Okay, But What If Youre Cosplaying As Jareth?

Okay, but what if you’re cosplaying as Jareth?

Attention: Guys who cosplay/want to cosplay spandex-clad superheroes

OK dinguses, here’s something that’s gonna make your life and the lives of everyone who sees you at the con so much better.

This is called a Men’s Dance Belt.

It’s for male ballet dancers to wear under their tights. Its purpose?

TO MAKE SURE NOBODY SEES THEIR BULGE.

when I’m at a con, nothing kills a potential good superhero costume more than seeing the cosplayer’s friendly neighborhood spider-cock through the costume.

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2016

Everybody Else: 2016 sucked! And just because it sucked for me automatically means that it sucked for everybody!

Me: Actually, I didn’t hate it. I actually kinda li—

Everybody Else: Shut up! It sucked!

Assorted Thoughts on “Hallelujah Money” by Gorillaz

Hey guys, I’ve wanted to write this for a few days now and finally got the chance to do it. Sorry for not finishing my next video review, but I’ve had my hands full with homework, essays, and the recording of my first podcast. (I’ll make an announcement about that later!) But anyway, I’ve wanted to make this for a while, so let’s talk about the newest song released by Gorillaz, “Hallelujah Money.”

Now let me first give some background. My parents raised me on a lot of older music from the ’60s and ’70s, but from about 2010-2015, I started discovering a lot of bands and artists from the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s that I missed out on, like Muse, Foo Fighters, Depeche Mode, etc. One of those bands was Gorillaz, the collaboration between lead singer/pianist/songwriter Damon Albarn (formerly of Blur) and cartoonist Jamie Hewlett (creator of Tank Girl). I was first drawn to listen to their music due to the not often used concept of a band whose members are all cartoon characters, but when I actually did listen to their songs, I realized that this wasn’t just a novelty band. This was the real deal, so I bought all three of their albums, Gorillaz (2001), Demon Days (2005), and Plastic Beach (2010). Everyone should listen to these albums at some point in their lives. They’re that good and actually tackle serious topics, like depression, consumerism, gun violence, the War on Terror, and pollution.

However, it seemed that just as I was getting into their music, they broke up. In 2013, Damon announced a hiatus due to creative differences between himself and Jamie, which really depressed me. It didn’t help that the story arc shown in the videos of Plastic Beach was left permanently unfinished due to budget cuts from their record company, and their last two offerings before the split were somewhat underwhelming. I consider 2011’s The Fall as less of a cohesive album and more of a weird compilation of unfinished that Damon Albarn recorded on his iPad while on tour, and 2012’s “DoYaThing” was forgettable and brought little closure to the Plastic Beach arc.

But after two years of waiting, they finally announced in 2015 that they would get back together, and they’ve spent their time since then promoting the hell out of this album. I mean it, too. There have been several pictures of the characters posted to tease the new videos, with each one having had a redesign. A series of videos called “The Book of Gorillaz” were posted summarizing the Gorillaz’ story between the end of the unfinished “Rhinestone Eyes” music video and now, which directly goes against what happened in the “DoYaThing” video, but it offers much better closure for that arc. The band’s fictional guitarist Noodle has been super active, too; she got an Instagram account used to further tease the new album, she appeared in a Jaguar Racing commercial, and she even got an OKCupid online dating profile! Are cartoon characters even allowed to get profiles on that site?

The point is, they got me hyped, and I couldn’t wait to listen to the first taste of their new music. And just a few days ago, they dropped a new song, “Hallelujah Money,” and I rushed to listen to it. How was it?

…Eh?

This is a weird song for me. I have found so many things wrong with it, yet I still feel a need to defend it from other Gorillaz fans who hate it. It was certainly a strange choice for the first taste of their new sound.

Now I found out a few hours after I listened to “Hallelujah Money” that this isn’t actually the first single from their new album. I’m not entirely sure how to interpret that, though. Does it mean that this isn’t the first official single from the new album, but it will still be on the album? Or does it mean that it won’t be on the new album and was just a standalone song that they recorded and released separate from the album? Gorillaz have done that before; look at their past songs, “Rockit” and “DoYaThing.” Both of those were recorded and released separate from any album; “Rockit,” released in 2004, was not a part of Demon Days, and “DoYaThing,” released in 2012, will, as far as I’m aware, not be included on the upcoming album. So this is not uncommon to do; however, I was unaware of that when I listened to it. I thought it was a weird first song to tease the album with. I was expecting another “Clint Eastwood,” another “Feel Good Inc.,” or another “Stylo.” But this?

Okay, let me first defend this song by saying that people’s reasons for disliking it are kind of stupid. This song is very clearly about Donald Trump becoming the 45th President of the United States. I’ve avoided talking much about this topic, but I’ll sum it up by saying that it’s already taken a toll on my family and I’m scared for what’s to come. Anyway, people in the comments of this video are hating the song because it’s political, which I find kind of funny because Demon Days and Plastic Beach were both mostly about political-themed topics and nobody seemed to mind those albums.

But with that said, there are a few things I find weird about this song. Musically, it follows the same avant-garde style that was present in The Fall, which was not what I was expecting. The best description I can give for it is politically-fueled gospel to a trip-hop beat. For a song by Gorillaz, there isn’t really a lot of Gorillaz in it, not even in the music video; 2D shows up in puppet form to sing the chorus, and Murdoc appears at the beginning and end of the video as a still image. I was hoping for more cool animation in their videos, but we don’t get a lot of that.

The next problem is the featured artist, poet and singer Benjamin Clementine, who is featured more on the song than Damon/2D. He has a nice crooning voice. My only problem is that I have a hard time understanding what he’s singing/saying due to his British accent. The only words I recognize from him are ones about “building walls.” This wouldn’t be a problem if the song had a nice tune/hook to sing along to; the problem is that it doesn’t have that. Apart from the chorus, which just repeats the title, “Hallelujah Money,” and 2D’s part, I can barely remember how the song goes.

And then there is this weird part at the very end where it shows a clip from SpongeBob SquarePants of the title character running away and bawling. Why did the video cut to that? I’m not sure if it’s in the actual song or just the video, but it throws me off every time I watch it. Apparently, it’s SpongeBob’s reaction to when Mr. Krabs tells him, “You’re fired,” the catchphrase that Donald Trump takes credit for popularizing in his TV show The Apprentice, but it seems like sort of a vague reference to make. The only people who would get that are SpongeBob fans, and I doubt that there’s a very high crossover audience between SpongeBob fans and Gorillaz fans.

I will say this, though: at least with this, Gorillaz fans can’t claim that they’re getting too mainstream. There were some Gorillaz fans who claimed they were getting too mainstream in their last album, Plastic Beach, so now that they’ve released this, one of the least mainstream songs in their entire discography, fans can no longer claim that.

So, final thoughts? Well, despite all the criticisms I’ve made, I’ve listened to it a few times over and, well, it isn’t terrible. I at least see what they were trying to do. Whether they did it successfully is up for debate. I guess I like it more in concept than I do as a song. I agree with the political message—we live in an era where we could certainly use a Demon Days Part Two—and don’t think that they style they’re going for is an inherently bad one. For a better attempt at this, listen to track 13 of Demon Days, “Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head,” with Dennis Hopper. I also don’t leave this with zero hopes for the new album. Yes, there is a chance that this could be what the entire album sounds like and that it could wind up being a huge disappointment, but they’ve worked on this album for around two years now. I’m still skeptical, but coming from the same guys who made “El Mañana”? C’mon. They have to have better stuff in store.

~TheHappySpaceman

Van Halen 3: Was It Really That Bad?

Extreme lead singer Gary Cherone teams up with hard rock pioneers Van Halen and acclaimed composer Mike Post for an experimental album? What could possibly go wrong? Watch the VH3 review here.

So this is pretty cool! Late last year, I made a review of Van Halen’s 1998 Van Halen III album, often considered the worst in their discography, and analyzed whether or not the hate was really deserved. Well, just yesterday, Ted Batey, the husband of my cousin Breann, informed me that my review got featured on VHND.com, Van Halen's “official” fan site where the band themselves releases official press statements and sells merch!

So me getting featured there... like, wow. :D