Lurker > thundersheep

Giggsalot posted...

- Oh, and Logic is rubbish, sorry. He's a cut price J. Cole, and that guy's never had much going for him either.

QFT.

Really like what I've heard from the K.R.I.T.album (the first half) I somehow forgot about it and never went back since I found out about it while on lunch break at work one day.

Somewhat similar feelings on Mount Eerie. I made it two tracks in and just went "No, I cannot handle this level of emotion right now." I read the reviews and was still completely unprepared. I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point, but... yeah, it's heavy.

One question about Lorde... how do you feel about Green Light? I love the album, don't care for that song AT ALL.
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Moving sucks.
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4, moving to another province this weekend and moving is always stressful, also don't have a job lined up when I get there and the job search is generally stressful. Only positives are being a great relationship and being excited to finally live together as well as having an idea of where I want to focus my creative energy.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

CherryCokes posted...

If you are a 76ers fan you would have been drinking jubilantly in the first half and drowning your sorrows so far in the second

I knew it was over once we were up by 20. It's happened literally every time we've played a top team this season. Dominate the first half, fall apart in the third and never come back. The one exception was the second game against the Rockets, who were without Chris Paul for both games anyway.
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Maxim Lapierre playing in the Olympics is everything I've ever wanted.
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CherryCokes posted...

Weekday basketball time

Kinda wish I was at a bar getting day drunk for this game tbh, I've come to enjoy our games against the Celtics for some of reason.
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mcflubbin posted...

I haven't listened to any of their other stuff though, is it worth looking into?

I actually haven't gone back and listened to their earlier stuff yet, but the newer Ep warm glow is pretty good. More of the same, but pretty good.

I can't stop listening to Vince Staples right now. I'm not talking about Big Fish Theory either, I just can't stop listening to all his interviews and stuff. I love hearing this man speak.
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Menji posted...

Wow how did I not know this existed?

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Album #11

Lights - Skin & Earth



I think Lights may be Canada's best kept secret (FTR Daniel Caesar is already blowing up, not eligible). She's just been up here producing and recording some of the tightest pop music of the decade to very little fanfare. While she stayed within the confines of synth/electropop for her first few albums, Skin & Earth is a testament to her range as a producer as the album is an eclectic mix of many pop genres that remains incredibly cohesive and flows brilliantly from start to finish. You have tracks like "Savage" which may be her heaviest to date, featuring hard rock guitar riffs and some truly gripping lyrics about being blindsided in a relationship she's completely poured herself into. There are songs like "We Were Here" and featuring more of a hip-hop/R&B flavour with their pitched down ad-libs and sexy bass grooves, all the way to tracks like "Until the Light" which is literally a tropical house song or "Fight Club" which is... I don't know, but I'm pretty sure I hear a steel drum in there. All the bases are covered and nothing sounds even remotely out of place.

I'll admit that I haven't even looked at the comic book that this ties into, but I can assume that this dual-focus is responsible for why this album is so dynamic and cohesive at the same time. Serving as a soundtrack as well as an album in its own right it has the ups and downs you'd expect while reading a compelling narrative as well as a neat resolution tying everything up at the end. The album is nearly flawless. Nearly. The lead single "Giants" is kind of trash.
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I honestly wasn't expecting to have listened to anything in your top 10 but I do remember checking out Music for People in Trouble the week it was released. Every once in a while I'll check out an album solely based on it's title or album art, and it happened to be both that piqued my interest for that album. Cool to see it on the list.
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Solioxrz362 posted...

Between Life and Games is on WordPress so I say use Squarespace

I can't see anyone making a better argument than this.
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digiiiiiiiii posted...

i have made a bunch of websites on basically all platforms

there are aspects of wordpress that are clunky and archaic, but it is still the most widely-supported platform and has the most customization options and stuff like that, but the other two are more focused on beginners

i launched destination android ( http://www.destinationandroid.com/ ) last year and i'm on wordpress

Yeah, I'm just curious how long it would take to put something like this together as a first time user. Your theme/layout is pretty similar to something I would consider using, as it's focused on the writing rather than images. I know using SS I could basically change a colour scheme and start typing content right away... was there any extra work you had to do in order to get the site to look like that, or was it just working from a theme that already existed? Also curious if that was a free or premium theme.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

Album #10

Hippo Campus - Landmark



As I've said at least 18 times on this board now, it was a real matter of chance that I discovered this band in the first place. Me and my girlfriend were at a bar on vacation wondering what we should do that night. Deciding to look for live music within walking distance we decided on Hippo Campus and the rest... well I'll tell you the rest.

It was a rock bar in a seedier part of town so we really had no idea what type of music to expect or the crowd that type of music would bring in. Lucky for us everyone was extremely friendly and surprisingly trustworthy. I distinctly remember people just leaving their bags/backpacks in the dark corner of the room where we were standing, rather than just checking them in at the front. Extremely positive vibes as the kids say. The same could be said for the music and their performance. There's a curious optimism to this album and it quickly became one of my favourite feelgood albums of the year. It's an album filled with bright, infectious melodies yet the compositions are unique and varied enough to prevent the music from sounding frivolous, no matter how happy and carefree the timbres are.

The album also contains a couple of my favourite moments of the year (which I now realize could be a separate and much more interesting list) in both it's intro and false ending. The track I posted has a heavily processed intro called "Sun Veins" that leads beautifully into "Way It Goes" and I mean beautifully. It's the kind of stuff seamless playback was invented for. The false ending is more of an album quirk and I just love that it fools me every time. Two slow tracks are played back-to-back "Poems" and "Monsoon" and the latter just has the exact feel of an album closer. No matter how many times I listen to the album I get to the end of Monsoon and reflect on how good it was, only to remember there are still 4 tracks left. It's kind of like thinking you left only one piece of pizza in the box and then finding out there are actually two... or five?

Anyway it's a great indie rock record with some pop sensibilities and it turns out I might actually be seeing them again next week as we return to Vancouver... how serendipitous.
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Anagram posted...

I may go somewhere to get it properly dyed blond to see whats it like.

Not trying to be a dick, but is that something you've like... always wanted to do? I don't know any guy who's dyed their hair blond in the last 15 years.
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I need to start blogging again and I'm curious if the landscape has changed at all when it comes to website builders. I used Squarespace back in the day and while it was a little expensive, it was really easy to use and allowed me to spend more time writing than making sure everything looked good.

Right now I'm looking at Squarespace, Wix and Wordpress and I can't say I'm noticing much of a difference between any of them. They all have decent templates (though very few suitable for the type of blog I have in mind) that look clean and modern so I'm more curious about the inner workings of each. Are they all basically drag and drop now, allowing you to resize and move elements around as you please? Easy integration of SoundCloud widgets, Twitter functionality so you can tweet new posts/updates and all that jazz?

From what I remember of the argument, Squarespace (and from what I've seen, Wix looks similar) offers much less customization with a greater ease-of-use while WordPress lets you do basically anything you want but has a bit of a learning curve. I'll likely register my domain through Hover, but will require hosting with unlimited bandwidth/storage which I think everyone offers in some form...

Basically, I just want to use whatever tools will allow me to spend the least amount possible on maintaining the site, price isn't much of a factor.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

Song #5

Halsey - 100 Letters



I feel roughly the same about Halsey's album as I do about A Fever Dream. There are 4-5 tracks in the first half that I find decent, and then "Now or Never" begins a parade of garbage that spans the rest of the album... Still, I find myself in love with this track and it's the only one I keep returning to. Since hopeless fountain kingdom is a fairly by-the-numbers pop record, the production on this track is the first thing that immediately stands out, especially in terms of percussion. The lyrics contain both the trademark specificity and clever metaphors she became known for in her first album and her delivery sounds effortless in the good way, which can't be said for many other tracks on the album where it honestly just feels phoned in.

Completely unrelated: The fact that this is Song #5 just reminded me of HAIM and the fact that they released an album this year. Talk about a let down. I remember discovering HAIM and Lorde around the same time and listening to them both nonstop for all of 2013... Funny enough they both came out with 2017 albums, yet the results were so, so different.
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Honorable Mention

Everything Everything - A Fever Dream



This could quite possibly be my favourite half-album of 2017. Somehow I absolutely fell in love with everything on this album up until "Run the Numbers" and then didn't care for anything that came after it. It's a weird feeling because I know every rock band is going to have slower and less chaotic songs in an album, it can't be turned up to 11 all the time... but I just can't connect with much in the latter half of the album, regardless of how well it may be written and performed. The only exception may be the short track/interlude "New Deep" which is just straight up weird in the way that I love. It's the kind of track that I would keep to myself for years, only to bring it out when I want to blow someone's mind during an acid trip.

It's definitely an album I will have to listen to more, as I still haven't really dug in to examine all of the lyrical themes, but on a purely sonic level it contains some of my favourite moments of the year such as the entire closing third of "Big Game" and the pre-chorus of "Can't Do". While those are some of the sequences I found myself playing in my head over and over again this year, the fact that I couldn't vibe with the second half at all earns this an HM rather than a spot on the list.
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Sunday Funday.

Might have to do some more HMs today, feeling in a funk.
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

i considered guessing kendrick but i wasn't sure how DAMN was received - didn't seem like people were freaking out over it like they were over TPAB. but according to wikipedia DAMN did get rave reviews i could've seen it coming i guess.

I think the only reason there wasn't as much fanfare is that after the third in a row we're all beginning to expect greatness from him.

Either that or the fact that it didn't get a 10 from Fantano.
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As silly as haunted house movies are I really love stuff like The Conjuring, The Others, Insidious and even 13 Ghosts (which is basically a comedy). The only horror movies in my top overall list would be comedy though. Stuff like Cabin in the Woods, Drag Me To Hell, Get Out, Scream (comedy/slasher really).
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Guessing Kendrick, St. Vincent, Lorde and... Offa Rex.

I think I'm gonna have to check out Flower Boy after reading your thoughts. I've slept on Tyler for many of the same reasons, to the point that I didn't even bother looking at the features on his newest album. Though to be honest all you had to say is that he's matured, and I would have been sold.
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Bump.
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NBIceman posted...

Anyone who's actually watching the games sees Marchessault is blossoming into an excellent hockey player. It's not his fault Florida didn't recognize his potential.

Yeah, I think it was Barkov that was injured near the start of last season and he really became the guy for a while, putting up some great numbers. I guess they thought it was a fluke because there was no reason to leave him unprotected after the kind of year he had.
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Album #9

Mother Mother - No Culture



I really thought this record would take the country (Canada) by storm... but it really just came and went without much fanfare at all. Mother Mother have been gaining steam over the past few years as their sound has moved closer and closer to the mainstream and really started to embrace melody and pop sensibilities. In this album they've almost completely lost their edge in favor of a pop-rock sound and the results are... impressive? I could honestly describe this album as both their least interesting, and their most consistent. It's quite safe compared to their previous records, but so incredibly polished that it's easy to overlook the simplicity and just enjoy the sounds. Literally every track here is am earworm, in an obvious way as well, almost as if they were ghost-produced by a Max Martin protege. Given the general feeling about bands like Maroon 5 and Fallout Boy I'm not sure that there is much of a market for pop rock these days, but all I can say is that this album proves Mother Mother can do it better than anyone.
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Is there a list of B8 BattleTags anywhere? I only have 1 guy on my friend's list who plays Hearthstone (all my friends are WoW) and it's kind of a pain waiting for him to log in to to those spectate and challenge quests.
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Tag, I'll post some real shit later.

Happy birthday duder. I don't know if we ever really talked, but you always seemed pretty cool and likeable.
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Album #8

Tove Lo - Blue Lips



I'm not sure if Tove Lo is being marketed correctly. Yes, her music and image are intensely sexual and her lyrics forgo innuendo all together, instead discussing sexual activity with the same level of delicacy you'd expect from Khia. But in listening to her full-length albums (all of which are concept albums, of a sort) it doesn't take long to realize that her music is often supremely sad. Even in tracks that seem to celebrate free love and hookup culture there is an underlying theme that this type of behaviour is merely fun, rather than fulfilling.

While both Queen of the Clouds and last year's Lady Wood explored the same concept in the journey of a relationship, her 2017 LP is the first that truly feels like a story from start to finish. Rather than starting with infatuation and limerence before transitioning into the conflict and eventual downfall of the relationship, Blue Lips begins with the conflict and details the struggle of trying to save something that is so clearly broken. It's hard to put into words just how sad this album is. It is still pop music in both production and arrangement, each track hovers around 3:30 in length and her hooks are as catchy as they've ever been, but there is an unsettling air of futility around everything that prevents me from enjoying it the same way as I have her previous albums. The story starts dark, and it just gets more depressing as the album goes on. Tove Lo has never sounded more vulnerable, and the understated electronic production allow you to truly focus on the most cutting and heartfelt lyrics she's ever written.

In short, this is by far the best music she's ever released and it feels like she has finally finished telling the story she began in 2014.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

Yeah, my library makes shuffle basically unusable since there are so many "situational" songs and albums included.

I just use a "Thumbs Up" playlist on Google Play when I want to shuffle and it's basically filled with either singles I love, or great songs from average to terrible albums I never listen to. It basically ensures I don't get sick of anything I really like, and cuts out any songs I dislike, or don't feel too strongly about.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

Today. Content.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

Wearing my Science Fiction shirt today.
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Album #7

Creeper - Eternity, In Your Arms



It goes against everything in me to enjoy a band this derivative, but something about Creeper both speaks to my nostalgia, and repackages it in a way I can respect, rather than dismiss as an inferior copy. I even hate it when journalists make reductive comparisons to other bands rather than describing the music itself, but Creeper is a band that has no qualms about wearing their influences on their sleeve. They are literally a blend of AFI, My Chemical Romance and Meat Loaf, with a dash of Alkaline Trio. And I mean literally. Yet somehow their music still feels fresh. It's kinda like that thing they say about cooking where it's not about the ingredients, but how you put them together? Someone said that, right? I didn't just make that up? Anyway, it seems true here.

I think my favourite aspect of this band are their theatrics. The music is so unabashedly dramatic, in a way I haven't seen or heard since... MCR. They're a band you know are having a ton of fun, as much as they try to look dark and brooding for their aesthetic. They make me wish I was 10 years younger so I could wear their stupid patch on a thrift store leather jacket. Weirdly enough, they're making me understand fandom and I'm oddly happy the Warped Tour kids are obsessing themselves with something I can actually consider "my generation". I knew things were moving faster, but it really is a sign of the times that a band can be considered a throwback to something popular just 10 years ago.

In closing, AFI, My Chemical Romance, Meat Loaf and Alkaline Trio. If that sounds good to you, you'll love this band.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

Tagging this, hard.
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Honorable Mention

Harry Styles - S/T



This is a really odd album for me. I don't think it's all that good and there might only be 2-3 tracks I actually like on it... yet it feels full of potential and I still find myself trying to convince people it's good every chance I get. Despite the fact that it seems like a scattered attempt at proving Harry's depth and range as an artist and vocalist after leaving One Direction (who I am completely unfamiliar with, for the record) I still find myself believing all of the hype as I listen to it. I hear one track and think to myself "he could have a career making psychedelic rock if he leaned more in this direction", another track makes me think he could be the next Billy Joel, or Billy Idol. Hell, he could probably be Billy Ocean if he tried hard enough. The experiment worked. I'm now paying attention to this kid and I cannot wait to see what he does next. I just hope it's more focused in a particular genre or sound rather than just showing everyone what he's capable of. I'm already impressed. I'm just waiting for him to blow me away.
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MariaTaylor posted...

I played that game like 40 hours and then my friend informed me that I wasn't even halfway through it

at that point I said 'no thanks'

literally was not interested in continuing to invest more time in the game at the pace the plot was moving

The problem with that game is you never know when you're "supposed" to leave a zone, and if you try to 100% zones before leaving them, you'll out level future content and burn yourself out on useless quests at the same time. The story can move at a decent pace on subsequent playthroughs, it's just that you never know when you're supposed to move on during your first.
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More.
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kateee posted...

Rainbow is great but i'm also a fan of the old Kesha, the party girl Kesha, the trashy rep Kesha, the show me where your dick's at Kesha

Same here, I think Warrior is a great album as well. It's just harder to sell pop haters on old Kesha. I feel like this new album is undeniable, though that might just be because I've been a fan of hers for so long.
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Yes, because it's just disappointing. Not necessarily "bad".
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

SpikeDragon posted...

Rondo with a career high 25 assists tonight, the most in a single game since Jason Kidd in 1996 according to a reddit post. Dayum

Man, I honestly don't even know what team Rondo is playing for right now without checking it. Sad...
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Song #4

The M Machine - Blind (feat. Luisa Gerstein)



I'm still not quite sure what it is about this song that resonates with me... but outside the context of an album, it's probably my favourite track of the year (and also a Rainy Mood all-star for anyone who rolls that way). I would consider The M Machine masters of production and sound design, but this isn't a track I would use as an example of either of those things. It feels quite simple in it's construction, and even the lyrics while above typical EDM fare, aren't anything entirely special. If anything, the song's greatest achievement was getting me overhyped for an album I didn't even enjoy all that much.

...I thought I had more to say about this song.
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Album #6

Royal Blood - How Did We Get So Dark?



Welcome to Riff City
Population: Me

Yes, I live here now. I don't think any single album has ever been responsible for so much air guitar (or should I say air bass?) in my entire life... and I actually own a guitar now. I discovered this band by complete chance while browsing the BBC's coverage of Reading and Leeds, or possible Glastonbury this year and I'm pretty sure they're what reignited my love for hard rock earlier this year. This is the kind of music that makes me want to damage my ears. I'm listening as I type right now and I'm barely resisting the urge to turn the volume up 10 levels higher than my default setting. It's the kind of music I literally cannot sit still while listening to. If my hands weren't on the keyboard I'd be drumming right along. If my ass weren't in the seat I'd be jumping around doing windmills. If there weren't a bunch of people in the house I'd be screaming the lyrics at the top of my... you get it. This music is really fucking fun. When they're not melting faces with the chunkiest riffs you'll ever hear, they can set one hell of a groove, as evidenced in tracks like "She's Creeping".

I will admit that I was a little bit late in discovering Royal Blood and that all this gushing is likely due to the fact that I wasn't paying attention when they released their debut album. Even so, I can't deny that this album contains some of the best hard rock I've heard. Of any era.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

Album #5

Kesha - Rainbow



I think the hardest part of being a pop-apologist is containing my rage when people try to dismiss an album like Rainbow based on Kesha's image over the last few years. I can't blame anyone for thinking she's a dumb party girl that makes disposable chart-pop because some of her best songs in the past were exactly that... but holy fucking shit is this album a departure. If you've been following the accusations and court battles between her, Sony and Dr. Luke it's remarkable enough that she planned to release a studio album this year at all, the fact that this album ended up the best of her career and easily one of the strongest in the genre this year is awe-inspiring. "Praying" on its own would have been enough of a statement. She deserves all of the accolades for turning an experience that painful into a song that powerful... but what makes this album so special is that she does not only take her worst memories and use them to make incredible, moving music... she also performs some of the most fun music she's ever recorded. It's not a somber album about surviving sexual assault, it's a triumphant album about thriving, even after going through the unimaginable.

I honestly get emotional just thinking about this album, never mind actually listening to it. If you've been sleeping on Kesha until now, it might be time to give her a shot.
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Bump.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

Live?
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Holidays have way too many obligations. I just want to talk about Harry Styles.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

INCEPTlON posted...

thundersheep posted...

Music: Rock

What is going on with this board?

The same thing that happens with any genre board really, people with terrible opinions acting as if anything outside their chosen genre/subgenre is garbage.

But I really only visit a couple boards here anymore so it's not even THAT bad, it's just that music discussion on B8 can actually be enriching.
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Music: Rock
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Zyxyz0 posted...

cold is subjective, it's whenever it's noticeably lower than what you're used to in the area where you live
"X degrees and below is cold" "no that's not cold" etc. arguments are pointless

are you new here or something
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I'm Canadian, anything hovering around 0 is cold (Fahrenheit).
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Twist: It's actually the Xtreme Fighting League designed to compete with UFC.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares

Honorable Mention

Blondie - Pollinator



Expectations are everything. I'm a pretty big Blondie fan, but nobody is eagerly anticipating a Blondie album in 2017. I think my exact thoughts when playing it for the first time were "Well, it might not be terrible", and that turned out to be a huge understatement. Debbie Harry is 72 and this album is good. It's not one of the best of the year, but it's good. This album shouldn't work. We have a 72 year old woman singing in the same style and genre as she did in the 70's and it somehow sounds great. This is genuine new-wave music and even the themes haven't matured. She's still singing about having fun and hooking up and it just sounds right. There is something about people their age doing what they love and actually being great at it that makes me so fucking happy. It's the most unexpectedly inspirational album I've heard... well, there are some competitors this year, but it's still hella inspirational. Rock on sister.
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http://soundcloud.com/thundersheep/these-beautiful-nightmares