Gus's Top 100 Bootlickin' Nonce Anthems
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sus
Moderator
For everyone's reading pleasure I have dug up some quotes from an mp3 tumblr I ran circa age 14
One is from Will Sheff, Okkervil River frontman:
That one is dedicated to Leo. Next we have a Noel Gallagher line about Jack White, which goes out to Thirdform:
Finally this Danny Brown quote, which is dedicated to all my haters, online and offline, around the world:
One is from Will Sheff, Okkervil River frontman:
That one is dedicated to Leo. Next we have a Noel Gallagher line about Jack White, which goes out to Thirdform:
Finally this Danny Brown quote, which is dedicated to all my haters, online and offline, around the world:
sus
Moderator
At that point in my life I had zero concept of Oasis, either. Noel Gallagher was just some English musician who had good disses. Same with Mark E Smith.
I hated Mumford & Sons—there are many many many rungs of intra-hipster/intra-indie distinction politics, and circa 2011 the outer ring including shunning M&S and Lumineers and similar "poser indie" acts. And I only knew Smith as the guy who threw a beer bottle at them backstage, so naturally I was a fan:
I hated Mumford & Sons—there are many many many rungs of intra-hipster/intra-indie distinction politics, and circa 2011 the outer ring including shunning M&S and Lumineers and similar "poser indie" acts. And I only knew Smith as the guy who threw a beer bottle at them backstage, so naturally I was a fan:
sus
Moderator
(21/100) Wyclef Jean, "Gone Til November"
I was just starting to explore hip-hop and reggae around this time, everything was so new and I'd never come across a musical mood like this, Casual and laid-back and then slipping into a kind of hypnotic, hypnagogic chorus. Haven't felt the impulse to listen to this track since—it's hard to even understand why it moved me, back then; in that sense, I'm in the same position you are. But for about 3 months freshman year of high school I listened to this on repeat. Grandad lived in this beautiful Truckee home, northern California up against the woods up against a national forest, you could wander for hours in any direction without hitting a road. When I was growing up, 8, 9, 10, it was my favorite part of holiday, wandering the forest on my own, stepping around mossy boulders and fallen pine trees covered with lichen. Finding old antlers and deer bones nestled under old leaves. In winter, snow would come in and we'd dig caves in the snow drift, sleep there overnight using a candle for light. All-afternoon snowball wars, me my dad and younger brother, me testing the flank. But after the mortgage crash Grandad had to sell the home, move to a pretty bleak golf community out in the middle of the Nevada desert. Visiting with family one summer, I went out wandering across the golf course late at night in the dark—nothing like the old forest, but I was lonely, and felt all the lonelier in that cold, pre-fab, prefurnished house that felt like nobody lived there, around relatives I couldn't understand. Somehow, somewhere, on the rolling hills of the green, the music just hit right, and the sprinklers came on, and it was a movie moment. I never got into those quirky indie films like Garden State—my girlfriend, junior year, loved them—but I think they managed to recognize how adolescence is defined, in part, by these ephemeral moments of beauty and awe and grace that come upon you, tragedy and comedy harmonized in the same chord. The so-muchness of life, the kinetic energy of your inner ocean.
I was just starting to explore hip-hop and reggae around this time, everything was so new and I'd never come across a musical mood like this, Casual and laid-back and then slipping into a kind of hypnotic, hypnagogic chorus. Haven't felt the impulse to listen to this track since—it's hard to even understand why it moved me, back then; in that sense, I'm in the same position you are. But for about 3 months freshman year of high school I listened to this on repeat. Grandad lived in this beautiful Truckee home, northern California up against the woods up against a national forest, you could wander for hours in any direction without hitting a road. When I was growing up, 8, 9, 10, it was my favorite part of holiday, wandering the forest on my own, stepping around mossy boulders and fallen pine trees covered with lichen. Finding old antlers and deer bones nestled under old leaves. In winter, snow would come in and we'd dig caves in the snow drift, sleep there overnight using a candle for light. All-afternoon snowball wars, me my dad and younger brother, me testing the flank. But after the mortgage crash Grandad had to sell the home, move to a pretty bleak golf community out in the middle of the Nevada desert. Visiting with family one summer, I went out wandering across the golf course late at night in the dark—nothing like the old forest, but I was lonely, and felt all the lonelier in that cold, pre-fab, prefurnished house that felt like nobody lived there, around relatives I couldn't understand. Somehow, somewhere, on the rolling hills of the green, the music just hit right, and the sprinklers came on, and it was a movie moment. I never got into those quirky indie films like Garden State—my girlfriend, junior year, loved them—but I think they managed to recognize how adolescence is defined, in part, by these ephemeral moments of beauty and awe and grace that come upon you, tragedy and comedy harmonized in the same chord. The so-muchness of life, the kinetic energy of your inner ocean.
IdleRich
IdleRich
That is pretty good.
sus
Moderator
(22/100) Bob Marley, "Coming In From The Cold"
I'm not sure who got me into Bob Marley, but I remember listening a lot during 8th grade swim meets. I remember the local high school varsity coach—a beloved coach, who'd won a ton of titles over decades heading the program—showing up to one of my club meets, scouting. For Brits, most American middle schools are 7th & 8th grade (age 12-14), with high schools starting in 9th grade (i.e. I was rising talent). Most high school sports are segregated into Varsity and JV (junior) divisions. JV is basically an underclassman feeder for the varsity program; the programs that are actually going to league/county/state-level competitions, and winning titles for their school—that's the varsity team, composed of upperclassmen.
Anyway, I remember being at a meet, listening to this song in my iPod earbuds when I saw the varsity coach across the pool. He was checking out the standings, the heat and lane listings. I remember burning with desire headed to the blocks for the 100 yard free, wanting to take the race and impress him. I was a total nobody at school, a weirdo without social status, an outcast who hung with band geeks. But I was reasonably athletically gifted, and willing to work harder than anyone else, and there on the pool deck that day, it felt like I was Becoming—was coming into myself as—a Somebody. A Person Who Peopled Minded, talked about, optimized around. A force to be reckoned with, something more than pubescent impotence. And that probably gave a dimension of meaning and desire to my swimming. I started going to morning workouts, doing weights in the afternoon after practice. And I ended up making the varsity team that fall, when high school began, and swimming the anchor leg in league finals, and the work paying off. Being a varsity athlete as a freshman did change my social life, which of course changed everything. But that's still coming.
I'm not sure who got me into Bob Marley, but I remember listening a lot during 8th grade swim meets. I remember the local high school varsity coach—a beloved coach, who'd won a ton of titles over decades heading the program—showing up to one of my club meets, scouting. For Brits, most American middle schools are 7th & 8th grade (age 12-14), with high schools starting in 9th grade (i.e. I was rising talent). Most high school sports are segregated into Varsity and JV (junior) divisions. JV is basically an underclassman feeder for the varsity program; the programs that are actually going to league/county/state-level competitions, and winning titles for their school—that's the varsity team, composed of upperclassmen.
Anyway, I remember being at a meet, listening to this song in my iPod earbuds when I saw the varsity coach across the pool. He was checking out the standings, the heat and lane listings. I remember burning with desire headed to the blocks for the 100 yard free, wanting to take the race and impress him. I was a total nobody at school, a weirdo without social status, an outcast who hung with band geeks. But I was reasonably athletically gifted, and willing to work harder than anyone else, and there on the pool deck that day, it felt like I was Becoming—was coming into myself as—a Somebody. A Person Who Peopled Minded, talked about, optimized around. A force to be reckoned with, something more than pubescent impotence. And that probably gave a dimension of meaning and desire to my swimming. I started going to morning workouts, doing weights in the afternoon after practice. And I ended up making the varsity team that fall, when high school began, and swimming the anchor leg in league finals, and the work paying off. Being a varsity athlete as a freshman did change my social life, which of course changed everything. But that's still coming.
IdleRich
IdleRich
But don't you find bits like this - buried in that lengthy screed - genuinely interesting? An off-hand mention of the very real and tragic effects of crash on normal lives.
I missed the crash first time around, in this lisy I mean.
But I know 2008 had a much bigger impact in the states than here.
Like one of these cousins I'm seeing next week, I remember him telling me that his best friend from school's family lost everything, ended up in a trailer, father committed suicide. I never heard a story like that in the UK.
But I know 2008 had a much bigger impact in the states than here.
Like one of these cousins I'm seeing next week, I remember him telling me that his best friend from school's family lost everything, ended up in a trailer, father committed suicide. I never heard a story like that in the UK.
sus
Moderator
(22/100) Beirut, "Nantes" (Takeaway Show)
I'm trying to think how to adequately convey how little a sense of "Europe" I had in high school. I don't think I had a sense of even the normie Paris stereotype—the zebra turtlenecks and black berets, the baguettes and accordians and pennyfarthings—til I was a junior in high school. I definitely didn't know who Godard was til university. (Nor did I know James Baldwin, Woody Allen, or the phenotypic traits of the Jewish caricature. At a pre-uni meet'n'greet, the summer before fall session started, I referred to someone as a "colored person" because I thought, from my childhood history reading, that the expression was interchangeable with "person of color." Non-Americans, beware this slip! You may get a drink tossed in your face!)
Junior year I wound up with a mega-crush on a gal who, by all reasonable cosmopolitan standards, was a hick, a pleb, a bumpkin. But by the standards of our small-town high school, she was a world traveler, a proper cosmopolitan who could make a martini, name-drop Martha's Vineyard, and list "Royal Tenenbaums" as her favorite flick. A woman of culture. Naturally I was enamored. She was a portal to another world, to the world. I was just a boy from the provinces. But she was like this ticket, like a lamp to guide me out of the cave into daylight.
Well, the goal is to set the scene, give some small sense of what Beirut, as a band, might've meant to me. What the Takeaway Show video of Paris might've meant—what the concept of the Takeaway Show and "La Blogotheque" meant to me, as dispatches from the other side of the planet. I was new to the Internet and the Internet was new to me. Between keeping up my GPA and swimming all hours of the day, I barely had any time to explore the web anymore. The portal that had opened for me, in middle school with the Metanet forum and IRC channels, with Gloomp and Sidke and PALEMOON, didn't so much close as fade from neglect. In other words, I grew up—left exploration behind and got straight to exploiting, drilling, building muscle fibers, memorizing flash cards. I had to treasure the glimpses of a larger world, a world outside, whenever I got them. Beirut's story, as I understood it then, went like this: Zach Condon, age 20-something, spends a decade traveling across Europe, learning different regional folk music styles and hybridizing them with his own taste as guide.
(22b, honorable mention) Beirut, "Scenic World"
When I think of "Scenic World" I remember how, every time our family traveled over holidays, I had to find a YMCA or gym with a pool, and beg my parents to drive me for a workout. How I'd have my coaches email me the day's workout, and then try to grit the assignment out solo. It was always so much harder without teammates there to push you. The social ecology of a swim team starts—is founded upon—the pool's limited space, the necessity of segregating lanes, and sorting each lane's swimmers, by their speed each day in practice. Everyone loops up and down the pool in a long chain; each swimmer gives five seconds of space to the person in front of them. To pass someone, you catch them and tap them on your feet—hence your pace is set socially. Lag too much, you fall back in the public ranking, the implicit pecking order. Part of what fuels you is establishing and maintaining your position.
I'm trying to think how to adequately convey how little a sense of "Europe" I had in high school. I don't think I had a sense of even the normie Paris stereotype—the zebra turtlenecks and black berets, the baguettes and accordians and pennyfarthings—til I was a junior in high school. I definitely didn't know who Godard was til university. (Nor did I know James Baldwin, Woody Allen, or the phenotypic traits of the Jewish caricature. At a pre-uni meet'n'greet, the summer before fall session started, I referred to someone as a "colored person" because I thought, from my childhood history reading, that the expression was interchangeable with "person of color." Non-Americans, beware this slip! You may get a drink tossed in your face!)
Junior year I wound up with a mega-crush on a gal who, by all reasonable cosmopolitan standards, was a hick, a pleb, a bumpkin. But by the standards of our small-town high school, she was a world traveler, a proper cosmopolitan who could make a martini, name-drop Martha's Vineyard, and list "Royal Tenenbaums" as her favorite flick. A woman of culture. Naturally I was enamored. She was a portal to another world, to the world. I was just a boy from the provinces. But she was like this ticket, like a lamp to guide me out of the cave into daylight.
Well, the goal is to set the scene, give some small sense of what Beirut, as a band, might've meant to me. What the Takeaway Show video of Paris might've meant—what the concept of the Takeaway Show and "La Blogotheque" meant to me, as dispatches from the other side of the planet. I was new to the Internet and the Internet was new to me. Between keeping up my GPA and swimming all hours of the day, I barely had any time to explore the web anymore. The portal that had opened for me, in middle school with the Metanet forum and IRC channels, with Gloomp and Sidke and PALEMOON, didn't so much close as fade from neglect. In other words, I grew up—left exploration behind and got straight to exploiting, drilling, building muscle fibers, memorizing flash cards. I had to treasure the glimpses of a larger world, a world outside, whenever I got them. Beirut's story, as I understood it then, went like this: Zach Condon, age 20-something, spends a decade traveling across Europe, learning different regional folk music styles and hybridizing them with his own taste as guide.
(22b, honorable mention) Beirut, "Scenic World"
When I think of "Scenic World" I remember how, every time our family traveled over holidays, I had to find a YMCA or gym with a pool, and beg my parents to drive me for a workout. How I'd have my coaches email me the day's workout, and then try to grit the assignment out solo. It was always so much harder without teammates there to push you. The social ecology of a swim team starts—is founded upon—the pool's limited space, the necessity of segregating lanes, and sorting each lane's swimmers, by their speed each day in practice. Everyone loops up and down the pool in a long chain; each swimmer gives five seconds of space to the person in front of them. To pass someone, you catch them and tap them on your feet—hence your pace is set socially. Lag too much, you fall back in the public ranking, the implicit pecking order. Part of what fuels you is establishing and maintaining your position.
sus
Moderator
It's a walled & gated neighborhood typically with 1-2 entrances, each manned by a security guard who keeps a list of residents & permitted guests. At the center of the neighborhood is a large golf course, with all the houses bordering the green. Typically there will be some sort of clubhouse (with a bar, maybe a restaurant or small gym, showers, and club shop) attached. It's "premium mediocre" housing—an aspirational middle to upper-middle class option for Republicans.
sus
Moderator
My grandad is/was a big fiscal Republican type, he's an interesting case. Filing bankruptcy/government bailout was against his political/ethical beliefs, so he never did it—could've saved his house, saved millions. Plenty of his friends/peers in the industry did it. Instead he tried to keep the business afloat with personal savings, ended up wiping out everything. That, at least, is the story my (quite socially & economically progressive) mother tells, emphasizing grandad's integrity of belief over their deep political differences. (Which can be quite nasty—they went through periods of not talking during the Trump presidency). Whether, and how true that story is, I'm not sure
sus
Moderator
Nah the PT Cruisers, Walmart/Target invocation, and flat-screen TV fetish all gives it away as solidly middle class. Ikea couches are usually considered budget options, and TBH, seem out of place in the list—I'm skeptical people who go to Walmart also shop at Ikea. The latter's coded chic international.