I’ll be upfront about this. I’m going to have a rant and then make up for it with something nice. I’ll explain the nice and then I’ll have my rant.

Ya ever think about Kylie Minogue? And how fucking deadly she generally is? Well the big con to Kylie Minogue is that she’s put out a million songs with a million live albums and at least on Christmas album, so the bangers are mixed out among a lot of shite. Well here you go, the ultimate Kylie Minogue greatest hits as curated by me.

Ok, so now for ranting. And it’s not a musical rant. It’s a TV and film rant. Have you been to the cinema lately? Watch the trailers and count the “original ideas”. What I mean by an original idea is one that is not based on a pre-existing fan-base. So films that are not based on books, comics or fairy tales or are sequels/ prequels/ reboots/ English language or live action remakes of previously released films. In my last few cinema trips I’ve seen one new idea in eleven trailers. There is a glut of huge budget films with low risk ideas, never letting a possible franchise die. The movie making machine is churning out more and more content with out really taking any more ideas in.

Even when a new idea appears, it is bled of any marketable value to the point until nothing remains. To be honest it’s hard to come up with an example of a film that has come out of nowhere and been massively successful in a long time. So I’ll take an example that came from literature before moving to film, Harry Potter. That was an original idea once. Almost 20 years later it is done. There is nothing more that can be explored, imagined or discussed about it. And that is just how things are done now. Everything that’s half way decent gets a sequel or another season. Everything successful that’s not in English gets remade. By the time a studio has made their sequels and trilogies, nobody cares about the ending. Think of Lost. Everyone loved the beginning but how many people lasted to the end? And again, how many people look back on it fondly? Probably not even the cast.

I know that new ideas are out there. Ideas of complete story arcs. Narratives that begin and end without thinking about merchandise or season finales. I know lots of people who have studied film and are making films. More people are creating unique things all the time. I just wish we could see more of them really be successful. Stories need to end and new stories need to be told.

Now here’s Kylie Minogue to make it all better

I feel like we’ve all forgotten about Republic of Loose. I was only like 13 or 14 when “Aaagh!” came out and I didn’t really catch any of the stories around the band, but by 2008 they were the coolest band to ever exist in Ireland. I don’t remember what happened to make it all stop and it doesn’t really matter in the context of this little idea. What I wanted to do is just make a note, out here on the internet, of how fucking weird it was that Republic of Loose ever happened. “Comeback Girl” is the possibly the greatest Irish song of all time. This was a soul band, a band with chest hair, a band fronted by a man who wanted to be called Johnny Pyro who sang about dirty sex and drugs. And for a few years everybody was cool with that. I think that that’s fuckin cool.

Also, if you like Republic of Loose and Spotify is trying to make you listen to Paddy Casey or the fucking Coronas, just listen to This Club. Closest vibe you’ll get that’s still Irish and they’re solid live.

 

-“no, i’m on the emo boy body plan

i’m also saving for full body laser hair removal”

-“ew”

-“i’ll be just wearing belts instead of shirts in no time”

 

Last week I thought I broke my hand. I got back to Galway on Sunday and I’ve been avoiding Pierre because he’s French and they take handshakes seriously. I knew it would take too long to explain. I was correct.

Just take this. I’d been planning on making a giant playlist to make up for not posting and then it didn’t happen and didn’t happen so here’s what I had. I love you and I’m sorry

Hit me up if any links don’t work

I don’t really even write stuff for this anymore. I just collect music and put together playlists and then apologize for not putting this together sooner. I’ve been doing stuff. Nothing important though. One thing that kinda matters is that I’ve been thinking about what I share. For the most part I’ve been sharing Soundcloud or Spotify playlists and maybe one or two Youtube videos. I feel like that limits the music that I share because of the scenes involved. I like Soundcloud because it’s easy to use and ya can slide from one artist to another and find cool stuff. The problem is that it’s mostly electonicy/ dancey/ dj boys kinda stuff. That’s fucking fine if that’s what you want, but I don’t think it is what I want for this blog. I want to share free music, and especially Irish music that you can go see live. I’m not saying I have any sway in the real world and in career-making or anything like that, but if I can share something and you like it, I’d like that you can then go and see this person or band and tell them you liked it.

Fuck it anyway like. This is a quick blog with a fair amount of music in it. Some ya can pay for  and some I’ll give ya for free.

Some bits and bobs from soundcloud

Go here for some old stuff by Humor, who I talked about many moons ago.

Get this from Cult Called Man, who have a gig this Friday in Ratoath and are busy being cool and worrying Modest Mouse. Once you hear that free one and see this amazing cover you’ll understand why they’re allowed do things like that.

If you feel like paying for stuff you should check out the new Twin Shadow before he blows up coz he’s in the trailer for one of those movies where guys fall in love with weird girls.

Last but not least, there is a fucking truck load of new Zoax merch online as well as physical copies of the new one from them.

Ok that’s it. Hit me up if you have cool stuff worth sharing or if you hate any of it or love any of it or want to tell me any secrets.

Hectic few weeks of college. I’ve got some really fucking cool tunes though. One Allan Kingdom and then a playlist of ten tracks. All free. That’s how we do.

Decided to try a new look for the site. I cut down on the menus and crap and cut down on my categories. Posts are divided into free and not free because that’s how I want to go about this from now on. Click on the menu three line thingy in the top corner for the menu and the different categories. Just a bit simpler.

Back in college which means back to long periods of time on public transport or, in a positive vibes kinda universe, long periods of listening time. This week I’ve been listening to a lot of 80s r’n’b, Rick James and The Gap Band and stuff like that. I tried to find some free remixes or whatever so there’s a couple thrown in there. It’s weird because a lot of it is really remixable but I didn’t find a lot. The thing about it is that a lot of these songs were sampled in the late 80s through to the 90s and a lot of the artists that sampled it made big money as pop/hip-hop/electronic acts so none of it ends up being free. Will Smith ripped off a ton of old r’n’b tracks and I really don’t want to deal with Big Willy Style right now.

Last time I was talking about not listening to any rap anymore so I went and listened to stuff that seems to be big. I didn’t find a lot a really liked. Chuck Inglish’s album seems pretty solid and I like the new Childish Gambino. I’m gonna listen through the older Chuck Inglish tapes and I’ll get back to them on here later.

Here’s volume 6 anyway. I had trouble with downloads for this one, tracks were claiming to be free but then wouldn’t download. I think I weeded all of them out. Leave a comment if any of them don’t work in this set or if you find any in earlier playlists.

I’ve been working on quite a large post for a couple of days but the motivation has died for it. I had the music picked and I was working in the post itself, layout and whatever, and I just lost the buzz for it. I’ll come back to it someday. Instead, I’ve got free music. Always good. Plenty of remixes. Mostly sticks to a kind of disco vibe because that’s what I’ve been listening to. I went back to some of my old sources of tunes to add a little bit of variety.

One thing I don’t have a lot of is hip hop. I was a massive hip hop head a few years ago and I feel like I’ve slipped away from it. With that in mind I want some recommendations if yis have any. I know I have to listen to new Childish Gambino but what else?