Liаm
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Posts posted by Liаm
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01 Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour
Highlights: Slow Burn, High Horse, Butterflies, Oh What A World, Lonely Weekend
If you’ve paid any attention to my posts (dw I don’t either x) this year this will be no surprise :kink: Bizarrely, I remember being really disappointed by the era so far when we just had Butterflies and Space Cowboy :rofl:
This album is just extraordinary, I remember listening for the first time and barely having the words to express what I felt. Every listen, this just grabs me up and whisks me away into some glorious ethereal breezy realm, suspended from real life, and for that 40 minutes or so I’m experiencing every word and emotion Kacey is singing about. The melodies wrap around your ears, it’s such a soothing but affecting listen, that feeling of being so content that you just feel warm about where you are in life. The songwriting is astounding, capturing perfectly things you didn’t know you ever felt, but you know that you felt them as soon as you hear them being sung to you, and the production is exquisite. This is all country, no doubt, but it bends so many genres to craft something that could only be Kacey Musgraves. The songs really linger, and that’s largely due to the way with words and melodies that Kacey has, she crafts it all like magic and the words settle in your brain, pierce your heart and won’t leave you. It may be too early to declare this, but this has to be one of the absolute best albums I’ve ever heard and I will never run out of words to say how bloody incredible it is. I had the pleasure to see it live in October and it was just magical, she's got such a gift.
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Cut To The Feeling is pop perfection, so soaring :wub: Carly robbed of another hit. Never Learn is a bop too, she's one I'd love to see come back with something else in Melfest in a year or two! As for Friends, I had a real week or two of stanning but rarely go back to it now, good song but she rarely properly hits in a lasting way with me (Shhh aside :wub:), similar to the real chart :lol:
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03 Carrie Underwood – Cry Pretty
Highlights: Cry Pretty, The Bullet, Love Wins, Southbound, That Song We Used To Make Love To
Carrie absolutely ALWAYS brings it, but artistically this feels like a real step forward for her. Flecks of R&B are all the rage in country at the minute, thanks to the likes of Sam Hunt and Maren Morris, and Carrie has managed to experiment a bit more on this album without losing any of her heart and charm, or that honesty and raw truth that makes for great country. Country can often be a bit muted poitically, and whilst Carrie still shys away from talking about politics in interviews etc. this is a brave record that tackles gun crime and same-sex marriage, as well as the usual topics of love, regret, shame etc. that you’d find in country normally. As a whole album, this just feels like such a moment and one that will likely define her growth as an artist in years to come. The title track is an arena-ready huge rock influenced ballad, The Bullet is devastatingly raw in its take on gun crime, Love Wins is an incredibly uplifting celebration of the love we need and should be focusing on, and Southbound is such a breezy pop bop, perfect for summer, there’s so much on offer here but it all maintains that pure country heart that makes Carrie such a megastar. We even get some hip-hop Carrie in the form of Champion, an NFL anthem that features Ludacris, bop x
02 Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born
Highlights: Shallow, I'll Never Love Again, Always Remember Us This Way, Is That Alright?, Hair Body Face
Just missing out on gold is a soundtrack album from the queen of pop, who reached a new level of her superstardom with this. I knew this movie and soundtrack would be great, but I couldn’t have ever dreamed it would be such a moment. It’s not just the music, but the triumph that the film and music have had as well, they’ve really contributed to my love for it. The music is brilliant, there’s a lot of what Gaga brought on Joanne that really worked, that raw and organic vibe that just lets her world class voice do the talking (or singing), on ballads like Shallow and I’ll Never Love Again. When you apply them to the character of Ally and how they fit into her story, it’s all so striking and even when you just listen to the album, you can follow the journey of the film, you rarely want to skip anything because it’s all so good and fits within the structure of the album. Bradley has some great turns here too, and there’s even some bops like Hair Body Face and Why Did You Do That for fans of classic Gaga. This might have cemented her in the film world, but I expect it will inform her musical endeavours from now on too, and I would be totally ok with the best vocalist around right now doing that.
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Sorry this is a bit late compared to C4 (those results will be revealed at the same time as these when the voting goes up), but here we go! We've already gone through the classic Channel 4 housemates, but how about the recently concluded modern era of Big Brother? From Paddy Doherty's (somehow) win in CBB8 all the way up to Cameron Cole in BB19, we had a hell of a lot of series on Channel 5 between two celeb a year and one civillian, so who are your faves? After you've chosen, they'll be combined with the C4 lot and January will see you crown your ultimate housemate, hopefully that helps with the gap BB will leave in January.
The Channel 5 era covers Celebrity Big Brother 8-22 and Big Brother 12-19, perhaps not some of their best moments and it saw the viewership decline, but there were still some amazing moments from the wide range of housemates that walk in and out of the doors to the iconic house.
As before, here are the rules:
- You can nominate as few as 10 or as many as 50 of your favourite housemates, as long as they cover the Channel 4 era. As stated, they can be from celebrity or civillian.
- Please format your votes as +50, +49, etc. and just stop wherever, it's much easier to count that way. For example if you're only doing a top 10, just go down to +41.
- Don't worry if you've only seen a couple of series or bits of series, if you have a bunch of housemates you like as people from what they brought to what you've seen, please do nominate! This isn't about who's seen every series as a superfan, it's about celebrating the people that made Big Brother what it is today.
- Commentary is encouraged, I'm sure some of us are feeling nostalgic over a lot of these housemates!
- If you do want to edit in someone you've forgotten about, that's fine, but post in the thread if you do change anything as I'll be adding up as I go along when I can, so I may miss edits if you don't signpost them.
- You have until 16th February 2019 to get these in.
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Somehow I hadn't realised that Little Mix had managed to get five singles from this album into the charts :lol: Would be interested to see how this does in the long run, Strip only spending two weeks in the Top 100 wasn't a great sign though.
Tbf that's not the proper single, but yeah I'm unsure how it's all going to go! Think About Us I believe is the single but unlike with Touch for example they haven't just gone full steam ahead with the second single so it feels kind of suspended atm.
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Please god can that be the end of Alfie, he always has been a terrible character. I'm really over this storyline and I think they've handled Alfie's return and now Hayley terribly. The actual episode in terms of things happening, secrets coming out and the drama, it was good but they can't expect us to feel sorry for Kat when she cheated on Alfie god knows how many times, and god knows what they're trying to do with Hayley. As I've said already in this thread, I really liked the character but it's just misery porn at this point :lol:
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She got out of the contract, and she's now on her own imprint at Warner, but the label owns the masters to her first two albums. Blackground Records have taken almost all of their former artists' music off streaming and itunes, including most of Aaliyah's catalogue and Toni Braxton's Libra. They essentially no longer exist now, and the owner Barry Hankerson (Aaliyah's uncle) is pure evil, so it's unlikely that her old albums will be for sale anytime soon.
I didn't know that about Aaliyah's stuff :( It is awful and makes this move all the more amazing from JoJo!
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Lost My Mind really is a highlight on No Shame :wub:
:wub:
Hello Liam!Really like most of the albums, really surprised that you like Francesca Michelin's album!
I thought I was the only one who knows her music!
I looove her she's one of my faves! I like a lot of Italian pop but it's her and Annalisa at the top for me.
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Oops I realised I forgot an album so I'll slot it in as it WOULD have been top 10 :rofl:
Little Mix - LM5
Highlights: Woman Like Me, Strip, Wasabi, Forget You Not, The Cure
This has been a bit divisive for the girls, at a time when they could easily (and probably should) have released a Glory Days mark II full of undeniable pop bangers that the public would eat up. Of course, it's hardly experimental darkwave or jazz metal or anything wild, but there feels like there's a bit more risk on this album, they're not relying on the undeniable pop melodies. Wasabi and Strip are very odd for them, shunning traditional pop hallmarks but still feeling like absolute bangers, and it feels like some of the tracks rely on the girls' attitudes and star powered sass rather than great writing or production values that radio will eat up. And whilst this doesn't have highs like Power, Touch or No More Sad Songs from Glory Days, this is perhaps more consistent as an album and really feels like a collection that fits the girls and where they're at now. This proves why they've weathered a storm that's killed many girlbands - they make bloody good pop and they can do it on their terms.
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back to the actual countdown oops x
05 Panic! At The Disco - Pray For The Wicked
Highlights: High Hopes, Say Amen (Saturday Night), Roaring 20s, Hey Look Ma I Made It, Dancing's Not A Crime
Kicking off this top 5 is the highest male vocal *.* Panic are a band I really got into this year, after liking them from afar from a while. Say Amen hit me with such a bang and I ended up checking out this album, and I do not regret a thing! This has all the theatricality and drama that you'd expect after Brendon had a Broadway stint, you can really tell that's informed this album and it's all the better for it. High Hopes is as poppy as they've ever been, but it doesn't lost any of that Panic! charm, there's some brilliant vocals on show and a variety of styles, but Brendon fits each one and sells each one as much as the last, and crucially it never feels like a mish mash. It's a cohesive, yet varied collection of great theatrically tinged pop with a rock edge.
04 Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer
Highlights: Make Me Feel, Pynk, Screwed, American, Crazy Classic Life
This is one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the year for a reason *.* A review I read summed this up SO well, saying that it shows that pop and art don't have to be mutually exclusive. In a time like the one we live in, it is so important for an album to be so unapoletically black, queer and feminist, and this does so with incredible musicality. There's such a unique mix of current and even future sounds, with a sci-fi polished sheen at times, with a real classic and organic rockstar vibe, this has been compared a lot to Prince and that's definitely something that's easy to hear. But she's really in her own lane, like any great artist should be, and I can honestly see this being seen as a milestone in decades to come, even if she never gets the commercial success she deserves.
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Yesss Manila's look was absolutely
brown cowSTUNNING :wub:Her lip-sync was a tired rehash of every other lip-sync she's done... The same silhouette, reveal, fake death-drop... There wasn't much fight to it.For me, Valentina was the clear winner. She gave it her all and it was one of the more fun lip-syncs we've had in a while. Drag Race has become more about who can have the more impressive reveal or surprise - I'm glad they rewarded what felt like a classic lip-sync performance.
I *want* to love Monet but I agree, I feel like even when she's doing well, it's just kind of Monet on autopilot. When you look at others who've been doing well, they're bringing their essence but stepping it up with new things and surprises from them (particularly Naomi) whereas Monet right now seems to just be the same as if these challenges happened on Season 10, even though her girl group performance was great. The lipsync was the same, we've seen it all from her, whereas Valentina just let go and had fun. I love Joe's description of "me in a club" because YES, Valentina was just like any gay getting their life over Into You in a club and that was quite fun and refreshing for a lipsync.
I'm warming to Valentina a bit and she definitely slayed the episode, her talking heads are great too, but I always just feel there's something so off and fake about her so I wouldn't say I'm ever rooting for her.
RuPaul's Drag Race // All Stars 4
in RuPaul's Drag Race
I love how they only start taking down the episodes now it's aired :lol:
Anyway, Trinity's Caitlyn was one of the best Snatch Game performances ever and that's on that.