Everything posted by Haze
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The Female-Fronted Rock Bands ATRL Rates: The Landmark Albums of the 1990s
Bathouse closed for mold and ethical malpractice!
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The Female-Fronted Rock Bands ATRL Rates: The Landmark Albums of the 1990s
Song or album? Either way what's his @
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The Female-Fronted Rock Bands ATRL Rates: The Landmark Albums of the 1990s
The only thing that'll make me go soft in a bathhouse
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Ellie Goulding - 'I Know Too Much'
AM is playing the uncensored just fine for me? Weird. Listened to it a bit more, and the title track is really casting a big shadow on the rest for the moment. I'm happy with that though: genuinely feels like the natural next step for her. It's when she lets loose of the typical pop song structure that she sounds revitalized.
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The Female-Fronted Rock Bands ATRL Rates: The Landmark Albums of the 1990s
@Florence Belch something something riposta is stracciatella!
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The Female-Fronted Rock Bands ATRL Rates: The Landmark Albums of the 1990s
now which song of Portishead to sabotage ...
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International Björks rate [October 8]
Offended I'm not in this taglist yet! Although I'm probably going to really need that extension.
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Ellie Goulding - 'I Know Too Much'
I need a Director's Cut of this album that restores the vision it once had (and tried with Destiny), cause you can feel and hear it underneath and that would've really made this an artistic success imo. There is interesting stuff in the outro's that could've been elaborated on. Her artistry is smoothed over by pop demands but it still shines through, which just affirms to me she needs to trust her vision and muse. She's also right at home in these acoustic, singer-songwriter songs, I would gladly take a full album of that as it centers her best instrument: her voice. Title track is a stunner, a career highlight even. If I swap Fool with Destiny I would like this whole album, even if Ravers feels like it belongs to a different one. It's also a lot more personal than I expected it to be; I'd even say a tiny bit bitter but it's good to feel like there's a warm blooded human behind these songs, which was my main issue with HTH (despite the quality bops).
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Jessie Ware: The Discography Rate
I'd like a tag update!
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Ariana Grande: "wrote some songs about Ricky, tryna make him my last"
This thread ... Who needs the '00 tabloids when you have a bunch of gays on the internet. The woman has a love life, get over it.
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Did Lana Del Rey blow the perfect opportunity to release Stove?
As if the music she makes has anything to do with those country messes topping the charts now. Lana's streaming stats are actually the biggest mystery in modern music for me, since she has done everything to block her commercial appeal since her first album (thankfully so!).
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Cheryl to join The Voice UK 2027 as coach, Alesha Dixon as co-host
X Factor I get, because she has that in spades. The Voice ... well. I actually adore her tone of voice, and she sounded great (it surprised me) when I saw Girls Aloud on their latest tour, but she needs exactly the right song and her range is incredibly limited. It's just a weird fit for this format.
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The Female-Fronted Rock Bands ATRL Rates: The Landmark Albums of the 1990s
Don't speak looking at the rest of the tracks on that album:
- Happy 40th Birthday, Florence Welch!
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Rina Sawayama talks new era: "80% of the album could be singles"
HTG is very flawed, but also an album with a beating heart so I think the backlash was a bit much. She just needed to find a way past the earnestness of it all, needed a bit more time in the cooker like she says. I love Imagining though.
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The Female-Fronted Rock Bands ATRL Rates: The Landmark Albums of the 1990s
Going by the past rates, I can probably give you them by inverting mine.
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CHVRCHES - 'V'
I loved Screen Violence, can't believe it has been five years
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Tori Amos
Love this write up! I think the backings is the smartest thing she could've done at this point in her career, because it allows her voice to rest more as well. Last time when she toured America (after the European tour iirc) her voice was shot on a few dates, because it is simply too much. She does so many dates, and she clearly lives for it, so I'm happy she found a way to keep both the intensity and the quality. I hope, hope there will be a live record from this tour. And I wouldn't be opposed to hearing the backings on further studio records, albeit a bit more sparingly.
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Should public cruising be shamed in 2026?
This tired old discourse and it's not even pride month. Anyone who has actually gone to cruising areas knows it's never completely out in the open (unless a space is designated for it, like in Amsterdam iirc). It's always a bit of the beaten path, and requires you to look for it. No children are there ffs.
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The HQ Thread | 2026
I cannot open a single thing via notifications across two browsers. Site is becoming nigh unusable atm for me. Is there any update about the verification thingy?
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Is reading in public performative?
You mean things you stop doing once you learn to read fluently?
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Diamanda Galas on Cowboy Carter: "It's bingo music for clowns"
'Black imperialism' is awful and should not have left her mouth, but the point she's trying to make is a bit more nuanced and for it you have to read the article. I'm not making excuses for any of the words she used here; there are ways to say things and this is not it, but the point she makes here (in horrendous fashion) is precisely an intersectional one, namely that the true country experience is one of poverty and destitution, of having lived that very life and your voice be a reflection of it, and that Beyoncé's reclaiming of the genre as a subversion of white supremacy fails to cut to the heart of the subject of country music. Beyoncé chooses to view country music through the lens of race and while I don't think its wrong for her to do so, and she makes valient points and beautiful music along the way, it paints a politically black and white picture (quite literally so). It's hard to listen to Texas Hold 'Em and not think it's a caricature, and I don't think Beyonce would even disagree: it is a spoof of a typical white country radio song, that is the very point! She made the pop machine take notice of a black woman singing country, but that precise movement of power, money, reclaiming, repurposing etc etc (which, again, isn't in itself something bad) is antithetical to the nature of country (as someone who musically appreciates it -- I don't think, or at least I hope so, Galas has any more time for the Morgan Wallen's and other superstars of country pop). But in any case, I don't think viewing Cowboy Carter as a country album is a very fruitful endeavor; it plays too much with genre for that. But I also think Billionaire Beyoncé who has spent years cultivating a goddess like image, trying to subvert working class tropes was always going to hit a nerve with people. If it reads as phony, that's because it inevitably is for someone like her -- she's a megastar, whatever hardships she knows they aren't the same as the ones whose lifeblood run through that very music (white or black!).
- Zara Larsson gets a serious case of IJBOL during Midnight Sun live
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This Was(n't?) R&B '25: The Rate | And the winner is... (pg. 109)
Such a heartfelt closer. Great winner, great rate, fantastic host @conatus . Had a lot of fun!
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This Was(n't?) R&B '25: The Rate | And the winner is... (pg. 109)
The Boy best song on the album winning, I know that's right