These are some of the photos I took at The Twilight Sad's gig in Glasgow on 19/12/2014. I was standing right in the middle so I could only take decent pictures of James (the rest are shite, too dark).
It was beautiful and mesmerising and it only confirmed what I had previously said: Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave is the best record that came out this year.
Enjoy the pictures.
There's no copyright on these photos; however, if you want to use them, please give credits to Claudia Viggiano or @thisiswater_ (both on Twitter and Instagram).
2014 has been a long year, but music has kept me company through productive, creative, stressful and lazy times. So I'll honour music my way.
This is my first ever end-of-the-year celebratory list. Twenty names, a few runners-up, a few absentees: it's a very subjective list, and it mostly reflects the genres I've listened to throughout 2014, so pardon me if there isn't much electronic music represented this year.
I'll also try to spend a few words on why I liked each album. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
1) The Twilight Sad - Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave
Because this album is a journey. Into darkness, gloomy Scottish landscapes and an existential angst that's not that of teenagers, but rather a "tired melancholy," as DiS suggests. It's a concept album, which is why I called it a 'journey', and therefore it should be taken as a whole: "it’s not until you assemble the whole thing, that the jaw-dropping brilliance of the album reveals itself." 2) Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots
Because there is a maturity to this album that I hadn't seen in Albarn before, and although it explores and deploys various genres it is in melancholic tracks that his voice and lyricism work best together; You and Me might be my favourite track of 2014. 3) Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else
Because Cloud Nothings know how to reach the perfect balance between noise, misanthropy and catchiness, and because this album sounds incredibly powerful live.
4) Pianos Become the Teeth - Keep You
Because they're exploring a different genre which suits them; more precisely, they're experimenting with a mixture of genres, and the result is a solid piece of work whose punk, emo, post-rock, post-punk, slowcore and shoegaze influences create 43 minutes of pure bliss. 5) Owen Pallett - In Conflict
Because everyone knows I've got a (ridiculously) soft spot for Mr Pallett, but also because experimenting with a band helped him broaden the scope of his music. Owen's music sounds like nothing you've heard before, and this album sounds like nothing Owen Pallett has ever done before.
6) Cymbals Eat Guitars - Lose
Because despite every track being different from the previous and the next one, there is a cohesion to this album that I can't quite explain. Still, this means that they can play (and play with) any genre they want and still demonstrate they're great at it. 7) Nothing - Guilty of Everything
Because can you really expect anything bad coming from a band called Nothing?! And because it's a troubled work that's the product of a troubled past and there was probably no better way to express that than by using noise and shoegaze. 8) Perfume Genius - Too Bright
Because it's a perfect album: it is technically perfect without sounding like he's trying too hard, BUT still manages to sound genuine, sentimental, and catchy. 9) Sun Kil Moon - Benji
Because this record is a novel, and one told by a bright and talented writer. 10) We Were Promised Jetpacks - Unravelling
Because WWPJ are one of those bands it's really hard to label, but easy to sing along to. That, and a very well-produced and cohesive album, full of instrumental crescendos and great imagery in the lyrics. 11) Weezer - Everything Will Be Alright In the End
Because they're genuinely going back to the shack, and "rocking out like it's '94." Yet, the albums sounds so new: not because it's new, but because it's so different from the music that's around right now, it almost feels like something you haven't heard before. 12) Sharon Van Etten - Are We There
Because, as suggested by the title, this album is also a journey, a heartbreaking yet cathartic one, and because Van Etten is simply a great songwriter. 13) Royal Blood - Royal Blood
Because I didn't expect something so powerful coming from such a harmless-looking duo (yes, so much noise, but still a two-piece band!). It's a great debut album. 14) East India Youth - Total Strife Forever
Because this is another stunning debut album, with a character and elegance to it that show a maturity we wouldn't expect of a debut album. 15) Mogwai - Rave Tapes
Because Mogwai never disappoint, to be completely honest with you. And it sounds great live! 16) Joyce Manor - Never Hungover Again
Because Joyce Manor make quality punk-rock, and because I like pretending I'm 17 inside. 17) The Hotelier - Home, Like Noplace Is There
Because it's visceral, painful but never overly dramatic, and because look at that title! 18) Johnny Foreigner - You Can Do Better
Because this albums sounds much more mature and cohesive than the previous ones, and they've been playing with a few more influences. You rock, Birmingham! 19) Young Fathers - Dead!
Because Edinburgh rocks too. To be fair, there's a lot of Scotland in this playlist, even though Young Fathers are the least Scottish of the four. The album is powerful, it has character and it's never boring; it just sounds good from start to finish, and he Mercury Prize was well deserved. 20) Interpol - El Pintor
Because, however disappointing, an Interpol record is still an Interpol record. And to be honest this wasn't even disappointing; it's a good album, and you can tell there's an attempt to go back to their older sound while trying to get something new out of it. Other albums I liked:
Swans - To Be Kind
Real Estate - Atlas
Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues
Future Islands - Singles
Kiasmos - Kiasmos
A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Atomos
Ronin - Adagio Furioso
Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness
Keaton Henson - Romantic Works
Grouper - Ruins
The Antlers - Familiars
Fucked Up - Glass Boys
"I don't get what the fuss is all about" albums (I don't necessarily hate them):
FKA Twigs - LP1
Mac DeMarco - Salad Days
Aphex Twin- Syro
The War On Drugs - Lost in the Dream
Ariel Pink - Pom Pom
Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2
EMA - Future's Void
Taylor Swift - 1989 (oh yes I hate this one).
Finally, here's a Spotify playlist with my favourite tracks from 2014:
My longstanding experience as a reader has taught me that good writing is when you can talk about nothing and still make that nothing interesting and fascinating.
Great talent is required to tell a small, unimportant, unnoticeable story, and Jonathan Franzen is a great talent. The world of literature is filled with great, unforgettable characters, heroes and epic climaxes. When your narrative encompasses lives, centuries and peoples, when you're telling something that needs to be told, that story becomes epic, and it ends up narrating itself. But what happens when you tell an everyman's story?
The theme of the Everyman is especially loud in postmodern literature and histerical realism, where the central character is the perfect antihero nobody would want to hear about. Novelists such as Roth or Wallace or Pynchon or DeLillo try to make sense of the human alienation in the postmodern era by picking and (almost literally) taking apart one of its protagonists: not the hero, not the president, not the terrorist, but rather the office clerk, the serially manufactured product of a corporation.
Franzen's Freedom does that, though without exploiting or exposing postmodernism more than it's necessary. So, Freedom is about a family, taken apart. In 700 pages. And it's never boring. And you never feel like you're wasting your time. So I asked myself: why do I like this so much?
I think the answer lies not only in Franzen's ability to write in a witty, elegant, humorous and idiosyncratic way, but also in the fact that his Everymen are so scared, contradictory and complacent about their failures that they don't just seem real--they are real. They evolve throughout the years and - this is what struck me the most - in their smallness, they are that story that becomes epic. It's a journey for them and for us readers, and we struggle and change along with them.
Franzen's novel brings us back to that place where we are all real, individual human beings, and not just part of a system; this way, it tells us we're all worth happening.
“This wasn't the person he'd thought he was, or would have chosen to be
if he'd been free to choose, but there was something comforting and
liberating about being an actual definite someone, rather than a
collection of contradictory potential someones.”
“Each new thing he encountered in life impelled him in a direction that
fully convinced him of its rightness, but then the next new thing loomed
up and impelled him in the opposite direction, which also felt right.
There was no controlling narrative: he seemed to himself a purely
reactive pinball in a game whose only object was to stay alive for
staying alive's sake.”
I came across this article while browsing Facebook this morning; the title - "confessions of a reformed grammar nazi" - instantly caught my attention. The article itself doesn't say much: the writer talks about her grammar nazi past and, having found redemption after she herself made a grammatical mistake and was 'castigated' by a friend, she goes on to claim that most grammar nazis are driven by one-upmanship, and that most of the time correcting a person's grammar or spelling is an act of snobbery rather than one with educational purposes.
Although I saw part of me reflected in the writer's words, I think the article doesn't go far enough as to make an actual stance against what grammar nazism really is, and how dangerous it could be to stick to certain 'rules.' Don't get me wrong - I do believe in correct usage of grammar and spelling and punctuation, but I also think that language is fluid, and that is what makes language beautiful and lets us be creative with it. Therefore, there are rules I agree with, and rules I don't agree with (hey prescriptivists, call me out for using a preposition at the end of the sentence, I dare you!).
Roughly, my stance on the matter is that it's not an error as long as there's no semantic change.
I do believe that grammar should take a more central role in education - both in the English-speaking countries and in Italy. However, while it's not easy to overcome the shock of reading an Independent article where the author uses 'your' instead of 'you're' (unforgivable for a person who makes writing their job), there are positions on the matter of language that are obnoxious and that attempt to deny the natural evolution of language. When I say that grammar nazism can be dangerous, here's an example:
If you invite these four people to your party, you can use either the first or the second sentence: there's not semantic difference. If you, instead, mean that Stalin and JFK are strippers, as the second picture suggests, the sentence should read "We invited the strippers: JFK and Stalin." I don't believe in the necessity of the Oxford comma, because - at least in this case - its usage doesn't change the meaning. I do use the Oxford comma, but I use it to give rhythm to a text, especially when the list I've just made is pretty long. I also have flexible views on punctuation - which, again, I use more loosely and based on context. Someone recently called me out for using a comma instead of a semi-colon on an internet comment. On a community that uses acronyms such as "MRW" and "IDK" every other word, you should not be expected to write an essay, and I think it's perfectly acceptable to use less (!) commas in this context, especially when the meaning of your sentence doesn't change based on the punctuation you use; to summarise, as long as you know how to use it, you're good (and you can use it at your advantage and in more creative ways). For example:
"The party, was fantastic." -- this makes no sense.
"The party was fantastic, even Jane showed up." -- you should use a semi-colon here--does it make any difference, though?
What's ironic about how the Guardian article has been received is that most of the readers completely missed the point.
If
we were talking mathematics you wouldn't be saying it was OK to
occasionally make 2+2 = 5 now would you? And if you would, you're an
idiot. [Facebook comment]
Yes, because language is a fixed system, and we all speak Old English; nothing has changed and nothing should. Chapeau.
No comma before though and write "regularly" for "on a regular basis". [article page]
This is how you change the world, eh? I highly recommend having a read at all the comments under the article, they're quite amusing.
Language evolves and it's okay if it does. Language changes when it's used because it's the users that create the language--Esperanto hasn't changed because it's an artificial language, and Latin hasn't changed because it's a dead language. As long as you know how the system works, and as long as you're in the right context to do so, it's okay to use slang words, skip fullstops, or speak African American English. On the other hand, it's okay to point out to a friend that they've just used a possessive pronoun instead of a verb, but acting like an arsehole won't help you make it through life.
PS: this is a post written by a non-native speaker of English. Just so you know before you start insulting. However, corrections are very welcome, and I'd like to hear what you think.
...and I chuckle raise you my list of the 23 most depressing bands of all time. Because I'm a pro at this.
A few days ago I came across Gigwise's list of the 23 most depressing bands and suddenly the word "NOOBS!" started ringing in my head. As an appreciator of the sort of music that gets to your soul and tears it apart, I was pretty shocked by their list. On the one hand, there were some famous absentees; on the other, some of the names were too bland and it almost felt like they were put there to fill in a few gaps. What's more, the names in the list are mostly mainstream artists, so the actual title should've been "the 23 most depressing mainstream bands of all time."
Hence why I decided to compile a list myself. It's definitely not objective, but Gigwise's list isn't either (come on, The XX are depressing? you don't know depressing). Some of their names are on my list as well, so I'll start with them (disclaimer: ranking is random).
1. The Smiths
The Smiths are the first in my list of the 'magnificent three:' the three English bands, roughly from the same era, that are the epitome of depressing. So no surprises here.
There are so many examples I could list, but I'll just go with these two:
I wear black on the outside cos black is how I feel on the inside
I am the son and the heir of nothing in particular
2. The Cure
What can you expect from a song called To wish impossible things? Or from:
Just put your hands around my heart and squeeze me 'til I'm dry
3. Joy Division
I'm not even going to add anything here.
Existence: well, what does it matter? I exist on the best terms I can A cloud hangs over me, marks every move,
Deep in the memory of what once was love.
4. The National
They're not on top of my list, but I give you that, Gigwise. Plus, they're so dramatic live you can't 'unsee' it. Berninger can really make a simple sentence sound so painful.
How close am I To losing you
You didn't see me, I was falling apart I was a television version of a person with a broken heart
5. Interpol
Exactly. That line kills me every time. I dare say it might be among my three favourite lines in the history of music. And Paul Banks is even better than Berninger at killing you with one line, I guess that's because his lyrics are a little more edgy (stylistically speaking).Even the title Turn on the bright lights is a great line, and one of the most depressing records in history.
I'm sick of spending these lonely nights Training myself not to care
I will surprise you, sometime I'll come around When you're down
6. Death Cab for Cutie
Death Cab are not on top of my list either, but they do deserve being on it. My personal favourite is What Sarah Said:
Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
I'm thinking of what Sarah said, that "Love is watching someone die"
So who's going to watch you die?
7. Bon Iver
My beloved Bonnie Bear didn't strike me as the kind of depressing music that would make Gigwise's list, but come to think of it, his lyrics are indeed very sad, though more in a cathartic way rather than just miserable per se. There is a live version of Skinny Love where he sings a slightly different version of the lyrics (replaces 'will' with 'gonna'), and it sounds so resentful.
Who's gonna love you? Who will fight? Who will fall far behind?
And at once, I knew I was not magnificent
8. Bright Eyes
Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst are the last name Gigwise and I agree on. Although their lyrics are central to their fame as musicfordepressedpeople, to me it's mostly about the way he sings. I love it when the singing is rough and slightly off-key, rather than boring and impersonal.
But you should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living
Because it's the ones with the sorest throats, Laura
Who have done the most singing
The sound of loneliness makes me happier
9. Elliott Smith
Elliott Smith is one of the first names that came to me when I opened Gigwise's list. Yet, he wasn't there. He left a great legacy behind. About his music, he said: "Depressing isn't a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it -- there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter."
People you've been before That you don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still
Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can't finish what you start
10. Nirvana
Another odd absentee and another important legacy. Married Buried
And if you save yourself
You will make him happy
He'll keep you in a jar
And you'll think you're happy
11. Jeff Buckley
A short career yet (therefore) he deserves to be here. And she weeps on my arm
Walking to the bright lights in sorrow
Must I dream and always see your face?
12. Daniel Johnston
It's hard to say something objective about Daniel Johnston. He shouldn't even be on this list, because he's at the other end of the spectrum, he is living proof that music goes beyond mental illness, and it takes a lot of effort to be a true artist. True love will find you in the end (just that.)
13. Nick Drake
And I was green, greener than the hill
Where flowers grew and sun shone still
Now I’m darker than the deepest sea
Just hand me down, give me a place to be 14. Brand New
With Brand New starts my more subjective part of the list. Some of these bands/artists are less known or maybe you won't agree with me on their being depressing. Brand New are a great band that's unfortunately seen as music for teenagers. If you think so of them, you should listen to The Devil and God are raging inside me (great title, by the way). Here are some excerpts: I don't mind you under my skin
Oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in
And I wish that I could tell you right now, I love you
But it looks like I won't be around
So you won't know
Before you put my body in the cold ground,
Take some time to warm it with your hand
15. WHY?
WHY? are one of my favourite bands - despite having a very 'weird' sound few of my friends like; Yoni Wolf is a great lyricist, but he reached his peak with the two albums Elephant Eyelash and Alopecia, which host some of the most depressing lyrics I've ever read (especially the song Good Friday). Luckily for him he isn't depressed anymore, so his recent songs are much less miserable.
At Jacob Han's on tour I wake up hungover on a hardwood floor
From a dream about how your dress hangs off of your little breasts
I'd rather be dead than call this song "How I lost your respect" But God bless or get neglected
And I'll see you when the sun sets east, don't forget me
I sleep on my back cause it's good for the spine
And coffin rehersal
16. Sun Kil Moon / Red House Painters
Mark Kozelek may be a dick, but at least he's a great musician.
Oldness comes with a smile
To every love given child
Oldness comes to rile
The youth who dream suicide
Glass on the pavement under my shoe
Without you is all my life amounts to
17. Los Campesinos!
If you only know a couple of LC! songs you might think they're an indie pop band who makes joyful songs. Think again. Gareth David's lyrics are sharp, witty, full of cultural (or football) references, and extremely tragicwithout sounding too dramatic, because he's also a smart ass. And even their album titles are depressing (No Blues, Hello Sadness)
I can't believe I chose the mountains Every time you chose the sea
I taught myself the only way to vaguely get along in love is to love the other slightly less than you get in return. I keep feeling like I'm being undercut.
And the weather here is overcast and the sea is the same shade of grey, so the landscape before you looks just like the edge of the world, but
to the left side and the right side, either way is a crazy golf course
18. Burial
You weren't expecting this one.I recommend:
Come down to us
19. Neutral Milk Hotel
In the aeroplane over the sea is just the perfect album. The cover, the songs, the lo-fi recording, Jeff Mangum's singing style. And one of my favourite lines of all time:
And in the dark we will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine
Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all
20. Kevin Devine
I fangirl over Kevin D. a lot (plus I saw him recently) so maybe he's not supposed to be on this list; in fact, some of his lyrics are not really depressing. But I love him when he screams (e.g. live versions of Ballgame or Brother's Blood)and he's pretty intense. [PS: he and Brand New are BFFs]
Rest assured, I used to be someone A brother's brother And a mother's son
Maybe we need to be hollowed
To get up and grow
And stop fucking around
And there's a clamp around my chest
That tightens every time I lapse into another sorry story
21. American Football
I will end my list with three (old-school) emo bands. American Football are that kind of band that makes you cry even before you start listening. They're melancholic more than depressing, and their eponymous LP tastes like the end of summer when you're about to move away from your parents' home and have to figure out your life. Thinking about leaving and how I should say goodbye. with a handshake, or an embrace, or a kiss on the cheek, or possibly all three That's life: it's so social
So physical
So so-so
So emotional
So stay home
22. Penfold
They deserve a spot on the list, if only for the way he screams the lyrics
And if you were here then I would take you everywhere
23. Mineral
Just look at that picture, put their music on, and sit back. Also, nothing happy can come out of a song called Unfinished.
I wish you could put your ear up to my heart
And hear how much I love you
You picked me up and whispered "Forever"
Like a secret in my ears
And that was my list. I hope someone reads/hopefully likes this because it took me a long time to write it. If you have depressing bands to recommend, go ahead.
Gigwise, you should hire me.
