2020

Presented without comment (except that one).

Playlist alert

I’m in the middle of a Greent Hornet fanfic just now (based on the movie, not the series so much). Why the movie, you ask? Well I’ve done a whole thing about the difference between the show and the film, and I have to say I’m still a big fan of both, for different reasons.

Back in the day, I had a dedicated writing desk (actually a repurposed Mahjong table) and a comfy chair (called Michael) and I would get through a 50,000 word fanfic in a few weeks, spend the next two polishing and fixing it, and then the next month or so releasing it like curated salmon on a few fanfic repositories. When I moved back to the UK all that went away, and I struggled to do much writing at all. However, now I’m in a new flat things just feel different. Maybe it’s the apartment atmosphere, the small, controllable environment, the solo living or the extra time not spent commuting to and from work. Hey, maybe it’s all of those things. The important thing is, I’ve finished a fic I started over 2 years ago, and right now I’m pleased - nay, EXCITED - to be working on a new one. And I haven’t been excited about writing in a long time.

As usual I have required a playlist as quiet background music - choons to subconsciously align me with subject matter, with the chosen style, with the themes. However when I had this one going round and round, the volume would creep up and I found my head was bobbing along to the music as I typed - totally oblivious, of course.

Full disclosure; I had to wait 2 weeks for BT OpenReach to actually do their job and give me wi-fi at home, so during that time I was careful with my data usage. Basically, I moved from Spotify back to my iTunes library and in doing so found that I had billions of Jay Chou albums. Well, alright, it wasn’t billions - but it was over 160 tracks from him over the years. Putting that on shuffle for a week made me miss a lot of his earlier stuff (and the frivolous Sailor songs) so by the time this fic started forming in my head, it was always going to be about those albums on constant shuffle. Of course it doesn’t hurt that he was also Kato in the movie.

Here we go then - without further ado (because considering this post was supposed to be a playlist dump, there’s a lot of ado up to this point), here is the playlist, all by Jay Chou (周杰倫):

1. 雙載棍 (Nunchucks) from the album 范特西 (Fantasy), 2001 - also the second end credits song on the movie version of Green Hornet (at least where I saw it in Hong Kong)

2. 印地安老斑鳩 (Ancient Indian Turtledove) from the album 杰倫 (Jay), 2000 

3. 忍者 (Ninja) from the album 范特西 (Fantasy), 2001

4. 龍拳 (Dragon Fist) from the album 八度空間 (The Eight Dimensions), 2002

5. 半獸人 (Half Beast Half Human) from the album 八度空間 (The Eight Dimensions), 2002

6. 雙刀 (Double Blade) from the album 葉惠美 (Yeh Hui-Mei), 2003

7. 同一種調調 (Same Tone) from the album 葉惠美 (Yeh Hui-Mei), 2003 

8. 將軍 (Checkmate) from the album 七里香 (Common Jasmine Orange), 2004 

9. 霍元甲 (Fearless) from the EP 霍元甲 (Fearless), 2006

10. 陽光宅男 (Sunshine Nerd) from the album 我很忙 (On the Run!), 2007

11. 周大俠 (Master Chou) from the movie ‘Kung Fu Dunk’ (功夫灌籃) available as an extra track on the album 2007 世界巡迴演唱會 (2007 World Tour Concert) 

12. 魔術先生 (Magician) from the album 魔杰座 (Capricorn), 2008

13. 龍戰騎士 (Dragon Rider) from the album 魔杰座 (Capricorn), 2008

14. 免費教學錄影帶 (Free Tutorial Video) from the album 跨時代 (The Era), 2010

15. 公主病 (Princess Syndrome) from the album 驚嘆號 (Wow!), 2011

16. 驚嘆號 (Wow!) from the album 驚嘆號 (Wow!), 2011

17. 比較大的大提琴 (A Larger Cello) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

18. 公公偏頭痛 (Eunuch With a Headache) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

19. 水手怕水 (Sailor Afraid of Water) from the album 驚嘆號 (Wow!), 2011

20. 烏克麗麗 (Ukulele) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

21. 大笨鐘 (Big Ben) from the album 12新作 (Opus 12), 2012

22. 陽眀山 (Yang Ming Mountain) from the album 哎呦，不錯哦 (Hey, Not Bad), 2014

23. 我要夏天 (I Want Summer) from the album 哎呦，不錯哦 (Hey, Not Bad), 2014

24. 說走就走 (Let’s Go) from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

25. 英雄 (Hero) from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

26. 土耳其冰𣾁淋 (Turkish Ice Cream) from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

27. Now You See Me from the album 周杰倫的床邊故事 (Jay Chou’s Bedtime Stories), 2016

There we go. Seeing these written down makes me want to go listen to them all over again.

You know what? I think I will. That’s the beauty of being an adult; no-one can stop me.

Soopytwist.

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.

Running for your life from Shia LeBeouf!

If you haven't got this song, or you're not humming it round and round, then you're missing out:

'Shia LeBeouf' by Rob Cantor


You can actually buy the entire song for a single, solitary one US dollar by going to Rob Cantor's website. It's that easy. And it makes him money for coming up with such a twistedly funny viral song.

I'm sorry, Mr LeBeouf, but it's funny and it's all in jest. It's so random and odd that it's made my top ten songs lists this week, alongside The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails. I'm not even going to attempt to work that out.

Tags:

Shia LeBeouf

Playlist

Just finished draft 1 of book 2. As yet untitled. Got an idea though.

This is the playlist I used. Just for shits and giggles.

song of the week

This has been stuck in my head all frelling week.

Help Is On The Way

by sixx.am

Hey hey

Well I'm a paralysed soul

And I don't know where to go

Well I should open my eyes

Yeah I should open my eyes

I'm a left out only child

The attention gets me high

And I'm so unafraid

I like fortune and fame

And when I hear the sirens coming

And my temperature begins to drop

Am I so unaware

That my heart's about to stop

Hey everybody needs somebody

Wants somebody

Hey everybody cracks and bleeds

So hit your knees

And pray that help is on the way

Everybody pray that help is on the way

Well I can sypmathise now

Cos I'm finally breathing out

But this is not over yet

No this is not over yet

Even though we're damaged goods

I would love you if I could

But you are so unalarmed

By my unfortunate charm

And now I'm screaming bloody murder

As my temperature begins to drop

And my life is going numb

As my heart's about to stop

Hey everybody needs somebody

Wants somebody

Hey everybody cracks and bleeds

So hit your knees

And pray that help is on the way

Everybody pray that help is on the way

And sometimes I wish you were dead

And I'm not even joking

I'd put a gun to your head

And when your world crashes down

You'll see it's not so funny

What will you say to the press

Hey everybody needs somebody

Wants somebody

Hey everybody cracks and bleeds

So hit your knees

And pray that help is on the way

Everybody pray that help is on the way

Earworm. Bastards.

Playlist 3.1

Just finished writing a book. My third. Now the continuity in one and two can be fixed, and I can begin the nightmare that is finding an agent.
In other news - playlist! Here we go: the list of songs I had on whilst writing.
Enjoy.

Write-list

So I’m writing a book (don’t laugh! I really am!) and it dawned on as I was walking to work the other day (while listening to music on shuffle on iPhone Dax) that some songs kind of lend themselves to the whole thing really well. So I made a playlist using my trusty iTunes and have played it a few times to get myself ready to do battle with a keyboard.


Here, without further ado, is a link to said list.


WARNING - it's getting on for 40 songs. Ahem.


Peach and lube, people. Peach and lube.