Never Seen It, #17 of 200: Blade Runner

I'm working my way through a list of movies I've never seen before. You can find the list HERE. I'm doing this shit alphabetically. Let's go.

Blade Runner

1982

I'm finding it a little difficult to gather all my thoughts about Blade Runner and organize them, so I thought that I might first start by doing that, and then going into detail for each point. I realize that this will result in a someone stilted opening to what will no doubt be an otherwise flawless essay, but it's what I gotta do for this movie.

My immediate reaction was that I did not like Blade Runner. It was difficult to get through a viewing, even broken up into a few pieces (it's tough to find time to watch a movie when Pam does not want to watch that movie). My next thought was an equivocation—well, I might not have liked it overall, but it was at least interesting to look at and to experience that world. In other words, if we're talking purely about aesthetics, this was a really well-made movie. After a while, though, my thoughts moved toward the question, "Is there more to this than I originally thought?" In other words, am I just a neophyte who didn't get it, and might appreciate it after further research and subsequent viewings?

And now, one at a time.

The first thing I said after the credits start to roll and I took off my headphones was to Pam: "You made the right call bailing on Blade Runner." From a plot standpoint, I'll back any claim that says that Blade Runner was a little dull. If we're talking about what happens from Point A to Point B (from, say, Deckard getting an assignment to kill some Replicants, to Deckard completing that task), there's really not a whole lot that happens. Some clues are followed, some guns are fired, Harrison Ford looks grumpy, and then curtains.

Perhaps this is just a general problem I have with noir film in general. The ace detective gets the case, he follows each clue to its endpoint, and eventually, the villain is caught red-handed. The genre doesn't leave a whole lot of room for surprises. Of course, Blade Runner only uses those basic tropes and builds an entire magnificent sci-fi dystopia around them, but we'll get to that.

The movie I thought about a lot in conjunction with Blade Runner was weirdly The Big Lebowski, which also plays with noir tropes. Lebowski, however, takes it in the other direction—makes noir light-hearted and allows the "dick" to comment continuously on how silly noir tropes are. Blade Runner is intensely serious, and because of that, it doesn't leave space to do anything with the neo noir structure besides following it through to its very normal conclusion.

It's probable that the neo noir aspects of Blade Runner are the least important in the grand scheme of things, and if that's the case, then that's on me for being bored by them. In none of the interviews with the key players—director Ridley Scott, stars Ford and Rutger Hauer, screenwriters or artistic designers or producers or editors—do I see any mention of this aspect of the film, nor are any critics building their theses around it. Shitting on Blade Runner because of the basis of the plot would be like throwing away a bicycle because the tires are flat. There's more to this machine than just plot.

Visuals, special effects, art and color and sights and sounds, these aren't necessarily things that I'm thinking about as I'm watching a movie. But I could see the argument that Blade Runner is valuable just based on these things alone, because they were pretty visually stunning, all things considered. Shit like the dark cinematography mixed with bright neon lights and billboards, the crushing claustrophobia of the packed streets under a constant rainy downpour, flying cars and robot flips, all of it contributed to a very vivid and real movie experience.

 

Everything we know now as "cyberpunk" seems to have started here. It's a sort of dreary sci-fi near- or post-apocalyptic style, in which people wear clearly futuristic clothing but still manage to appear ratty and disheveled. There were multiple times when I thought to myself, "Hmm, this looks like [something else]," and then thought that Blade Runner probably influenced that thing. I will say this: There is nothing about this movie that seems like 1982—even if November 2019 didn't end up actually being this bleak, Blade Runner might as well be a movie that was made at that time. Visually, it absolutely holds up.

Okay, so, what, a sci-fi neo noir film that's a bit light on plot but heavy on beautiful window dressings? Is that what Blade Runner is? Of course not. When I finished watching, I was absolutely tempted to make that claim, but I know it's not true. 

 

I have this habit of movies that I don't immediately appreciate to hand-wave away all the important "big idea" questions that the movie presents. Like, I'll say something like, "Sure, the movie presented themes of X and Y, and really could make one question Z, but I didn't really like it, so do those themes and questions really matter?" Duh, of course they do. So here I am, making an honest effort to find appreciation in Blade Runner after the fact. 

 

Not every movie is going to be immediately loved. Sometimes it's gotta sink in. Especially a movie like Blade Runner, and especially if you are an idiot like me who needs his hand held every once in a while. I thought the famous "tears in the rain" monologue was touching, but I needed some time to process what it actually meant, ya know? I'm not that good at processing and analyzing movies, at least not yet.

The opening crawl immediately presents the theme of robots—apparently, the robots (or, "replicants"), were built, but gained consciousness and are trying to rebel. This isn't really a new theme in sci-fi (though, again, it's not new to me because I've seen entertainments that Blade Runner influenced, not the other way around). Killing robots isn't called murder, it's called "retirement." We as the audience are left to question who is the real villain here, and it's a question that our hero will undoubtedly answer by the end of the film (that he escapes with a replicant that he may or may not romantically love should serve as that answer).

After thinking about it for a while longer, I guess the ultimate question presented by the film is: What does it mean to be human? That's a "big idea" question if I ever heard one. By the end of the movie, it's pretty clear that the movie is questioning the idea of humanity, both literally (is Deckard a replicant?) to figuratively (why is it that the humans in this movie seem to lack empathy compared to the replicants?). There's the famous "tears in rain" monologue, given by the ostensible villain, a replicant:

It's... what the fuck am I even doing? I'm padding this blog post out way too much, you guys. Never Seen It doesn't have to be this complicated. It can't be. I don't have time. This blog series has become a sincere pain in my side, and I'm only seventeen posts into a 200-post series. I can't do this. Let this become tears in the rain.

For real. I've just decided this now, the morning after a shitshow of a presidential debate, after like four hours of sleep—I can't write 4000 words about movies anymore. Not in 2020, anyway. I know you were expecting a big "Who's Involved" section and all that, but I just don't have the time or energy. From now on, Never Seen It is going to be short-form thoughts and immediate reactions (will still do occasional interviews with friends too).

Please forgive me while I duck out and leave you with this: Blade Runner has some heady shit to say, and I appreciate thinking about it, but man, it was kind of a drag for the first 9/10ths of its running time. I can even leave some other notes for you:

• It was nice seeing E.B. Farnum playing a good-hearted character.
• His mansion looked like the cyberpunk version of Sleuth's mansion.
• The soundtrack sounded like something from the bridge of a 17-minute Pink Floyd song.
• I'm glad Sean Young wasn't forced to play a character involved in blatant transphobia this time.
• I'd be down to watch Blade Runner 2049, I guess.

That's it for me. Good luck, god speed, see ya next time.

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5

~~~~~~~~

NEXT TIME: We watch a horror movie that launched a thousand shitty parodies, The Blair Witch Project.

This Is My Blood: Love Your Park

 

This is the first Mainstay Brewing beer I've had since 1/1/20. That kind of put me in a looking-back sort of mood, and since today is the end of another quarter of 2020, it's time once again to give out some superlatives. We did this for Q1 and Q2, and now here is the best and worst beers of July, August, and September.

Biggest Surprise: Irish Whisky Cask (on July 9th)

I think I'm weary whenever I see the word "whisky" on the label. I cannot drink the brown liquor, and can't imagine it ever going well with beer. Thankfully, the boldness of this stout had very little to do with any notes of whisky, which were so subtle and did nothing to fuck up the beer in any noticeable way. And no, I didn't just enjoy this beer because I drank it in the shower.

Best Local Beer: Barracuda (on August 5th)

Hailing from West Philly's Dock Street Brewing, I was shocked by how much I enjoyed this Berliner Weiss—who knew a tart raspberry/hibiscus brew could be so refreshing on a beautiful day?

Best Not-Too-Expensive Beer: Clementine (on September 23rd)

The discount rack at IGA is the best part about my year in drinking, if I'm being honest. It's not an extensive selection, but man, paying $12 for a six-pack every once in a while is a blessing. And you can still find some winners! I bought this Clementine because of the name (which inspired some feline writing), but was glad to find that it was one of the better witbiers I've had this year.

Best Beer Based Solely on Context: Iron Maiden Trooper (on September 8th)

English Bitters are fucking great, and I savor it every time I have one (which is rare, for some reason), but the context for this one was even better. Not only did I get inspired to listen to some great music, but the literal context of splitting a beer with Pam at Penn Treaty Park while we hung out with the kids was pretty special.

Best Crushable Beer: The Crisp (on August 27th)

Maybe it was the thin-can design, but I can for some reason imagine drinking many of these beers over the course of a day.

Most Disappointing (Not the Beer's Fault): Five-Oh (on July 30th)

The disappointment here was a combination of a dirty tap system (giving the draught beer a slight buttery taste) and a sequencing mistake (I had three different beers at this dinner, and foolhardily went from most-hops to least-hops), neither of which was the beer's fault (but having a name that could act as a synonym for police during a summer in which they bashed the heads of any peaceful protestor who put a toe out of line doesn't help).

Most Disappointing (the Beer's Fault): Hofbräu Oktoberfestbier (on September 21st)

 

I wanted to believe that a beer actually served at the world's largest beer festival was going to be full-flavored and satisfying. This marzen was instead thin, colorless, and a bit stinky. Not that I wouldn't drink twelve of these in Germany if given the chance, and not that it would necessary taste this disappointing were I to drink it right from the brewer's tap, but still, big bummer.

 

Best Pairing: Freshies (on August 18th)

 

It's official—pale ales and burgers are a good pairing. Especially when the hamburgers are homemade (which was a first for me).

 

Worst Beer: Natural Bohemian (on July 21st)

 

I don't relish the fact that I'll never like this classic cheap beer, but what's true is true.

 

Best Beer (Joke Edition): Hurricane (on August 20th)

 

This beer is not as bad as you think you remember it being! It's never too late in life to drink Hurricane! I swear!

 

Best Beer (Serious Edition): The Shape of Hops to Come (on August 12th)

Surprised that an IPA is the winner of this category? Me too. But when something is this good, I'll swallow my dignity and admit it. My appreciation for The Shape of Hops to Come has a lot to do with my likewise appreciation for bitterness, and my disdain for haziness. This is crisp and clear and has one hell of a fucking bite. If that sounds appealing to you, then this is your beer.

NOTES

BEER: Love Your Park

STYLE: American Pale Ale

ABV: 5.0%

BREWED BY: Mainstay Independent

LOCATION: Philly (on Delaware Ave. in the building where Yards used to be)

PURCHASED AT: Bottle Bar East

PAIRED WITH: Detroit-style square pizza from Circles and Squares—fucking incredible, and absolutely worth the price

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

 
BEER COUNT: 368.5

Every Interaction I've Ever Had with Police

this fucker

 

Presented in no discernible order. I did not include anything from my year working for the police as a dispatcher, or anything from social interactions with family members or friends who are police.

• Cops showed up at a moderately-sized party I threw in December 2007 at my parents' house while they were out. The cops stated that everyone who did not drink should get in line, and they breathalyzed all those people (who were then told to exit the premises posthaste). Everyone else was to remain at the home. The police said that anyone seen leaving the house from this point forward would be arrested. They gave me a $300 fine for disorderly conduct. Pretty much as soon as the cops left, everyone scattered.
  
  
• I got an underage drinking charge in January 2008 at another party in Rockledge (not my house this time). The police had apparently already been there that week for another party, and walked in all like "not again, [host]." I blew a 0.03, which was enough for a charge due to my age. I had to attend alcohol classes in Abington for the charges to drop from an underage to a simple misdemeanor fine.
  
  
• I received an underage drinking citation at Burholme, but you already know that story. The charges were dropped after 40 hours of volunteer work, mostly because the daughter of a police captain was also "arrested" with me.
  
  
• Harry and I were walking along the train tracks that cut across Oxford Ave. and eventually act as the border between Philly and Cheltenham. We were taking this route mostly because it was the shortest route from my house to Cindy's house. An undercover cop stopped us by saying "Where's the keg at, boys?" The cop stated that she had information about a keg happening on the tracks. We were not headed to a kegger. She took our information, but had no reason to keep us.
  
  
• Harry and I were setting off fireworks (nothing too egregious) in North Wildwood, on the path that runs parallel to the beach. After the last firework had been lit, a cop pulled up, stating that there were multiple reports of fireworks being set off, and that was illegal. Harry and I told him that it was "not us," pulling out our pocket linings to show only lint. Fortuitous timing. The officer took our information, but had no reason to keep us.
  
  
• Harry and I were out past curfew in Rockledge. We had snuck out of my parents' house, and walked all the way to Cheltenham Village, where Mary was hanging out while her parents were out of town. I might have had one beer, but definitely nothing crazy. The thrill was more of the sneaking out in the middle of the night than any other malicious activity. Anyways, it was like five in the morning, and we had made our way back to Rockledge. I didn't want to jump back in the window and scare the shit out of my aunt (who was up already for work), so we sat out front, waiting for her to leave. A cop happened to drive by, and slammed the breaks when he saw us. He made me call my parents, who came out front to collect us. He also claimed that he saw us earlier that evening trying to get into the Rockledge Pub, which was not true. He took our information, but had no reason to keep us.
  
  
• I was speeding as we crossed the border from Arizona to New Mexico. NM uses aerial radar guns, so I was tracked down pretty easily by highway police. Given a ticket, paid a fine via mail.
  
  
• My buddy Mike C. was speeding down 309 while I was riding passenger. Same deal—ticket, fine, a 20-minute ordeal.
  
  
• I got a flat tire one time riding down Oxford Ave. and popped a tire after hitting a particularly nasty pothole (I pulled over about 30 feet from the spot where Harry and I got accosted by police on the train tracks). It was my parents' car; my dad drove down in their other car to help me change the tire. A policeman pulled up behind us to see what the matter was, and drove off when my dad started complaining about the pothole.
  
  
• Further north on Oxford Ave., and maybe a couple years later, me and Mike (see the Mike from two bullet points ago) and Kyle were on a clandestine 2 AM drunken mission to steal one of those signs hung on all the telephones in the area that said "WELCOME TO FOX CHASE / ROCKLEDGE" so that we could hang it in our dorm room. We duct-taped an open pocketknife to a hockey stick, and planned on using that to try to cut it down. We neared Hunan Wok, but saw headlights down the block, so we ducked behind a dumpster. The headlights belonged to a 2nd District paddywagon. The cops pulled up and yelled: "Come out from behind there!" We emerged (sans knife-hockey-stick). The passenger seat cop asked "Were you peeing behind there?" Not wanting him to see the knife, we all nodded our heads. Then (direct quote): "You're lucky we have bigger fish to fry," and they sped off.
  
  
• There was the incident with the police taking our beer that I just mentioned the other day.
  
  
• There was the incident with those wily teenagers snatching my cell phone, but I already wrote too much about that.
  
  
• In college, I participated in a scavenger hunt. One of the items on the list was "picture in a jail cell." The Rockledge police allowed the picture to be taken (complete with one of my teammates being "handcuffed.")
  
  
• Me and Drew walked to a beer distributor in Manayunk after we ran out of beer back at the Bike Race party. An undercover cop was in front of the store, and asked for our IDs when we emerged with cases of Miller Lite in hand. He radioed in the info (took a few minutes longer since Drew is from New England), and since there was no reason to keep us, he let us get back to our party.
  
  
• One time, I was assigned to an investigation regarding a large family whose children were truant (i.e. not going to school regularly). After not finding the family home during my initial attempt, I left a letter with my phone number. The patriarch later called me and told me that if I showed up to his house again, he would "put me six feet under the ground." Of course, I had to go back to his house, this wasn't optional. According to the rules of my workplace, I was required to call the police for backup the next time I went to the house. I called 911 when I was around the corner, and told the dispatcher that it wasn't an emergency. I guess the dispatcher didn't note this, because three cops cars showed up with lights and sirens, and were visibly annoyed with me when I knocked on the door and no one was home.
  
  
• Willow hit the panic button on our ADT security system, and a couple cops showed up to make sure that everything was alright. I held Willow out to wordlessly explain what happened.
  
  
• There were multiple fraternity and sorority and sports team parties at La Salle that I was attending when the cops showed up. For the most part, they would just kick everyone out (everyone who didn't live there, anyway).
  
  
• When I lived off campus my senior year, we had a few parties (ha). At one party (if my memory serves me right, this was Family Weekend), a police officer (a captain, we later found out) walked into the living room without knocking. Without saying a word, he flipped the coffee table. Then, he walked into the dining room and flipped the dining room table, breaking it. Even though it was my own house, I immediately exited, and took a walk around the block. There was no fallout with any of my other roommates as far as I can remember, except for the fact that we needed a new dining room table.
  
  
• There was at least one other instance of the police showing up at a party. We kept the front door closed and the front window blinds down, so the police had no excuse to just walk into the home after that. One time, a cop was knocking on the door, so we turned off all the lights, silenced the music, and hid behind couches. The cop yelled through the mail slot: "We'll be back!" and left. The party continued.
  
  
• One time I was drinking a beer on the Broad Street Line subway, and a SEPTA cop walked into my train car. I was pretty drunk, so I don't remember specifics, but I know he said something like "I should arrest you right now." I complied with the implied directive by immediately ceasing to drink any more, and I'm pretty sure I just got off at the next platform to throw the beer out.
  
  
• I was at Harry's bachelor party (me and Harry are cop magnets I guess) in North Wildwood, and I was so drunk that I peed on the porta potty instead of in the porta potty. Two beach cops saw me doing this, and immediately gave me a citation for public urination. One of the cops told me "thanks for being so cool about this," since I didn't do anything but stand there and shut the fuck up while they were writing the ticket.
  
  
• One time, my sister had a party at my parents' house with all her friends (I recall witnessing an entire refrigerator stacked with Hurricane forties). I had gotten pretty drunk the night before, so I had a sober night at Cindy's house (while her parents were out), and then came home and went to bed, while sis's party was still raging. Next thing I know, it's two in the morning, and there's a loud banging on my bedroom door: "Get out of there!!" It's the police. I emerge in my pajamas, stating that I was sleeping. The cops don't believe me; they think I was hiding from them. I was corralled with the rest of the kids who couldn't hop a fence fast enough, and everyone was breathalyzed. I blew a 0.00, and the cop says, "Okay, I guess you really were sleeping." Everyone who blew above a 0.01 was given an underage drinking charge. The cops scoured the house, and took all the beer they found, including a full case of Miller High Life that I had stashed in the garage for a trip down the shore. I was told "If this is your parents' beer, they can come pick it up at the station." My dad went to the police station and got the beer back.
  
  
• My parents had their own party at their house for once, and I was there, 20 years old, getting drunk because it was okay to do that at family parties by that point. I was still scared of the Rockledge police coming to the party and giving me another underage, however (see: every other bullet point on this list, pretty much). So when they eventually did show up to address noise complaints, I hid behind the shed while my mom (a borough councilwoman at the time) told that everything was okay and that they'd turn the music down a little.
  

I have tried to present each of these scenarios with just the facts about what happened. However, you can start to infer the true meaning of such a list as the incidents begin to stack up: This is a portrait of white privilege.

 

To be clear, most of the incidents above involve me doing something illegal. There are exceptions, and I'm not saying that underage drinking is the worst crime imaginable, but there is a law, and I was breaking it. And in both the short-term and the long-term, I suffered very little consequences. A few hefty but manageable fines, and a few warnings, and that's about it.

 

Whether I knew it at the time or not, I was benefiting from being white while dealing with an institution that is systemically racist.

There are plenty of studies show that similar crimes can have racially disparate outcomes. This isn't a case of every single cop being racist, it's a matter of law enforcement as a whole being designed to unfairly persecute people of color. If there is a heavy police presence in a neighborhood heavily populated with minorities, then there are going to be more arrests in that area, even if minor crimes such as drug use are not higher in these areas. (It's long been a conclusion that I had so many run ins with the Rockledge police because they didn't have any black people to harass.)

You can see this in practice anecdotally when you compare this list to other incidents in other parts or the city/state/country. 18-year-old Joe K*** was able to continuously break the law by drinking alcohol, and received what amounted to a slap on the wrist; meanwhile, a 12-year-old black kid is charged with a felony for selling mix CDs at a mall. What exactly do you think the 2nd District cops meant when they told us that they had "bigger fish to fry"?

The general consensus on the right seems to be that if you don't want to be arrested, then you shouldn't do anything wrong, but I'm showing you this list to prove that it just doesn't come down to whether you are doing something "wrong" or not. I did plenty of illegal shit and I never feared great consequence. I'm white and it was a Hurricane forty. If I was black and it was a blunt, it'd be a completely different story. Maybe I'd be sentenced to the minimum five years in prison.

On top of that, I've never had an interaction with the police during which I feared for my life. I didn't have to, because that shit just doesn't happen to white people. If you could've heard how my cousin was yelling at the police when my sister's party got busted, you could easily assume that he was threatening police. The outcome? An underage drinking charge. Think about all the white guys with weapons in Fishtown, harassing passersby—the police were protecting them. But if you are a black child with a toy gun? You're getting arrested, or possibly killed.

Black people are disproportionately murdered by police every year. This is a fact. It isn't an opinion, it's a fucking fact. I have had a wide range of interactions with police, from completely innocuous (are you okay with that flat tire) to malicious (breaking tables and stealing beer with no repercussions), but I have never felt like my life was in danger. This is white privilege. It's the very fucking definition of white privilege. Because of the color of my skin, I have had less to worry about when it comes to police interactions.

If you are reading this, and you are white, and you have broken the law in a thousand tiny ways like I have, then it's time to acknowledge your own white privilege. Educate yourself, donate money, and fucking VOTE.

This Is My Blood: Mackeson XXX Milk Stout

Milk stouts are soothing, especially when you're drinking one while listening to some idiot say something like this:

"In Europe, they live, they have forest cities. They’re called forest cities. They maintain their forest, they manage their forest. I was with the head of a major country, it’s a forest city. He said, ‘Sir, we have trees that are far more—they ignite much easier than California.’ There shouldn’t be that problem. I spoke with the governor about it—I’m getting along very well with the governor—but I said at some point, you can’t every year have hundreds of thousands of land just burned to the ground. That’s burning down because of a lack of management."

Oh gosh, this was a good beer, really thick and roasty but also kind of sweet. Ice cold, it paired well with a few cookies. It paired terribly with one old man lying so much that he'll have to be admitted to the hospital in a few days. For real, imagine someone blathering on about "forest cities" like a lunatic and have it not make a single "Top Ten Worst Moments of the Debate" list. That's how bad this was.

Still, a very good beer. It's nice to drink a milk stout as the world burns around you.

NOTES

BEER: Mackeson XXX Milk Stout

STYLE: Milk Stout

ABV: 4.9%

BREWED BY: Whitbread PLC

LOCATION: London, England

PURCHASED AT: IGA

PAIRED WITH: A performance that confirms that if you are still voting for this man, you are either willfully uninformed or irredeemably evil

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

 
BEER COUNT: 368

Nineteen Thoughts About the New RS500

 

You can go through the entire list HERE, or you can continue ahead to read some of my thoughts.

1. RS releasing this massive list this past Tuesday was pretty good timing, as I had literally just mentioned it that morning on my final draft Bob Dylan Top Five. I feel no shame in continually acknowledging how important that 2003 issue of this magazine was in my blooming as an appreciator of music in general. It was exciting to learn that Rolling Stone considered it just as important (though possibly in a more patting-self-on-back sort of way).
   
   
2. Honestly, it was just nice to be able to spend a few hours paging through all this. It's been a while since I've read such a wide-ranging and comprehensive music ranking. It doesn't matter if the list is legitimate or if you agree with the number rankings or whatever; sometimes it's just easier to consider this a tome, filled with musical knowledge about the so-called "canon." I love reading about music almost as much as I like listening to music, so the list's existence is such a treat.
   
   
3. That being said, of course I'm going to have my issues with such a ranking, and with them plenty of questions about how this all came to be. The most important question, I think, is asking what exactly it took for an album to make it to this list. Over 300 people submitted lists of their own top 50, and a master list was compiled from there. Does one single voter have the ability to skew the results? Like, okay, say that a no-name music journalist decided to place fucking Harry Styles' Fine Line (released in 2019!!) at #5, for whatever reason. Would that single vote be enough to power the album to a #491 ranking on this list? (Yes, this is for real!) Or are we to assume that at least TWO or MORE(?!) people consider Fine Line to be one of the best albums OF ALL TIME? How many jabronis were duped into including Norman Fucking Rockwell on their lists so that it shot up to #321? And so on—I could give countless other examples, but you get it. I just wonder how different this list would look if, say 3000 people voted on it? Or would it be populist and thus less interesting in that case?
   
   
4. Probably more important in the scope of actually enjoying consuming this list is: how did they decide who wrote what? A group of people had to sit down and compile 500 different blurbs, on for each album, which to me seems like an arduous task (and ask me again during December's list season to find out how I really feel). Was it like a football draft, and someone could raise their hand at the meeting and say that they would love to write about Rubber Soul? I've never shared such duties with anyone, so I don't know how it typically works.
   
   
5. Regardless, I was impressed with the variety of blurbs, and also with how they were able to make each blurb truly interesting. Sure, I have heard plenty of these stories before—how many more times is Bruce Springsteen going to be quoted when we're talking about Highway 61 Revisited?—but that too makes sense, because these types of lists aren't built for music experts to learn something new. This list is for the neophytes, for someone who is going to pick up this list and use it as a jumping-off point, and get comfortable with the "music canon."
   
   
6. That's not to say that I wasn't surprised by anything that was written—definitely not presenting myself as an expert here by any means. For example, I cracked up when I read My Aim Is True's blurb. All it did was quote the album's opening line—"Now that your picture’s in the paper being rhythmically admired." It's a line I've heard dozens of times. But this blurb made me appreciate the hilarious nastiness about it for the first time, and it gave me a subtly greater insight into what makes Elvis Costello tick. RS pulls this trick again and again, not necessarily wowing anyone with new discoveries, but placing old favorites in a new light and perfectly capturing what makes them great in the first place.
   
   
7. I wonder if you could go through the list of voters (provided by RS) and play the game of whose vote was able to get which album onto this list. Did Patterson Hood make a list of entirely country albums, making sure that at least a few of them made the list? Did Lin-Manuel Miranda vote for all soundtracks? Did Beyoncé vote for herself? There are too many people on the voters list to be able to say for sure, but there's definitely a correlation between the music made from the voters and the music featured on the Top 500.
   
   
8. Which almost makes me wonder, should musical artists have even been the majority of voters in the first place? Obviously, there's something to be said about being in the trenches instead of mindlessly consuming music, but can we at least acknowledge that audiences and artists might be approaching such a list differently? Like, artists such Stevie Nicks are going to be creating lists of music that inspired her, and here I am, as an objective audience member, claiming that there's no way anything that inspired Stevie Nicks is better than the music that Stevie Nicks herself created. You cannot be objective if you are both creating the list and eligible to be on the list.
   
   
9. On a completely different note: I thought it was interesting to see how some of the old dinosaurs fared on this list. Bands like the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, they are all legends because they have a deep and comprehensive discography. I almost wonder if this was a sort of handicap in way. The fact that the Beatles have at least eight albums that anyone could reasonably call their favorite of all time means that their votes are getting split. Compare this to someone like Joni Mitchell. Not that I personally enjoy Joni all that much, but I think it's been made clear by Joni fans everywhere that Blue is far away her best album. Everyone who votes for Joni Mitchell is going to be voting for Joni Mitchell is going to be funneling votes toward Blue. It's interesting to think that the more 10/10 albums an artist has, the worse s/he is going to perform on such a list.
   
   
10. This is something that I complained about in 2003, and it's something that I'll complain about again now: the number of greatest hits collections on this list is embarrassing. I don't have anything against the idea of "Best of Artist" albums. Sometimes you just wanna hear the hits. I get it. But if you're ranking albums, then something like a Greatest Hits is completely antithetical to what you are ranking in the first place. Greatest Hits are not albums. They are not cohesive works of art, created by the artist. I get that you want to include people like Chuck Berry and the Temptations, but if those artists never put out a stand-out LP, then those are the fucking brakes. Rank 'em high on a Top 100 Artists or Top 500 Songs list, but they have no place here. (I could make similar arguments for live albums, but no need to press further on this subject.)
    
    
11. Let's talk about a few specific albums. The most impressive inclusion, in my opinion, was The Black Parade at #361. Man, what a fucking rehabilitation that album has seen over the past fourteen years, huh? Just goes to show you that genius can come from literally anywhere.
    
    
12. I was kind of shocked to see Sgt. Pepper at #24, if only because for the past seventeen years it's been "Rolling Stone's best album of all time," so the fall of 23 spots seems momentous to me. While this will always be one of the most important albums in my life, it's never been one of my favorite, so I don't necessarily have a problem with the demotion. I'm just saying that, if there is one single thing that you can point to and show how much the quote unquote "music canon" has shifted in the past two decades, it's this.
    
    
13. Or, ya know, maybe we could also point to the new reigning champion. Spoiler alert: Rolling Stone ranks Marvin Gaye's What's Going On as the best album of all time. This is one of those choices that I don't agree with, but don't have a problem with either. It would be akin to the Cleveland Browns winning the Super Bowl, or if Black Panther had won the Oscar for Best Picture. I'm cool with it because the winner is not actively offensive, and I can even see why it would be important to a lot of people. As it was in 1971, it's important in 2020 to ask "what's going on?" i.e. to assess society's ills and to address them appropriately. I might not be the biggest fan of slow, smooth soul music, but I appreciate the immensity of What's Going On's importance in the grand scheme of musical history. I might even go as far as to say I actively dislike listening to What's Going On, but you will never, ever, ever hear me complain about its place atop this list.
    
    
14. In a broader sense, I'm saying that it is an objectively good thing that the voting block had much more black representation here than in 2003, and that consequentially there are many more black artists represented on this list. Ultimately, I just care that everyone's music is represented on such a list. Of course I'm going to have an issue with something like Lemonade (#23) being overrated, but I'd rather it be overrated than underrepresented. There are other people who are not like me but who have just as much of a stake in musical enjoyment, and maybe those people love Lemonade because it is important to them, and they see Lemonade at #23 and feel the desire to explore the rest of the list. That's what matters. The time was absolutely right to correct some of the old list's faults, and to me, it looks like they fixed at least one of them.
    
    
15. If I could turn the spotlight back to me for a second—reading this list was a lot different of an experience than it was reading the 2003 list in 2003. Part of that is the fact that I'm now familiar with many of these artists already, so I know what I like. But part of it is also the fact that I am now more comfortable with what I don't like. I will certainly be using this list to explore some music I've been meaning to get into, but I already know many of the dead ends presented on this list too, because I've already been down them. I know that I'm never going to be able to get into Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Carole King, and so on. I enjoyed reading more about these artists in the context of the list, but this time around, I'm armed with the knowledge that it doesn't need to go farther than that.
    
    
16. That being said, of course I made a big fucking list of all the albums that I've been inspired to download (maybe I will get to all of them by the end of 2021). Here are the top five albums that I have been inspired to download from artists I was already aware of: 5) Wild Honey by the Beach Boys, 4) Willy and the Poor Boys by Creedence Clearwater Revival, 3) Ram by Paul McCartney, 2) Voodoo by D'Angelo, 1) Master of Reality by Black Sabbath.
    
    
17. And here are the top five albums that I want to download from artists I had either never heard of or had literally no knowledge of before reading about them on this list: 5) The Raincoats by the Raincoats, 4) Live Through This by Hole, 3) Brothers in Arms by Dire Straights, 2) Suicide by Suicide, 1) Madvillainy by Madvillain.
    
    
18. So how many of my own personal Top Albums of All Time are represented on Rolling Stone's Top Albums of All Time? Well, that answer would require me to actually sit down and think about my favorite albums of all time, a task that I have avoided for the most part over the years. But if I had a gun to my head, I could probably come up with something right now, and I can tell you that at least two of my own potential Top Ten All Time are on the RS500. In the Aeroplane over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel is in at #376, which I gotta admit seems pretty low for an album that everyone seems to cultishly love so much. Though maybe there's been a bit of a backlash in the past few years? I don't know. I would still keep it in my Top Ten. The only other one that's close is Funeral, probably a near-lock for my Top Ten on a good day, and here sneaking in at #500. Yes, Rolling Stone is currently claiming that Harry Styles' Fine Line is a better album than motherfucking Funeral. (My own personal #1, The Monitor, didn't make the cut, which I'm only 40% surprised about.)
    
    
19. Here's a hypothetical that might amount to my biggest takeaway from this new list: How different would my life have been if this was the list I discovered in 2003 and used as a bible for musical exploration? Would I be able to enjoy a lot more hip hop than I currently do? Would I take country music more seriously? Would I be a big Marvin Gaye fan? Would I have seen What's Going On at #1, only kind of liked it in the same way I only kind of like it now, and not have been as inspired to go through the rest of the list? I.e. would I not been into music as much as I am now? Or would I appreciate the vast scope of music more than I do now (when sometimes I feel like I only appreciate certain pockets of music)? Who's to say. All I can say is that I am still thankful that I read that issue of Rolling Stone in 2003, and I am also thankful that I can read this issue of Rolling Stone in 2020. They both have value.
    

This Is My Blood: Punkin Ale

I hate to say it, but after less than a half dozen varieties, I think I'm already done with the pumpkin beers. They are like any other holiday treat—peeps, eggnog, Irish potatoes, candy canes—in that they are pretty good at the start of the season, but the thrill of the new wears off pretty quickly. Plus, there's no room for innovation when it comes to pumpkin beers. You got the spices, you throw 'em in, and that's that. When you try to get too fancy, it just comes off as tacky. Dogfish Head's pumpkin beer isn't tacky. It's got the classic flavors, and sticks to what it knows. In attempt to stand out it has resorted to purposeful misspellings of the word "pumpkin," which I am not a fan of. Ah well. That's it for today—no gimmicks, just bitching about a beer that I don't necessarily need to have ever again... at least until next fall.

NOTES

BEER: Punkin Ale

STYLE: Pumpkin Beer

ABV: 7.0%

BREWED BY: Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

LOCATION: Milton, Delaware

PURCHASED AT: Bottle Bar East

PAIRED WITH: nothing... pumpkin beers doesn't pair with anything

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5

 
BEER COUNT: 367.5

Album of the Week: HEAVN

Congrats to Record Club alumni Maggot Brain, The Black Parade, Jagged Little Pill, Body Talk, diana, and Supa Dupa Fly for making Rolling Stone's new Top 500 Albums of All Time list! And congrats to KIWANUKA for winning the 2020 Mercury Prize! At this rate I guess we can expect 100 gecs to win an Oscar or some shit.

Archives are HERE, playlist is HERE, new album is below.

WEEK 87 — September 27-October 3, 2020

What we're listening to this week (Kait's pick):

ALBUM: HEAVN

ARTIST: Jamila Woods

RELEASED: July 15, 2016

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: R&B, neo soul

WHY KAIT PICKED IT: "I picked this album because, after hearing part of her dynamite live set during this year’s virtual Lollapalooza, I’ve been meaning to dive deeper into her music. This seems like a prime opportunity to do so."

TRACKLIST:

1. Bubbles
2. VRY BLK
3. Popsicle (Interlude)
4. Lonely
5. HEAVN
6. Eve (Interlude)
7. In My Name
8. Assata's Daughter (Interlude)
9. Blk Girl Soldier
10. LSD (ft. Chance the Rapper)
11. Still (Interlude)
12. Emerald Street (ft. Saba)
13. Lately
14. Always Loving (Interlude)
15. Breadcrumbs (ft. Nico Segal)
16. Stellar
17. Good Morning (Interlude)
18. Holy
19. Way Up
20. Holy (Reprise)

LENGTH: 45:50 

 

HOW TO LISTEN FOR FREE: YouTube

 

READING SOME SHIT: Let's skip the reading this week and just watch "Sunday Candy" for the 5435624th time. That's Jamila Woods on the chorus!

Happy listening, fam! Have a great week!

This Is My Blood: Railbender Ale

I probably do too many of these "here's what I did today" posts, and sometimes they might even be tangential to the drinking, which is ostensibly the whole point of This Is My Blood. So let's take agency here right at the beginning and talk about the beer I drank. Railbender Ale—what's its deal? Well, it's an American-made Scottish ale. It's a dark ale, but not as dark as a porter, and definitely thinner. There was a very light fruitiness to it, and some caramel. Definitely a sweet taste, overall, with not much bitterness to counteract it. What Railbender lacked in overall flavor profile, it made up for in drinkability—it wasn't overpowering, so you could probably drink more of them if you wanted to.

I wanted to, but I held back. Mostly because I only had one Railbender Ale in my fridge, but also a little bit because I know stress drinking is not healthy. I was stressed because our refrigerator broke today, 33 days before we sign the documents to sell our house. Can't sell a house without a functional refrigerator, so this is another 3/4ths of a grand that we have to drop for a product we will be using for a little more than a month. This during a time when already mostly every penny we have has gone toward deposits on the new home. I know, I know, first class problems—we have to live with no financial margin of error for just a little bit, until we cash out on the sale of our current home, while others have to live this close to the cliff their entire lives. I've never said that I don't empathize. I've pushed through dozens of packets of paperwork to get families free refrigerators because they could not afford them. I don't mean to make it seem like I'm complaining just to be an asshole; I'm just saying that I have never been more stressed in my life than I am this week, and this is the reason I quickly grabbed the heaviest beer I currently have at my disposal (even though it was lukewarm, ha).

I do want you to know that I didn't just spend my entire day complaining about being in the red. I also did some legwork to explore our city for you, humble reader, and to let you know where is and is not a good place to purchase craft beer. I had a bit of time this morning while on the road, and so I stopped at Old Nelson Food Company at 15th and Spring Garden, which advertised the fact that it sold beer with a neon Victory sign in the front window. I have never been here; I don't think it's been at this location very long. Admittedly, there was a very large selection of craft beer, at least as compared to other markets of a similar nature. All the old standards were there. The only think is that 98% of them were in four- or six-packs. This was not a build-you-own-six-pack sort of place. I did see a few singles, but they were mostly Bud Heavy pounders and 24 oz. White Claws, neither of which I was interested in pairing with my bagel and cream cheese. Official PoYB TIMB review of Old Nelson: a great place if you know what you like and you want to pay $12-15 for it; not a great place to discover something new.

As someone who does not know what they like and does not want to pay $15 for it, I just bought a Gatorade instead. I did, however, end up at a beer distributor later on that day—the one at Tioga and Aramingo—where I did drop $15 on beer (I bought a 30-bird of Milwaukee's Best for the first time in like a decade, consider this your preview for Friday's This Is My Blood). I was really there to buy ice, though. You can't beat $6 for 40 lbs. I used every single one of those ice cubes when I got back home, since the fridge was still on the fritz, and the K***s have a lot of cheese and frozen vegetables we need to keep cold.

Okay, that's enough writing for today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, and I will not feel the intense desire to drink as many beers as possible.

NOTES

BEER: Railbender Ale

STYLE: Scottish Ale

ABV: 6.8%

BREWED BY: Erie Brewing Co.

LOCATION: Erie, PA

PURCHASED AT: IGA

PAIRED WITH: BBQ chicken on the grill (mostly so we didn't have to try to keep chicken cold in a cooler for another 24 hours)

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

 
BEER COUNT: 367

Song of the Week: "Don't Die"

Check out the playlist HERE

 

 

"Don't Die"

Killer Mike

from R.A.P. Music

2012

 

I have this unfounded theory that Killer Mike is extremely conflicted about the success of Run the Jewels. There is absolutely zero evidence of this. In reality, I'm sure that he's happy that his audience has grown and his platform along with it, and I'm sure he's appreciative of the fact that people show gratitude for his music/art. All good stuff.

At the same time, though, he's gotta be wondering about a few things. First, why is it that he was only able to go from niche rapper to nationally recognized musician when he publicly formed a connection with a white dude? These aren't questions I'm attempting to answer, by the way, they are just questions that I'm assuming have to have run through Killer Mike's head at some point. Does El-P's presence make rap more palatable for the masses? I'm not saying it shouldn't or it should, and at the end of the day, it probably doesn't matter, but the existence of the question must make Killer Mike uncomfortable on some level.

In addition, there's gotta be some frustration that the stuff Killer Mike is rapping about in 2020 is the same shit that he's been rapping about his whole career, and critics/audiences are still to this day acting surprised at its relevancy. There wasn't a single RTJ4 review that didn't mention the "walking in the snow" like ""Till my voice goes from a shriek to whisper, 'I can't breathe'" and its eerie connection to George Floyd's May 2020 murder. That's gotta irk Killer Mike, because police murdering black men is not a new phenomenon. He's not predicting the future, he's explaining the past and the present.

It felt like a good week to finally check out some solo Killer Mike material, so I downloaded 2012's R.A.P. Music (which was produced by El-P and immediately preceded the formation of Run the Jewels). I was not shocked to find that Killer Mike was rapping about the same shit he always has. I hope this isn't sounding like a complaint—my only complaint is that I didn't connect to this music sooner. I wish I could've been awoken to the harsh realities of police brutality in 2012. I wish I didn't first need a couple albums of Killer Mike and El-P rapping about their penises before I was ready to hear the facts of the matter.

The story in "Don't Die" begins with a cop pointing a gun in Killer Mike's face, and ends with the same conclusions that N.W.A. were finding in the 1990s—this shit never changes. It's always been this way. I don't know if this situation actually happened to Killer Mike specifically—like, if a cop literally broke into his home and pointed a gun in his face—but regardless, that doesn't mean that it doesn't HAPPEN. It does. Just look at Breonna Taylor. Cops broke into her home on a faulty warrant and murdered her without consequence. Where is the justice?

So I have to imagine that Killer Mike is releasing Run the Jewels 4 and reading all the positive press and thinking that every single critic is missing the mark. The point isn't that this is happening. The point is that it's always happened.

I'm excited to go backwards through his discography and find out how long he's known this. I won't be surprised to find out that he's always known, and I hope he can forgive this ignorant white dude for awakening to the truth a little too late. Please don't be too frustrated with me, Killer Mike.

This Is My Blood: Warsteiner Oktoberfest

 

I had one of my "bright ideas" today, but thankfully, I was able to be reasonable about it before getting too ahead of myself.

Okay, so Pam and I and the kids were walking through Tacony Creek Park the other day—I almost want to call it "hidden" based on the fact that I we have lived ten minutes away from this wooded path for seven years and have never thought to go there—and part of the trail goes past this old abandoned golf driving range. I could tell just from walking past it that it would be a cinch to get around the old metal gating and gain access to the cement platform where people used to empty their buckets of golf balls by hitting them really hard (um, golf was never really my thing).

So of course my mind starts to wander... well, okay, what if I got a few friends and we snuck onto this abandoned property with a case of beer, that'd be cool, right? I think so. And then my mind started going even further, thinking, okay, what if I had a small group of people that met every so often—once a month, once a quarter—the sole purpose of this meeting of friends was to drink somewhere new and unique. I started picturing these like-minded souls (of which I counted myself among) sharing a twelve-pack on the driving range at dusk, and then a month later finishing a case in some hidden cave, and then a month after that on the roof of an uncle's house, and then a month after that on a median in a moderately busy intersection, and so on and so on, stretched out to old age, friends just needing the excuse to get together to drink some beers, a Drinking Club if you will, finding the excuse for alcohol and camaraderie in the act of exploring the world around us, finding something new, and so on, and so on...

I'm not ignorant enough to think that this would actually be feasible at this point in my life; these were just the daydreams of a man walking through the woods on a Tuesday afternoon. 

First, I'm self-aware enough to know that establishing a "club" for this and that could easily get out of hand. When it's something like Record Club (weekly, very little need for commitment) or Book Club (quarterly, somewhat more of a commitment), at least there's something substantial that we can point to and say, this, this is why we are hanging out, a book, an album, this makes sense. With a hypothetical Drinking Club, it would be what exactly? Just drinking? Don't I do enough of that already? And we'd be... trespassing in order to do it? How would that work? Too many questions, or at least enough that adding another "club" to my life seems like a bridge too far.

Consequentially, because the idea itself is pretty flimsy, I struggle to think about how I would even inquire about potential interest from friends. "Hey, would you want to meet me at an abandoned driving range about 30 minutes from your house this Tuesday, and then subsequently meet up every month after to drink some more somewhere different?" It just sounds weird. It also sounds like I'd be forcing it. Friends who gather in a sincere desire to share merriment and booze shouldn't have to make an elaborate excuse to do so. It should come naturally. More so than any other regular event I've ever organized, this would feel the most like I was "forcing" people to do stupid shit that isn't necessary.

Finally, I barely have the time in my life right now to return a friend's text, let alone gather multiple people together, in person, somewhere inconvenient, on a regular basis. I just don't have the fucking time. What, am I going to ask Pam to put the kids to bed tonight because I'm going to meet up with Larry and Moe at a fucking abandoned driving range to drink? And she would be okay with this? Even though we have like two thousand empty cardboard boxes waiting to be filled for an upcoming move? She'd be okay with me skirting those responsibilities to go drink in the fucking woods like a sixteen-year-old? I'm not complaining about this, and I'm not saying my situation is unique. All my friends are busy as shit with various goings on and life tasks. No one is going to be able to get together on a regular basis even if they wanted to.

I mean, it's the kernel of a good idea, but it's just not the time for that shit. If there comes a time in my life when I and the people I am currently surrounded by find the time and the desire to explore, then I will pull this idea out of the proverbial manila folder in the file cabinet of my mind. Until then, I will drink my half-beer on a Saturday night at home and I will shut up about another goddamn club, thank you very much.

NOTES

BEER: Warsteiner Oktoberfest (this was good, definitely maltier than the Oktoberfest by Hofbrau, which I appreciated)

STYLE: Oktoberfest

ABV: 5.9%

BREWED BY: Warsteiner Brauerei

LOCATION: Warstein, Germany

PURCHASED AT: Bottle Bar East

PAIRED WITH: Fish tacos

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

 
BEER COUNT: 366

The Innocents, Pam

Before listening to The Innocents, I already had a lot of love for “A Little Respect” and “Chains of Love.” After listening, I still maintain that those two songs are without a doubt two of the best songs to come out the '80s, and the rest of the album was more than a bunch of duds, which is kind of what I expected only ever hearing the two big hits. I even enjoyed some of the slower, less poppy songs. The Innocents embodies that '80s synth sound so very well that it made me nostalgic for a time that I wasn’t really a part of.

The Innocents, Sunny

Narrator: "I love 88!"

Ryan Stiles (The Drew Carey Show): "This is the happiest we're getting. There's something for everyone. We still have Whitney and Diana. GnR is blowing up. And now you're getting hunk after hunk making dance music. George Michael, INXS? Erasure!? You can't turn on the radio without hearing a British synth duo in Reagan's America. That said something."

Michael McDonald (MadTV): "Well that whole album was hits. 'A Little Respect,' 'Ship of Fools,' sure, obviously. But even 'Sixty-Five Thousand' would be sampled for every Genesis game's bonus level music."

Sting: "Without Erasure, there is no 'Desert Rose.'"

Donald Faison (Scrubs): "You need to understand—MTV is the thing right now. You saw this man fly through the air in a steel plant singing about holding hands with strangers. It's the gayest, greatest thing I've seen."

Paul Feig (Sabrina, the Teenage Witch): "We looked back at 1968 and we really thought we did it. We're grown up now, but can still have fun. People hadn't felt this relieved in a while. You already knew then this would be the nostalgia hangover in 20 years."

Ryan Stiles (The Drew Carey Show): "Hangover? Kids are pranking each other just by sending the Rick Astley song. Why didn't we do that?"

Narrator: "Coming up, what's in a name?, how do you know what's really there, and someone's getting a little nervous. Next on I Love 1988! But first—Then and Now, 1988: A Year of Tuition at Harvard (Then: $12,000 / Now: $51,925), AIDS deaths (Then: 16,380 / Now: 15,820), Median Real Earnings (Then: $16,848 / Now: $19,084)."

The Innocents, Rachel S.

If you can't enjoy Erasure, I have one question for you: "Who hurt you?"

Sure, I may be deeply biased since "A Little Respect" was on my wedding reception playlist, but STILL. What's not to love about exuberant '80s synth-pop/new wave? Even the gloomiest of the Cure or the Smiths fans have to find it in their cold black hearts to bop along.

Erasure is the required reading for my current favorite kind of music: sad songs masking as upbeat indie pop! Let's talk about it, Tanlines, Christine and the Queens, Robyn, Sylvan Esso, MUNA, et cetera. The Weeknd? I seeeee you.

Circling back to "A Little Respect," it's one of those great pop songs where I can't help but wonder, "Okay, how did they achieve this?" How can you craft such a perfect pop song, one where all the music swells as just the right moment, the lyrics make you wanna call your ex cry-scream-singing, and you feel everything joyous and heartbreaking all at once? And yet, it's not a guilty pleasure. It's not saccharine. It's not music you feel you need to roll your eyes at. It's just that good. ah-ha's "Take on Me" and When in Rome's "The Promise" are of the same '80s ilk.

The whole album isn't a grand slam. "Witch in the Ditch" winks at a ye olde trend that was oddly pervasive in a lot of '80s pop. Have you SEEN the video for "Come on Eileen?" I'm not quite sure why jingles of yore was a thing, but there it was. That one? A skip! Not skips and total bops? "Phantom Bride"! "Chains of Love"! "Ship of Fools"! "Heart of Stone"! (I'm realizing there are a lot of "Noun(s) of Noun(s)" in these titles)

Since we're rolling into October soon, and this album has some real SPOOPY titles, here's a ranking of track titles from least spooky to most spooky, just in the name:

Yahoo!
Imagination
Sixty-Five Thousand (this song? silly)
River Deep, Mountain High (love a cover, love Tina)
A Little Respect
Weight of the World
When I Needed You
Chains of Love
Heart of Stone
Ship of Fools
Hallowed Ground
Phantom Bride
Witch in the Ditch

This album is the soundtrack to the way you think about your prom. The way you wish your prom went. The prom that never was.

*keytars myself out of the room*

Spot the difference below, I cannot!!!!!

 

The Innocents, Nate

 

The most damning indictment of Erasure I can offer is that Zach Braff correctly mined the most interesting, most compelling song off this record and used it as an emotional hinge point in an early episode of Scrubs. That the creative powers at Scrubs used this song as subtly as one uses shit in a punchbowl to make the point "this party sucks" should not be held against the lads from England, who only wanted to make compelling synth-pop and succeeded exactly once. Congrats, to them, on the song "A Little Respect" and very little else. To not offend is not the same as victory.

The Innocents, Joe

 

Let's talk about "Sixty-Five Thousand." What's the story there? It's so goofy and cartoonish that there just has to be an explanation. The internet didn't make it easy for me, but I'm getting the sense that this song was inspired by the old Glenn Miller jazz standard "Pennsylvania 6-5000." I mean, Erasure literally yells "Pennsylvania 6-5000" at the beginning of the song, but I more meant like, do the songs sound alike? If you squint, I guess they do? Maybe it's more of an inspiration than anything approaching a cover (or maybe Erasure are just big Abe Simpson fans). In any case, it's a bizarre connection to draw.

"Sixty-Five Thousand" is the least important song on The Innocents, but it's the most indicative of how I feel about this kind of music general—mostly, I'm just confused and confounded by its mysteries. I'm talking about the so-called "'80s music." It's a made-up genre that anyone can immediately pinpoint when they hear it. Why do we group all this music together under the umbrella of an entire decade? The 1980s saw integral releases from such wide-ranging artists as the Clash, Nine Inch Nails, Run D.M.C., Bruce Springsteen, and so on, and yet something like "Sixty-Five Thousand" is immediately pegged as "so fucking '80s that it's almost comical." Why?

(I blame the boomers for being so lazy with canonizing music in the decade after they all came of age, and started to lose their grip on pop culture. "I don't understand this whole music thing anymore, so let's just call any music with a synthesizer '1980s music' and call it a day.")

Lost in all the hubbub is the fact that this music is kind of awesome. My immediate reflex is always going to be "Ha, so '80s," but after listening to Erasure for an entire week, I can't help but be enthralled with this shit. The arena-ready synths, the soaring baritone, the relentlessly thudding bass drum, all of it is of a time and a place, but we're still listening to this shit four decades later because it's actually timeless. There's a reason Judd Nelson pumps his fist in the air at the end of The Breakfast Club, and it isn't because he's about to bone the most popular girl in school—it's because he knows that the music blaring over the football stadium speakers (in this case, Simple Minds, but it easily could've been Erasure) is so goddamn good.

In many ways, this album pairs well with previous Record Club album Kick by INXS. They are two different bands, but they are two sides to the same coin. Many of the tropes that we all spoke of for Kick—the drums, the production, the aura of teased hair and tight pants—are here on The Innocents as well. 

 

Maybe Erasure are taking themselves a little more seriously than INXS, though. Even though I will defend The Innocents as a great album, I think that its complete lack of self-awareness can occasionally be to its detriment. Pick out any lyric on this thing, for an example. I'll go with the opening to "Phantom Bride": "She was a shy girl from the lonely streets / She had no job to do, no friends to meet..." Come to think of it, this kind of reminds me of the Killers too, just completely overwrought lyrics set to a moving soundtrack. I don't know why I'm not giving Andy Bell the same benefit of the doubt that I do Brandon Flowers. It's probably just better that I go along for the ride.

And that's what I did, and what I need to continue to do when it comes to "genres" of music I just don't know anything about (oh god, here he goes again with that shit). It's hard not to talk about the '80s trope employed up and down The Innocents, but it's also lazy as fuck.

 

That's why I wanted to learn more about "Sixty-Five Thousand." It seems like a weird outlier, its 1980s-ness cranked to 11, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised to hear it soundtrack some shitty 1980s-themed SNL skit. What is that about? I couldn't just leave it at that. I needed to know more. And that goes for all of Erasure. Is it enough for me to just say that I enjoy 1980s-style music and not even know what the fuck that means? Is that lazy? I don't know.

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

This Is My Blood: Stella Artois

 

Five Times When There Wasn't Enough Beer

1. It was after one of our performances. I don't remember what show, maybe Into the Woods. It was probably Friday night, because Saturday would've been the cast party, and this wasn't the cast party. One of the upperclassmen was having people over his house for a party—again, nothing too rowdy, since we had a show the next day, and it wouldn't have been professional to be hungover the whole day before a singing performance. But on the other hand, we were still young and able to handle it for the most part, and so we started the party at like midnight and planned to keep going. On the way over: "Hey man"—and I'm not revealing who was hosting this party, since I remain to this day a big fan of his and refuse to make it seem like I'm talking smack, let it remain redacted—"do you want me to bring any of the beers I have in my dorm?" "Nah, I'll have some beer." Great. I get to the party. "Hey man, do you want five bucks for the beer?" "Nah, don't worry about it, just go grab one from the fridge." I go over to the mini fridge, open it up... and find one single six-pack of Stella Artois. Since then, I have never been able to drink Stella without thinking about this night.

2. There was this abandoned (or, more likely functional during business hours but dark and quiet at night) factory at the end of a dead end in Lawndale where we would occasionally drink in the rear, near the train tracks. It was also near the Philadelphia/Cheltenham border, so there was less of a chance of any cops from either district finding us. Or so we thought. It's a pretty simple story: I get out of the car with two six-packs of Miller Lite, I completely miss the fact that there are cops at the end of the block, the cops get out, take the beer, and drive away. It could've been worse, but that doesn't mean it wasn't disappointing.

3. It was August 24, 2010. Either school had just started or it was about to. I was settled in at the Woodstock house. Looking in my mini-fridge, I found that I had twelve beers left (not sure which beers, I guess I was still drinking Natty Lights at that time?). The Phillies were barreling toward the playoffs, and it seemed like the perfect night to do Beer-an-Inning. Nine beers for the game, plus three to spare before I passed out. Perfect, right? Well... the Phillies ended up playing sixteen innings. Kept the beer-an-inning going for as long as I could. By the time I was out of beer, the Phillies were out of position players. In the 14th, Ryan Howard got ejected because the third-base umpire was a fucking prima donna, so Roy fucking Oswalt, a pitcher, had to play left field. A batter smacked a long fly ball right into his glove. This game is in my top five Phillies games all time easily, and probably the only one in the top five that was also a loss. Didn't matter. The only thing that wasn't fun about that night was drinking twelve beers and desperately needing more.

4. Back when I was still in high school, I was able to purchase beer easily (Krewstown Beer Distributor didn't really give a fuck), but the problem was where to drink it, and how to transport it. Here was the plan on one random summer evening: I was going to leave work five minutes early, drive my parents' car to Krewstown, buy two cases, drive to Burholme, hide the cases in the woods, drive home, telling my parents I had to work a few minutes late, then meet up with my buddy Drew and a few hometown pals back at the woods. The plan went smoothly until I got to Burholme. I ran the cases into the woods, and ran smack into two 20-somethings who were walking their dog. I couldn't bring the beer home, and I was in a time crunch, so I basically said "Please don't take these cases, here, have four beers from this one case as a sign of trust and gratitude" and then peeled off back home before my parents got suspicious. Of course the random fucks in the woods took the cases, jesus fucking christ, who wouldn't? I was a dumb stupid idiot for believing in the goodness in humanity when it came to clandestine Natural Lights. (Postscript: Drew and I were wandering around the neighborhood, sober, bored, and happened upon two ice cold, unopened bottles of beer on the sidewalk, chilling on a pile of ice, as if a sign from the gods that they owed us one for foolishly having faith in human goodness. It was one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to me.)

 

5. Not a specific night, but for real, every single night we shacked up at Brianna's parents' house to get drunk, my friends and I would start the inevitable discussion at like 8 PM—"do we have enough beer???" Even if there was like three cases of Keystone and only eight of us, we'd be doing math like "well, that's only 11 beers per person, maybe we should go get some forties to supplement this stash" and so on and so forth. That's probably why I was so aghast that I showed up at that college party to only find one six-pack of Stella Artois for a dozen people. Me and my best friends from the Northeast operated on an entirely different level. To not have enough beer was a mortal sin. That's also probably why I struggled to think of even five incidents for this list.

NOTES

BEER: Stella Artois

STYLE: European Pale Lager

ABV: 5.0%

BREWED BY: Stella Artois

LOCATION: Leuven, Belgium

PURCHASED AT: Bottle Bar East

PAIRED WITH: Silence after a long day of single-parenting

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5

 
BEER COUNT: 365.5