Saturday 30 December 2017

ALL THE CHOONS


A while back I got Spotify, the free version. I was curious as to why people wanted access to songs they could not keep or own. As it was the free version, I did not have access to what the company considered new or popular. This is apparently music from people such as Demi Lovato, Camila Cabello, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, etc. I’m sure these are all fine and worth listening to if you’re into that, but that’s not what I needed Spotify for.

I listen to a lot of foreign music - mostly from Hong Kong. In fact, pretty much all of it is from Hong Kong apart from the back catalogue and new releases from Jay Chou, from Taiwan. It’s either Cantonese (my first choice) or Mandarin but that doesn’t matter; the music may sound the same as all the other pop / rock stuff I listen to through my iTunes account (Seether, the unofficial Supernatural playlist, AC/DC, etc.) but it’s really not the same at all. Every track by Eminem, Take That or Justin Bieber is a reflection of their upbringing, their influences, and their experiences in music and beyond. So it goes with a lot of underground Hong Kong bands. Now they can get their stuff onto Spotify, it’s easier for people to choose what they want and share it with others.

What’s that got to do with me? Well for one, if I wanted to try out new music from HK then the only way was to go through iTunes and try the 30 - 90 second free-play snippets. Not great, as I normally need to hear an album a few times over before I decide if I like it or not. I do hear opening strains and think YES I NEED THIS, but it doesn’t happen very often. Songs, like people, and in fact most of life, has to grown on me.

So what Spotify is doing for me is letting me try hundreds of artists I may not have heard of, or if I have, never taken the plunge and bought stuff on iTunes to see if I like the album. I have done this a few times and ended up wiping most of the album as it wasn’t what I thought it was, and failed to grow on me.

Skip back to last week, just before Christmas. I received the usual marketing email from Spotify about going to Premium. This normally a tenner a month. I balked at that every time I received the email - £10 per month? For music I can’t even keep? WTF? No thanks.

And then a special offer came through - 99p for a three-month block of Premium. Hmm. After thoroughly reading the T&Cs (actually written in simple, brain-friendly English for a change), it was actually the equivalent of 33p each month for 3 months. If you didn’t cancel it after this time, it shot up to £9.99 per month. However, you could still cancel at any time.

Now 33p a month for the Premium service sounded great. I’m not going to lie; my plan is currently the same as probably everyone else who’s taken up this offer - wait just before the 3 months is up and then cancel, right? It’s what everyone does, and in the end it’s only cost you 99p to try out what all this streaming music malarky is all about. And this is where it gets interesting - what is this streaming malarky all about?

Once upon a time, people bought ‘hard copies’ of music - records, CDs, or minidiscs. Then it moved to ‘soft copies’ - mp3s from Amazon, iTunes and Google Store downloads, etc. Cloud storage and streaming access became the In Thing, and now we have services that deliver any artist, any tune, any track that used to be purchase-only, on near-instant demand through companies like Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play Music, and more. So why is this shift happening?

I was sceptical of streaming services before I got Spotify Premium - why would I want to listen to stuff but not own it? As I started to use it, I realised a lot of my questions were redundant; I didn't have to own it to be able to stream it, muppet; I didn’t have to pay per album to buy music any more, when for one charge a month I could have about 75% of the world’s music in my pocket; my iPhone 7 doesn’t use as much battery as I thought it would when streaming (literally 40% used in about 5 hours. Considering that’s streaming from a 4G connection and Bluetoothing it to my headphones or speakers at the same time, I’m quite happy with that). On top of all that, the fact that I can and do now try out a few new artists every time I log in, and have discovered a lot more music is MIND-BLOWING. I get bored easily, and although I have classics on my phone that I need to keep forever, now that I have this service I can sample so much more stuff, explore so much further, and not have to worry about barriers or boundaries.

That’s what I like the most; I can literally skip that one track on the album that's not doing it for me, try related artists, save albums I want to try over and over, test out performers or artists I’ve always been curious about - all for one price. For the consumer, it’s almost a dream come true. For the artists putting their wares on the service? The jury is still out - there has been quite a bit of criticism of how exactly artists should be paid for their work. I’m all for them getting a larger percentage of the profits when streamed by consumers, as for all the cost of servers and infrastructure, it has to be cheaper than owning factories and warehouses and people to create, pack, and ship hard copies to shops that may not sell them all. Having said that, I’m still on the platform. With heavy hitters like Taylor Swift renegotiating and forcing the service to change the way it operates, hopefully in a few years it will have a big difference on the revenues that artists receive. If not, then it could be back to purchasing albums the old-fashioned way for me - and by that I mean iTunes or alternative mp3 purchases like Amazon (depending on their royalty policies).

So getting back to what I’m using it for. Highlights: I’ve found a better way for me to stream Eason Chan (陳奕迅)’s back catalogue and new releases, giving me back about a third of my karaoke memories. Also helping is access to all my lost Aaron Kwok (郭富城) albums (most of the other 2 thirds of my karaoke memories) - and then there are the discoveries. I now have all music ever released by Hong Kong Punk-Pop / College Rock band ToNick (which is AWESOME), and of course everyone on my favourites playlist that’s been posted here.

The thing is, I know what will happen when my 3 months cheapie rate is up; I’ll decide that I’ve adjusted to the truly worldwide access levels I’ve got and I won’t want to give this up. The question is, is it worth £9.99 a month to be able to discover, create (and download) my biggest and broadest mixtape in history?

Who knows. I’m sure I’ll find out in February next year, though. Especially as I'm about to sort that Favourites playlist out and make it worth it.

Soopy twist.

Wednesday 20 December 2017

Fucking done


Everyone knows someone who is a complete sack of arse; a fucker, a complete and utter bastard, someone who is only ‘famous’ on social media for being controversial, or a twat. There have been a few around me before and you just give them enough rope and they’re gone soon enough.

But then there’s this shit-for-brains. They’ve been banned from a messages board. The thing is, is makes them holier-than-holier-than-thou as a result, like suddenly everything they’ve been saying has been validated. Apparently, being banned from a board makes you too cool for school in their books, and they’re right happy about it.

And then they crash another board to gloat about how, because they’re so ‘incendiary’ and ‘polarising’ and just plain all-around awesome, they’re getting a load of their arse-gravy otherwise known as posts and tweets etc. published. As in, in a book. That will be published. And sold. For money.

That. Is. Where. I. Am. Done.

So fucking done.

Some of us having been trying FOR THE PAST 5 YEARS to get an agent and get published. Some of us have actually written a real, physical novel using their little creative brains that has been bled, sweated, and cried over for at least the last 7 years. Some of us have been turned down by no less than 45 different agents, and 5 different publishers direct. Some of us just keep banging our heads against walls and getting nowhere.

But this unclefucker? This steaming pile of camel shit laced with strychnine and topped off with conceited, self-important baboon gonads where their brain should be? They just sit down and people go to them.

Clearly, I’m doing something wrong.

Perhaps in this 'modern' society of people arguing about what’s moral and what’s just fucking rude (yes, you of the tiny, tiny orange hands) I should just go for shock and awe. Perhaps I should be upsetting people. Perhaps I should be ‘incendiary’ and ‘polarising’. Perhaps then I’ll attract enough attention that someone will want to publish me.

Is that it? Is that what you do?



Saturday 16 December 2017

Going to the Pictures (VII)


There’s nothing on at the moment - seriously, it’s all about the latest instalment of that space battle franchise. It is on my radar, but I’ll wait for all the kiddies and queue-jumpers to watch it first, and considering it’s distributed by the House of Mouse, it’ll be on for at least 3 months yet. In the meantime:

Battle of the Sexes (30th November 2017)

The good, informative and often amusing story of how Billie Jean King came to play Bobby Riggs in the 1973 tennis match that meant so much to so many. I wasn’t even born when they played, but I had heard of Billie Jean King and I had heard of the furore surrounding the original match in real life. This film was not afraid to show the stresses and pressures of all kinds of lives, and did recreate iconic moments from real events. While some of it must have been extrapolated or embellished for entertainment value, even someone like me who doesn’t care about tennis really really rooted for Billie Jean at the end. Knowing the outcome before you go into the movie did not detract from the enjoyment I got from this film.

Verdict: 8.5/10; good scenes, great acting, and a very, very satisfying ending. And keep watching during the credits for some real-life add-ins.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (10th December 2017)

We had a tonne of fun during this - a couple of nods to the original film, some great action pieces, some awesome funnies (Jack Black does it again, not to mention everyone else getting their turn at comedy too), and a solid plot that ties itself up at the end. What more can you ask from a light-hearted, good-natured, harmless disposable comedy? I laughed out loud a few times, and I know the audience of the screen we were in laughed too. Pure fun.

Verdict: 8.5/10; Dwayne Johnson continues to play characters with good humour and a fun touch; special shout-out to his smouldering skill. Also to Karen Gillon for her comedy work (so glad she's escaped Stephen Moffet's writing tripe) and Jack Black for being the alleged air-head selfie-taker without a phone.

And that’s it. Like I said - nothing else out. Damn you, Disney!



Friday 15 December 2017

TV home from home (II)


Back with more telly. You may have noticed that I haven’t updated the tag about movies for a bit; that’s because everything at the cineplex near us has been bumped in favour of some space battle thing. I will go see it, but it can wait. (If it’d been a new Star Trek film I would have seen it at the 00:05 showing, then again the following night. But it’s not.) That’s a rant for another day; we don’t live in The Big City (A.K.A. London village) so we don’t get more than a few blockbusters at our cinemas. If we’re lucky we get a foreign-language film from time to time, but that has to be a festival winner. And even then it’s shown DURING THE DAY WHEN EVERYONE IS WORKING SO WE CAN’T WATCH IT ANYWAY.

I digress.

So the most recent foreign drama I’ve watched is My Dearly Sinful Mind, A.K.A. 心理追兇Mind Hunter. Featuring the usual TVB regulars Kenneth Ma (馬國明), Vivien Yeo (楊秀惠), Michelle Yim (嚴惠玲), and Willie Wai (韋家雄), it also brings a few new faces to light for me. Grace Wong (王君馨) was a powerhouse the whole way through, and Matt Yeung (揚明)’s portrayal of the young ‘orphan’ with Asperger’s was excellent.

In a nutshell: Dr Icy Leung is a clinical psychologist; a recent case of a bloke with learning difficulties killing 4 high-school girls in a school changing room has just ended in the bloke being sentenced to life in prison. However, Dr Leung is convinced his mental state was affected by something and he’s not actually to blame. Dr Leung’s boyfriend - who happens to be Dr Chung, her fellow clinical psychologist - doesn’t agree with her and one night they have a fight about it. She gets out of his car and storms off - straight into the path of an oncoming car. She dies, he guilt-trips himself about it for 4 years afterwards, the world moves on. Until that is the one survivor from the killing spree, Wong Hoi-Ching, returns to HK from seemingly nowhere. Dr Chung, determined to prove his deceased girlfriend was right in her professional assessment, begins to dig into what happened that day, starting with the prisoner who apparently killed the 4 girls.

This looked like a simple ‘oh my poor dead girlfriend; I must avenger her death’ affair when I started it, but it quickly turned into a philosophical dilemma; if you’re up against a complete sociopath, do the ends justify the means in stopping them? How far do you go, no matter the consequences, to prevent them from killing more people just to get what they want?

The complicated web of friends, acquaintances, characters they pick up on the way and how the consequences stay with them - it’s all grist for the mill. You think you know someone, and then they rock up in episode 15 with a shocking secret. It doesn’t look like it has an impact on the overall plot, but just wait for it. Then we have characters and their two faces - everyone does, this is true. But when it means they stray very far indeed from what people see on the surface, it makes for some good telly in terms of furthering the question posed above: can you pretend to be a sociopath to catch a sociopath? And if someone gets hurt because of it but it helps you catch the killer, does that make it ok?

Long, winding, full of red herrings and moments of OH COME ON YOU HAVE TO SCREW THIS BLOKE OVER OR I’LL SCREAM, it also makes you appreciate a slow, steady crafting of getting everyone to their inevitable conclusion - only to have it turned on its head by a character who decides that Enough Is Enough and the Big Bad has to stopped by any means necessary. I did enjoy the final episodes, and I have to say, enjoyed very much the taking-down of a few characters. However, as with most TVB dramas, it left it on a such a note that I’m worried that, if another season ever happens, then the writers will have to literally fish pretty hard to get themselves out of where it was left. But I’m completely ok with that.

Overall verdict: 9/10. Rewatchability? Hmm. Now I know how it ends and all the secrets, probably not very likely to watch the entire thing again (28 episodes). However, the last 3 or 4? Definitely.

And that’s it for now. Wondering what to watch next, but I think I have an idea.

Soopy twist.

Tuesday 12 December 2017

Wayward Supernatural Sisters


I haven’t blogged about Super-bloody-natural in a while, eh? Yes, I’m still watching it. Yes, I’m still amazed they’re doing so well. I don’t mean that in a bad way; they’s still coming up with good ways to keep it fresh and acknowledge the worn-out bits so they can skip over them to get to the good bits and new twists. We’re on season 13 right now, and long may it last as far as I’m concerned.

I first started watching Supernatural 11-12 years ago. I was visiting the UK when I happened upon the season finale of season 2, and it made me want to go back and start from the beginning. I was in HK at that time and had no idea this show was on, as it wasn’t offered on any networks in HK at the time. Every season Warner Bros threatened cancellation or polite not-picking-it-up. However, every year the fanbase grew and the staunch supporters made the show you see on your telly every week the tip of the fandom iceberg. It has the second biggest amount of fanfic ever written (which is surprising, as the first has been going more than 50 years so it’s had more time to amass the written words of millions of fans); it has its own charity drives and worldwide treasure hunts; it has its own family of mental health support groups; it’s still drawing incredible ratings from a show that people said wouldn’t last more than a few seasons. In this competitive TV show environment, it’s become a staple of the CW channel and the Warner Bros network across the States. In other territories it’s doing well on cable/satellite and VOD services like Netflix (if your country has the complete set) and Hulu, Amazon and of course CW Seed.

So where are we up to? Parallel universes (it was only a matter of time), some characters apparently dead for good (yeah, right) and others reborn in suspicious circumstances. And in the centre, still the brothers Winchester, possibly in the best place they have been for a while where brotherly synchronicity is concerned. All they have to worry about is the son of a major character, some new dude in a white suit (obviously a bad sign), and being the victim of new writers hell-bent (no pun intended) on twisting the current format into something new. Oh, and the rumoured animated Scooby Doo episode coming up in January 2018 (no, I shit you not). I don’t want to know how much crack they were smoking the night they came up with that, but hey, I’ll watch it before jumping to conclusions.

And then there’s the small matter of a back-door pilot. The last time we had one of these (S09E06: Bloodlines, to be exact) it was a messy, derivative, complete arse-gravy affair. Badly plotted, poorly executed, and the way characters were stuffed in fridges to aid the character they were setting up as the main protagonist was just a shitty, shitty waste. I was particularly unimpressed with the perfectly coiffed, marvellously made-up stiff Dallas-rejected white dudes they’d decided were going to be the important factions of the new show. SPN has never been as down and dirty as, say, The Walking Dead, but then it’s a Warner Bros/CW show. How can I illustrate this? Hmm - that moment John Constantine turned up on Arrow and we saw him, rumpled mac, dirty hands and cigarette butts, standing next to perfectly made-up, Beautiful People. That’s the difference. John is rough as a bear’s bum but in a CW way - he can still squeak by to get onto the show, but he’s not One Of Them. The same is true of SPN. They may look clean and CW-coiffed, but they are not One Of Them. To put a back-door pilot in a show like that and make the new one definitely The Boring/White Elite is just wrong.

However, even the CW can realise their mistake and try to catch up. They may have only just noticed the WOMEN ARE PEOPLE TOO bandwagon pass their window and dropped everything to run after it, but they might just have a chance of leaping on the back and having a good bash at it.

See, there’s always been one problem with SPN, and that is Everybody Dies. EVERYBODY. This includes every single female who’s been on the show. The fact that the show is about 2 brothers and not 2 sisters means that it seems to be the norm to kill off all the women. Add to that the fact that the most popular recurring villain they’ve ever had is also a man, and so is the angel who’s somehow got caught up in their shenanigans (and come back to life a few times himself), and you have a very male-centric show. This has been the norm for the last 13 seasons.

So the Next Big Thing every network is desperate to find might be women. Supergirl is making waves and doing very well indeed. Arrow is adding women left, right and centre and it’s helping to keep the show interesting. Lest we forget, Warner Bros and DC just delivered a box office smash with Wonder Woman and people are asking when a Black Widow movie will follow - after the Captain Marvel movie hits in 2018/9. So what can you do with SPN when the cast is by default straight white dudes?

This is where the back-door pilot comes in. Sheriff Jodi Mills is a national fucking treasure and a firm audience favourite. So too is Sheriff Donna Hanscum - a relative newcomer, but no less loved. The response to these two characters has been epic in fandom terms, as they’re the first females that have survived (so far) and yet they’re not here to drastically change the boys’ brotherly adventures. In fact, they end up asking for help from these two women a few times - and these women are in roles that, when first written, I’m sure were there for story-propelling purposes. But now they’ve grown and the fandom has asked for more - and more. If you ever get the chance to see Kim Rhodes or Brianna Buckmaster at a convention, please stop to listen. They are compelling speakers and advocates of change. They’re also heavily involved in the Wayward Sisters movement (a twist on the unofficial SPN anthem of Carry On Wayward Son) and also probably a lot to do with the Wayward AF t-shirts the two of them were selling to raise money for the Random Acts charity. What we’re getting in this spin-off is a host of women doing what Sam and Dean do every week, not as biological sisters but as a group bound together by need and support.

I can’t wait for this - the whole thing sounds like we're finally getting something that blokes got in 2005 with the original SPN show, and in countless others films and shows. I’m hoping it’s going to be good, obviously - the last one did not fill me with confidence for their next effort, but then they were trying to invent a world from nowhere. This spin-off attempt is set in the same universe as the original show, and even carries over 2 or 4 characters from it, too. They’ve already got a fanbase almost built-in, and at least 60% of those really want this new show to succeed.

And with that, I think I’ll get back to my day off. I hear a beer calling; here’s to new shows and the networks finally giving us what we want.

Soopy twist.