Itâs the Best Movies and Music of 2018, as determined by your friends at Cinepunx. Because weâre egalitarian as hell, we not only let everyone determine their own lists, we let them determine their own awards, and â throwing all caution to the wind â we even invited friends of the site to join in th
Thanks to a post on Go Fug Yourself, I have found what may be the greatest band performing today. They are called Lordi, they are from Finland, and they won this year’s Eurovision songwriting contest.
Mind you, this is a band whose winning song was entitled “Hard Rock Hallelujah” and dresses up in full monster costumes. Past winners have included ABBA and Celene Dion, so you can imagine this came as quite a shock when I read about it.
Now, their newest album, The Arockalypse, isn’t available to buy in the United States yet, which is sad. Of course, finding it on a BitTorrent site takes next to no time at all, but I want packaging on this sucker. Seriously… it’s quite possibly (and simultaneously) the funniest and coolest record I’ve ever heard. Lordi’s not as over the top as Gwar or as filthy as Kiss or as annoying as Slipknot. They play straight-ahead, totally rocking tunes that just happen to be about monsters, zombies, the living dead, deadites, and the like.
You’ll listen to songs like “Who’s Your Daddy?” and laugh your ass off, but the riffs will still have you nodding your head. Before you know it, you’re actually full-on rocking out to the music, and then you have to explain as to how you can enjoy “stuff like that” to your wife. Or maybe that’s just me…
Tonight, provided the wife and I get back from parent-teacher conferences in a reasonable amount of time, I’ll be watching the Grammy Awards. Yes, all the press has finally gotten to me. All of the articles hyping the event convinced me that it might be worth taking a peek.
Granted, I could watch all of the highlights on YouTube after work tomorrow and save myself three or four hours of boredom interspliced with five minute bursts of interest. But that Madonna / Gorillaz pairing with the holograms is just too juicy to pass up. The fact that they’re having the Material Girl open the show, even with no nominations to her name means that it’s gonna be something pretty fucking big.
Kanye West doing “Gold Digger” live with Jamie Foxx sounds pretty slick, too. The U2 / Mary J. Blige thing I could care less about, as well as Mariah Carey with a gospel choir. And the Jay-Z / Linkin Park combo? Seriously, Collision Course came out in 2004. Let it go.
I’d live-blog the whole thing, but I’m sure Stereogum and a slew of other blogs’ll be doing it. Plus, I have work at 4:30 tomorrow morning. If I make it until 9, I’ll be lucky. And switching over to watch South Park and Drawn Together if I’m still up.
A sampling of the nominees
Record of the Year
Green Day – “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”
Gorillaz – “Feel Good Inc.”
Song of the Year
Mariah Carey – “We Belong Together”
John Legend – “Ordinary People“
Well, thanks to my former roommate and Synapsis cohort Jason, I will be presenting at the Heavy Frequency awards ceremony on February 12. You can click the image in the corner for more info. I believe I’ll be co-presenting the award for Best Bassist with Boozeday Tuesday booker and all-around cool cat Slimm.
In other news, being as how I actually seem to have a readership now, there’s going to be a set update schedule. I’d been updating this here blog whenever the urge struck, but in an effort to maintain said readership, I’ll not be updating Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and a post sometime over the weekend. The weekend update will probably come Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning, which is when I’m usually at my most bored.
In any event… go here and download WWE wrestler Brian Kendrick’s theme song, “Hey You.” Great ska instrumental.