bradluen.bsky.social
https://bradluen.substack.com/
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Evidence of the '75-ness of "Karibou ya Bintou" (since Discogs doesn't give a date):
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MAIN: Tabu Ley Rochereau & l'Afrisa International: "Karibou ya Bintou"
Elza Soares: "Viagem de Jangada"
Rail Band: "Mansa"
The O'Jays: "I Love Music"
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- ctrl-F's "Infernal Affairs"
OH COME ON NOW
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well I'm sure at least Burning made it
- ctrl-F's "Lee"
oh come on now
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<puts on Bob Prediction Hat> thinking A-, some chance of A
<puts on Semipop Life Prediction Hat> yeah I have no idea yet
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Got the feeling it's gonna be you and the Christgavians against the world on this one
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what's the point of techbro money if you're not even going to charter a flight to Bloomington, IN
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After some poking around, it still seems like the Cote d'Ivorie is responsible for the year's best reggae album in Alpha Blondy's Apartheid Is Nazism. No idea if "Seba Allah Y'e" was a proper single, but it was clearly the hit:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj6B...
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Albert Camus, The Plague (tr. Gilbert.) Near the end I thought that in purely predictive terms it got a lot right, but couldn't have foreseen how some people would go crazy *after* the pandemic ended. Then I got to the actual end. Seems much richer to me than The Stranger, but I never shot anyone.
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My minor Aussie new wave pick is Do-Re-Mi's "Man Overboard", likely the first charting single to mention pubic hair and maybe the first non-comedy song at all to do so (the Dead Kennedys' "Stars and Stripes of Corruption" was also '85, guess it was just due):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4Y6...
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Guys I found a couple holy grails…
Rocking out to CM PUNKs entrance!
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Half-year Jump/Jump Plus rankings:
1. Akane-Banashi
2. Dandadan
3. Girl Meets Rock!
4. Kagurabachi
5. One Piece
Series I'm not sure is any good but I'm enjoying anyway: Aliens, Baseball, and Civilization (couple gets isekai'd to some planet, teach the natives America's pastime, colonialist much?)
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Takeru Hokazono, Kagurabachi. Shonen Jump doesn't feel right without a popular swords-&-stuff title, and this is one of the better guardians of that position. Nothing too original, just well done plotting and pacing and immense style in fights and fashion. Still hope the characters deepen a little.
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Though if I'd bothered with an EP category (and maybe I should've, '85 was an EP-ish year), the Able Tasmans' The Tired Sun (tracks 13–18 at the below) would be my top NZ entry:
abletasmans.bandcamp.com/album/a-cupp...
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"This Is the Way", from The Lost EP is one of the prettiest minor Chills songs with its slide guitar and odd chord progression. Does the lead track of an EP count as a single yeah sure
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ITK...
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thank u 4 your service
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The Catcher in the Rye. Glad I didn't read this in my teens so I didn't take Holden too much to heart, but also glad I didn't read this in my 20s so I didn't dismiss it out of hand. He's a dipshit but not a worthless dipshit, and few books better capture this state he may or may not grow up out of.
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bsky.app/profile/brad...
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Learned about Dapper Dan from Al Shipley: www.thebaltimorebanner.com/culture/musi...
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Favorite "how had I not heard that before" pick so far is Mai Tai's "History" (a decent-sized hit in New Zealand.) The mix on streaming services is a bit superior, but this reconstituted video's low budget "edgy" alt-comedy sketch show vibe hits the nostalgia button:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9wf...
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ANYWAY, I've been combing the '85 PPP research of @otherdavemoore.com and his main, Tunisia-born Amina's "Scheherazade" is worth a shout (in a year when keyboard presets were taking over the global, at least this had actual bottom end under it)
www.otherdavemoore.com/p/waiting-wa...
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Yeah, at first the "this doesn't feel like D.C." vibe is distracting, but then it starts resonating with how everything else about that family feels wrong
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Jackson Mac Low, Thing of Beauty: New and Selected Works. Took me the whole year to date. Mostly for extreme avant-gardists, or people with data-adjacent degrees who are somewhat avant-gardist, but it gives insight into what poetry *means* when it's trivial to general infinite texts algorithmically.
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(also is it just me or does the first protagonist Dahai talk kind of operatically)
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Not finding Asian and continental European albums I might vote for (dunno how to judge the Ran soundtrack; the Ex got better with age; only got thru ein halb of 1/2 Mensch.) Oh well, thank the algo for "Plastic Love", which given my electorate will get like two votes
www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_lC...
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Banner year for New Zealand music. The Chills maybe you know about, the comparably great Able Tasmans maybe not: nobody else on the label could turn wimpy elements into a nonwimpy whole.
(or as a YouTube comment puts it: "This is dork music and it's my favorite.")
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwqa...
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Aside from "Don't Wanna Fall in Love", the other song I didn't knowingly hear until this year was the Zitany Neil, which appeared on Edna Martinez's Diblo Dibaba Special, conveniently reviewed here: bradluen.substack.com/p/semipop-li...
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WWE's long had a disproportionately Black audience (see e.g. wrestlenomics.com/2023/12/05/a...). Would like to see more recent data; 2021-22's nearly a whole Roman Reigns title reign ago now
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The Brazilian comp Não São Paulo isn't consistent enough to vote for, but it does give an interesting snapshot of a scene developing in conjunction with many other scenes internationally. The outro of the lead track, by Akira S e As Garotas Que Erraram, has Holger Czukay on French horn somehow:
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You'd make good running buddies, is all I'm saying
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About the same as Chappell Roan's best 5k, not bad
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Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children
I've read a zillion "families who can't stand each other" novels. How rough could this one be?
oh man
oh god
oh fjuck
OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFSNGKDSVNKFVNDSJVNJDVNJCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
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"now, to fully understand the significance of the guy in the American flag Speedos shoving his crotch into the Mexican wrestler's masked face, we need to go back to the 1952 Shadow vs. El Santo feud..."
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which reminds me I need to start watching A Touch of Sin right now before AEW Grand Slam Mexico starts
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It's notable though perhaps explicable that British "music people" on Bsky still talk about music quite a lot, whereas many US music people aren't talking about music much at all. (I'm adding to the problem; on here I mostly want to talk about historical protest movements and Jia Zhangke movies.)
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There needs to be a Wikipedia article on List of Rail Band Members (with a big chart on it) like the Fall has. (1970 is Salif Keita and some other guys; mid-'80s is Djelimady Tounkara and I think completely different other guys.)
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I only listened to one volume of León Gieco's years-in-the-making epic De Ushuaia a La Quiaca, but I'm more likely to get through the whole thing one day than I am Biograph. Is this one about a love searched for for a decade a national metaphor? Is anything not?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nujw...
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Seems 1985 was a good year for Argentina (for music and for putting fascists on trial anyway.) Sumo's resentment (it was also a good year for resentment) comes through even in español; the spirit of (post-) punk comes through in the sax and their "o mama papa y mama".
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuaG...
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Later the son of factory workers (turned Chengdu TV presenter) mentions the Chyi Chin saw "The Outside World" and it's just begging for this treatment, only the vocal barely begins before it's brought to a halt by the sound of a rock going through a window:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_AR...
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Absolutely can't believe you have a less-than-complete understanding of the appeal of Crazy Frog. It's a frog! Who is crazy!