books! music! memes!
Apr. 20th, 2005 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarea
Do you know how frustrating it is to want a book, and when you can't find it in your normally very well-stocked local used bookshops, you actually decide to buy it from an overpriced retail store such as Borders, only to discover that they're sold out as well (in all 5 locations near you), so you'll just have to buy it online, which you were avoiding because you didn't want to have to wait that long?
I'm sure you have some idea.
The book in question is The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, which looks like one of the better-reviewed books on this topic. I became interested in it after reading a few articles over the past couple of days about how China's all up in arms over one of Japan's new history textbooks, and how Japanese revisionist history is really pissing off both China and Korea. Apparently, Japan is now denying that their military ever forced women (estimates are around 200,000 of them, mainly of Chinese and Korean origin) into being sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during WWII. Hmm, I wonder who I believe. So yeah, I've decided to educate myself a little more on this topic, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of literature on it.
I might have mentioned that I recently got Garbage's new album, "Bleed Like Me." Because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seldon asked, and because I'd be curious to hear other opinions, I wanted to write about what I thought of it so far. It usually takes me a number of listens before I'll get "used" to an album and start liking/loving it. (There are, of course, exceptions.) So take what I say about it now with a grain of salt.
Thus far, it's probably my least favorite Garbage album. I actually liked "Beautiful Garbage," so I'm not one of those detractors who don't like their more pop-like material. But ... there's not much about this album that stands out. The melodies feel repetitive, the lyrics oversimplistic. Maybe they've never been very strong on the lyrical front, but the outstanding music made up for it; that's not been the case with this album, imho. I mean, should the line "life's a bitch, and then you die" really be in a song written by a cutting-edge band? Ummmmmno. I mean, if they're going to go pop, they should at least make it guiltily irresistible, like Britney's "Toxic." Or most of No Doubt's latest stuff. Also? Their songs are now too much about love and relationships. Maybe they've always been that way, but it's never felt quite this obvious. Their lyrics used to feel meaningful; now they feel trite and used up, and the grinding, unimaginative music just does not help matters at all.
There are a couple of bright spots -- my favorite songs right now are Bad Boyfriend and the title track, Bleed Like Me. For those who've listened to the album, what do you think? Am I being too hard on them? It's possible it'll grow on me ... I wasn't enamored of "Beautiful Garbage" initially, either.
This is stolen from the lovely peeps on my friends list.
Rules:
From the list of word pairs below, choose the word from *each* pair that you think best fits me. The person with the most right answers gets a drabble of their choosing (as long as I'm at least vaguely familiar with the fandom ... but why would you want one I had no clue about? <g>). It'll be the first thing I've written in, like, forever. That's the risk you'll be taking on. *snicker*
I'm going to stay mum about the answers until at least this time tomorrow, to give people a chance to guess. So don't ask me how you did Amelia.
* dominant or submissive
* logical or intuitive
* social or loner
* kinky or vanilla
* cute or sophisticated
* kitten or puppy
* warm flannel sheets or sleek satin
* leader or follower
* quiet or talkative
* spontaneous or planned
* teddy bear or porcelain doll
* hiking or window shopping
* tequila or vodka
* top or bottom
* bare foot or shoes
* jeans or slacks
* tender or rough
* aware or dreamy
* nerd or geek
I'm sure you have some idea.
The book in question is The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, which looks like one of the better-reviewed books on this topic. I became interested in it after reading a few articles over the past couple of days about how China's all up in arms over one of Japan's new history textbooks, and how Japanese revisionist history is really pissing off both China and Korea. Apparently, Japan is now denying that their military ever forced women (estimates are around 200,000 of them, mainly of Chinese and Korean origin) into being sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during WWII. Hmm, I wonder who I believe. So yeah, I've decided to educate myself a little more on this topic, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of literature on it.
I might have mentioned that I recently got Garbage's new album, "Bleed Like Me." Because
seldon asked, and because I'd be curious to hear other opinions, I wanted to write about what I thought of it so far. It usually takes me a number of listens before I'll get "used" to an album and start liking/loving it. (There are, of course, exceptions.) So take what I say about it now with a grain of salt.Thus far, it's probably my least favorite Garbage album. I actually liked "Beautiful Garbage," so I'm not one of those detractors who don't like their more pop-like material. But ... there's not much about this album that stands out. The melodies feel repetitive, the lyrics oversimplistic. Maybe they've never been very strong on the lyrical front, but the outstanding music made up for it; that's not been the case with this album, imho. I mean, should the line "life's a bitch, and then you die" really be in a song written by a cutting-edge band? Ummmmmno. I mean, if they're going to go pop, they should at least make it guiltily irresistible, like Britney's "Toxic." Or most of No Doubt's latest stuff. Also? Their songs are now too much about love and relationships. Maybe they've always been that way, but it's never felt quite this obvious. Their lyrics used to feel meaningful; now they feel trite and used up, and the grinding, unimaginative music just does not help matters at all.
There are a couple of bright spots -- my favorite songs right now are Bad Boyfriend and the title track, Bleed Like Me. For those who've listened to the album, what do you think? Am I being too hard on them? It's possible it'll grow on me ... I wasn't enamored of "Beautiful Garbage" initially, either.
This is stolen from the lovely peeps on my friends list.
Rules:
From the list of word pairs below, choose the word from *each* pair that you think best fits me. The person with the most right answers gets a drabble of their choosing (as long as I'm at least vaguely familiar with the fandom ... but why would you want one I had no clue about? <g>). It'll be the first thing I've written in, like, forever. That's the risk you'll be taking on. *snicker*
I'm going to stay mum about the answers until at least this time tomorrow, to give people a chance to guess. So don't ask me how you did
* dominant or submissive
* logical or intuitive
* social or loner
* kinky or vanilla
* cute or sophisticated
* kitten or puppy
* warm flannel sheets or sleek satin
* leader or follower
* quiet or talkative
* spontaneous or planned
* teddy bear or porcelain doll
* hiking or window shopping
* tequila or vodka
* top or bottom
* bare foot or shoes
* jeans or slacks
* tender or rough
* aware or dreamy
* nerd or geek
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 01:11 am (UTC)I love "Cherry Lips," but the rest of Beautiful Garbage didn't do much for me. Version 2.0 remains my favorite Garbage record - not a bad song in the lot.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 06:26 pm (UTC)I love 2.0 and their first album (though I think the latter is actually my favorite). "Beautiful Garbage" grew on me -- initially it was quite different from their other albums so it took some time for me to get used to it. But their latest ... it feels like they're trying to go back to their old sound, combining it with their new pop-like lyrics and simplistic melodies. That's just not working for me.
That's it!
Date: 2005-04-22 03:43 am (UTC)That's it! I got the album and it sounds like it was purposely made entirely of KISS songs (as in "Keep It Simple, Stupid", not as in a bunch of old people with outraegous makeup). I was having some trouble putting that feeling into words, but you hit the nail in the head: they brought back the old sound, but forgot to go back to the complexity of the original melodies...
So, yeah, I don't like it as much as I liked "beautiful" or "garbage" the first time I heard them... but I think it still it is a good album. Once the shock of the simplicity of the melodies wears away, it becomes quite enjoyable. Plus, since english is not my native tongue, the simplicity and corniness of the lyrics is lost on me :p
"Bleed Like Me" is my favorite, as well. Great song, one that wouldn't have worked as well if in an album with a style like "beautifulGarbage". I also like "Why Do You Love Me" - it is the most upbeat song and, while it has all the signs of being a blatant attempt of making into the charts, the moment when Manson acuses her lover of cheating is masterfully done and stays true to the angsty tone of Garbage's melodies. Also, the chorus of "Sex is not the Enemy" is catchy - I'm going to sing it out loud just to scandalize some of my most conservative acquitances :p
And as for "Bad Boyfriend", there are still not D/G songfics in fanfiction.net with said title, but just give it time...
Anyway, we'll see how the album fares with time... There might be another "Seven Years" in there, somewhere ;)