
My wife: “Hey let me pull something up on YouTube— wait, what is that?”
Me: “Oh, it’s a weird bagpipe mashup cover video that I love.”
My wife: “…and you didn’t think I’d be interested?”
Ah, married life.
But I digress. What I adore about this is: they are all amazingly talented musicians who make this work across nations, and they’re also absolutely showing the fuck off. They have pride in what they do and how they do it — as they should! They’re performers performing and reveling in it — holy hell, their finger work is brilliant — and it’s astounding, and it’s brilliant, and they’re also absolutely fearless in public and I cannot get enough of it!
While I really miss the old-school THE PIPETTES, goddamn, this hits me hard and I love it.
Also, it’s a great video to get severely high to.
I don’t love admitting that, but … it’s true. I can’t number the times I’ve rocked out to it while fucking numb. All arms lashing out and silently shouting about!
It’s absolutely mind-blowing. The echoes, the reverb, the reiteration and colored-copies! It’s a cacophony of cascades! And if you’re high? Holy fucking hell, it’s so much fun! It feels like you’re just all wrapped up, while also acting out! I realize that’s an antithesis, but damn, it’s 100% comfort food and I will not apologize for that! My eyes grow absolutely wide every time I hear this and I just …glow.
“Us, me — oh no — let’s try to make it thr—ooooough!”
POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING is — like JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS — a criminally underrated cult film about pop music and musicians. I could write forever about it, but instead, I stupidly want to focus on the deleted musical number FUCK OFF, which isn’t even in the film proper.
You might want to watch it first:
I have no idea why they filmed this. The lyrics alone — which apart from the FUCK OFF anthem also features the line ‘you think I look like a punk, when your face looks like an elephant’s c**t’ — automatically guarantees an NC-17 rating. (I especially appreciate the cut-away to a youth singing along to the lyric.) They spent a lot of money and a lot of time on this one weird number that — checks notes — well, it has almost nine million views, so maybe that’s why.
This song is wall-to-wall filth, pretending to be pre-teen-friendly, which is in-and-of-itself absolute perfection. I swear like a fucking sailor and even I was astounded by this song. (In a good way, though!)
Even better, it is visually perfect, featuring amazing choreography and eye-popping colors, crop-tops and Britney schoolgirl skirts and screaming audience members, all moving in-sync. It’s a perfect encapsulation of coming-of-age youth stadium shows.
My favorite incredibly stupid detail is the one audience member brandishing a GameBoy Color standing in as an iPhone.
It is a gloriously dumb-smart bit that was too good for the world, relegated to the bin of DVD extras, but is definitely worth your time if you have the stomach for it.
I hope you get butt-fucked in prison! Be good to each other — peace!
I was lucky enough to see her live at the Chicago Theatre, one of the oddest places for her to play as you’re meant to have your ass in your seats, and if there’s anything that Monae’s work is about, it’s about getting your ass up to dance.
So I did, but tried to do so in the least in-fractious way possible, but still kept bumping up against my ticket neighbor. After the show ended and the lights turned on, I apologized to her, and she retorted “If that’s the worst thing I have to endure today, I’ll consider it a good day.”
