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Review: Broken Bells, After the Disco
After the Disco is a yawner made by two artists whose impressive discography makes its failure that much more confounding.
My wife often admits that her love for Nick Cave is tempered by his frequent flirtations with adult contemporary. The same could be said about my feelings toward James Mercer and Danger Mouse's Broken Bells project: As two well-respected artists known for their stellar work separately, their partnership produced a surprisingly safe and unremarkable debut, the kind of effort you'd expect from the likes of Josh Groban, not the brains behind the Shins and the creative force behind The Grey Album. Though expectations are now lowered, Broken Bells' follow-up, After the Disco, still somehow manages to disappoint.
After the Disco is exactly the album its title implies, tired and fading, the glow of the preceding party just a mere faint light. Its most compelling moments come in short, quiet spurts hidden between long junctures of filler, but the latter is what Mercer and Danger Mouse prefer to dwell on, spending inordinate amounts of time and effort on tidy plateaus of soft, folksy, electro-pop arrangements. The duo is at their best when things are left messy, like on the aptly titled "Leave It Alone," a slow eulogy that derives much of its power from the loose placement of its instrumentation. As the track winds down to just a bass drum and an acoustic guitar, the sound of Mercer's fingers moving across the frets becomes more prevalent, accompanying the most confessional portion of his lyrics. It's a rare moment of rough-hewn intimacy on an album that, sadly, would rather stay distant and clinical.
Beyond the bittersweet folksiness of "Lazy Wonderland," After the Disco offers few other emotional payoffs. There are several instances of utter banality: The title track is a predictable series of key changes relying on a bassline that could've been lifted from one of a dozen disco ballads, while "Holding on for Life" blatantly mines the Bee Gees for some lifeless falsetto choruses. Both songs are blank, mechanical efforts that cast doubt as to whether the album has any real raison d'être, unless its intent was to bore. Generic enough to have been produced by anyone, After the Disco is a yawner made by two artists whose impressive discography makes its failure that much more confounding.
Label: Columbia Release Date: February 4, 2014 Buy: Amazon
Review: Sam Hunt's Southside Is a Shallow Attempt at Genre Pastiche
The album boasts some genuine earworms, but its lyrical content is sophomoric.2
Sam Hunt's sophomore effort, Southside, has an ingratiating charm, boasting some genuine earworms, but its lyrical content is puerile and its attempts at genre pastiche feel shallow. Released back in 2017, the album's first single, "Body Like a Back Road," features a catchy hook that recalls a nursery rhyme and an extended simile that draws a tired comparison between sex and driving. The second single, "Downtown's Dead," is more broadly thematic—about how the whole world can lose its luster when your heart is broken—but the music isn't particularly memorable, driven by heavy drums and a repetitive, dull shuffle.
The disjunction between those two tracks is emblematic of Southside as a whole. Hunt spends most of the album playing a game of musical whack-a-mole: Sometimes his lyrics rise above the level of trite barroom poetry, and occasionally the melodies are infectious, but seldom at the same time. Hunt's music is unquestionably bro-country in its lyrical concerns, but he incorporates some elements of hip-hop, a fusion that only occasionally bears fruit. "Breaking Up Was Easy in the 90's" is a goofy bit of half-sung, rose-colored nostalgia and the midtempo "Kinfolks" is a moderately sweet song about introducing your partner to your family.
More often, the album's approach to blurring the lines between genres falls flat. "Hard to Forget," a song about a woman who drives Hunt crazy, opens with a chopped-n'-screwed sample of Webb Pierce's tear-in-my-beer country classic "There Stands the Glass," but Hunt's sentiment doesn't gel with the beer-soaked miserablism of Pierce's song. It feels more like Hunt is trying to steal some cred by showing he knows who Pierce is than actually trying to establish some sort of intertextual relationship.
Southside reaches its nadir with "That Ain't Beautiful," retrograde dreck in which he mansplains to a woman about how her life choices "ain't beautiful." The reductive lyrics feature a series of clichéd images of a past-her-prime party girl that feel ripped straight from Bill Simmons's drafts folder. Hunt assiduously eschews any attempt at rhyme or wordplay, which makes the song feel overly self-serious. The lyrics are also oddly plagued by specificity, with Hunt tsk-tsking his subject for spending too much on an airplane ticket for the wedding of a person she's known for less than a year. Hunt isn't charmless as a performer, but the song is plodding and maudlin, and his delivery has a distinctly drunken karaoke feel to it.
There are worse purveyors of bro-country spiced up with hip-hop (here's looking at you, Florida Georgia Line), and Hunt has an ear for melody, but his reliance on lyrical clichés and hit-you-over-the-head genre fusion makes Southside worth little more than a shrug.
Label: MCA Nashville Release Date: April 3, 2020 Buy: Amazon
The 10 Best Albums of 1985
We take a look back and reflect on the music that defined one of the most definable of decades.
In my introduction to Slant's list of the 100 Best Albums of the 1980s, I noted that, while '80s pop culture is largely remembered for its frivolity, the social unrest that stirred beneath the decade's brightly colored gloss and greed resulted in not just the guilt-driven good intentions of enterprises like the star-studded USA for Africa, but a generation of artists whose music genuinely reflected the state of the world. From political violence across the pond and the struggles and dreams of the American working class, to race relations, sexuality, and gender, no topic was left unexcavated by the pop, rock, and hip-hop artists of the Reagan era. As we enter the 2020s, an entire generation removed from the '80s, it seems as good a time as any to once again look back and reflect on the music that defined one of the most definable of decades. Sal Cinquemani
Honorable Mention: LL Cool J, Radio; Talking Heads, Little Creatures; John Cougar Mellencamp, Scarecrow; Lizzy Mercier Descloux, One for the Soul; The Velvet Underground, VU; Husker Du, New Day Rising; Grace Jones, Slave to the Rhythm; Various Artists, The Indestructible Beat of Soweto; The Smiths, Meat Is Murder; The Mekons, Fear and Whiskey
10. R.E.M., Fables of the Reconstruction
Thematically, Fables of the Reconstruction is one of R.E.M.'s most cohesive albums, drawing heavily from Southern iconography and folklore. Bands like Drive-By Truckers have, in recent years, taken up the cause of reconstructing and deconstructing the mythology of the modern South, but R.E.M.'s take on the subject is, unsurprisingly, far less literal. Southern myths are often preoccupied with mysterious, hermit-like older men, and many such characters serve either as protagonists or sources of inspiration on the album. "Life and How to Live It" was famously inspired by the life story of Brev Mekis, a schizophrenic man from the band's native Athens, GA, who bifurcated his home into two completely distinct dwellings. "Maps and Legends" is a complex tribute to Reverend Howard Finster, one of the most famous figures in the "outsider art" movement. What makes Fables of the Reconstruction such a rich, deeply rewarding work is that it isn't simply a retelling of these myths or a hagiography for these men, it's that the album is a pointed, thoughtful consideration of what these stories mean and, specifically, of how the band perceives them. Jonathan Keefe
9. The Pogues, Rum, Sodomy & the Lash
Landing chronologically and stylistically in the Pogues's discography between the extremely drunken revelry of Red Roses for Me and the extremely drunken but more refined If I Should Fall from Grace from God, the also extremely drunken Rum Sodomy & the Lash may well be the quintessential Pogues experience. These rowdy drinking songs, both traditional and original, are of course tremendous fun. But it's the album's (relatively) sober laments—"The Old Main Drag," the historical ballad "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda," and "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day," featuring lovely gender-bending vocals by Cait O'Riordan—that proved the band's Celtic folk-punk wasn't just a novelty, but a rich and inventive new form. Jeremy Winograd
8. New Order, Low-Life
If Movement was the funeral and Power, Corruption, and Lies was the haunting, then Low-Life was the exorcism, the moment when New Order fully freed themselves from the ghost of Ian Curtis and set in motion their second life as the U.K.'s finest purveyor of electro-pop dance-floor fillers. Even the song that's about Curtis, the funereal "Elegia," isn't overly indebted to the band's post-punk roots. From the galloping opener "Love Vigilantes" to the glitchy "Face Up," Low-Life is the product of a band whose members are deeply in sync and pushing each other in new directions. Bernard Sumner is still finding his voice here—lyrics were often New Order's Achilles' heel, and this album features some cringey turns of phrase—but the band's musicianship has been honed to a razor's edge. Bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris are locked in with each other, and Gillian Gilbert's synths pair dramatically with Sumner's spare guitar lines. The highlight is "The Perfect Kiss": When that keyboard part picks up, Thatcher is in 10 Downing Street and it's midnight on the Hacienda's dance floor. Seth Wilson
7. The Cure, The Head on the Door
The Cure's The Head on the Door is a cheery pop album as envisioned by a goth-rock master. And weirdly, it works perfectly. Monster hooks flow effortlessly out of Robert Smith, and notably, none of them sound much alike. The speedily strummed "In Between Days" is easily the album's catchiest song, but nearly every other track is of the same melodic caliber. The joy of The Head on the Door is the dizzying array of different styles Smith manages to cram into easily digestible pop packages. From the high-drama guitar riffs of "Push" and the driving flamenco rhythms and Arabic accents of "The Blood," to the plinky atmospherics of "Kyoto Song" and the hopped-up minimalism of "Close to Me," each new element is as surprising as it is hummable. The Head on the Door isn't as sprawling as some of the Cure's other beloved albums, but that's exactly why it's one of their most essential: It cuts right to the gooey melodic center at the heart of Smith's songwriting. Winograd
6. Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair
In which an attempted primal scream ends up coming out as an incredibly pitch-perfect crying jag. (Boy, am I glad the word "emo" wasn't around in 1985, though Richard Kelly's use of the dreamy "Head Over Heels" in his frowny sci-fi teen-angst epic Donnie Darko paid back that particular favor with interest.) British synth-pop act Tears for Fears' follow-up to the critically acclaimed The Hurting may have seemed a sellout at the time, but heard anew today, the cathartic, shuffling hit "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" seems like one of the great indictments of the materialism and false triumphalism of the decade. Eric Henderson
Review: The Weeknd's After Hours Is a Triumphant Depiction of Heartbreak
The album explores new levels of sonic innovation, expanding on old themes while finding new shades of emotional maturity.4
The Weeknd's music has, to this point, focused on three major subjects: having sex, doing drugs, and having sex on drugs. Despite the ostensible physical pleasure of these activities, Abel Tesfaye's vocal delivery and sonic landscapes have often felt anhedonic. He writes about chasing pleasure not for the thrill, but out of habit, like a dog chasing a car—best exemplified by his hit "Can't Feel My Face," a galactic love song about getting so high that your emotions shut down. The Weeknd's fourth album, After Hours, is reportedly a chronicle of Tesfaye's on-again, off-again relationship with model Bella Hadid, and he straight-facedly embraces vulnerability like never before, resulting in his most personal album to date.
Though his work is pop-oriented, Tesfaye has always been willing to chase wild hares. On After Hours, he collaborates with electronic artist Oneohtrix Point Never, né Daniel Lopatin, who composed the score for the Safdie brothers' Uncut Gems, in which Tesfaye was featured. Lopatin worked on three tracks here, but his influence is palpable throughout the album, as Tesfaye embraces the type of crystalline electronica Oneohtrix Point Never is famous for.
On the standout "Hardest to Love," Tesfaye delivers one of the most affecting vocal performances of his career over a glitchy pop soundscape. The song's lyrics are direct: "I've been the hardest to love/You're tryna let me go," shouldering the blame for a relationship's demise. The song's catchiness belies its melancholy, a sophisticated combination that's a testament to Tesfaye's depiction of a relationship that results in a confusing morass of emotions that we seldom process them in a linear fashion: anger, sadness, gratitude, elation, loneliness. On this song and throughout After Hours, Tesfaye navigates these conflicting emotions in a way that captures the experience of being lost in that swirl.
Elsewhere, "Scared to Live" displays the grandeur of a pop ballad, with a swooning earworm of a chorus and lyrics that tenderly reflect on a past love, and with a maturity that comes only with hindsight. The song nearly edges into schmaltz, but it's full of surprises, including a nod to Elton John's "Your Song" that's so well integrated into the chorus it's easy to miss.
Of course, since this is an album that deals with a troubled relationship, not every song is a magnanimous, gentle reverie. "Save Your Tears" revels in spite, flaunting how over-it Tesfaye is in front of his ex while teasing the possibility of reconciliation. Tesfaye's distinct brand of R&B consistently draws from other genres, but hearing him embrace a straight-up synth-rock sound here is an exciting change of pace. "Repeat After Me" is grimly comic, with Tesfaye repeating, "You don't love him/You're just fucking/It means nothing to me," before later adding, "You're thinking of me." Lopatin's spare production and the cyclical pattern of the lyrics make it clear that he's trying to convince himself.
After Hours, the first Weeknd album to feature no guest vocalists, isn't completely divorced from Tesfaye's usual themes, as he turns to substances to assuage his feelings. Lead single "Heartless" is a dark fantasy about driving too fast and engaging in joyless sex while experiencing amphetamine-driven nausea, while the chilling "Faith" chronicles a codependent relationship that leads to a drug-fueled emotional collapse. The song's centerpiece is a ghoulish fantasy of two people enabling their worst impulses: "If I O.D., I want you to O.D. right beside me." Tesfaye sings the line in a tone that can best be described as disastrously triumphant, which is also a fitting description for the album as a whole.
Label: Republic Release Date: March 20, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia Is a Euphoric Escape Hatch to Pop's Past
The album understands that the best diversions are as fleeting as they are exhilarating.4
When Dua Lipa decided to name her sophomore effort Future Nostalgia, she couldn't have fathomed that the album would be released in the midst of a socially and economically devastating global pandemic. It's unlikely that future generations will look back on 2020 with wistful nostalgia. Fortunately for us, Future Nostalgia leans into the latter half of its oxymoronic title, offering a well-timed escape hatch to pop music's past.
A throaty mezzo, Lipa is capable of churning out an album full of the sort of power ballads that were liberally sprinkled throughout her self-titled debut. But like Mariah Carey before her, the grooves are just as important to the English pop singer's success—though the closest Carey ever got to a full-fledged dance album was Glitter. Which is, perhaps, an apt point of comparison, since Carey's 2001 movie soundtrack and Lipa's Future Nostalgia—coincidentally both released during national crises—are doggedly devoted to '80s pastiche.
The album's mix of past and present is best captured on two tracks that draw overtly from their sources: "Love Again" is a dizzying dance-floor filler that pairs lush orchestral swells with a sample of the canned strings from White Town's 1997 single "Your Woman," while the guitar hook from INXS's "Need You Tonight" provides the melodic basis for "Break My Heart." Both songs demonstrate Lipa's knack for wringing pathos from everyday dating woes and pouring it into sublime dance-pop. It's a role that once squarely belonged to Robyn, whose long sabbaticals Lipa seems more than willing to fill with kiss-offs like "New Rules," "IDGAF," and "Don't Start Now," the nu-disco slower burner that served as Future Nostalgia's lead single.
The album's second single, "Physical," interpolates Olivia Newton-John's 1981 hit of the same name but eschews that song's loose R&B rhythm for the frenetic future-pop of Newton-John's "Twist of Fate." That makes Lipa's song, with its admittedly robotic hook, a bit of a bait-and-switch, but the album is nothing if not surprising. Chic-indebted guitar licks, sleek mono synths, and judiciously appointed cowbell bump up against more contemporary pitch-modulated vocal effects on tracks like "Pretty Please" and "Levitating." The latter is a feel-good earworm that, like the cheeky "Good in Bed," conjures Lizzo-esque pop-funk.
Occasionally, the album's commitment to juxtaposition feels strained. The title track, which soars when it unabashedly embraces early-'80s electro and the ivory-soul stylings of Teena Marie, falls flat when Lipa attempts Kesha's brand of talk-singing amid references to futurist architecture. And "Hallucinate," Future Nostalgia's most bald-faced gesture to clubland, is a Kylie Minogue-style house banger with a Lady Gaga-esque hook that, on a lesser album, would be a highlight but feels generic when sandwiched between the simmering "Pretty Please" and the euphoric "Love Again."
Notably missing from the album are those aforementioned power ballads. The closest equivalent is the closing track, "Boys Will Be Boys," a baroque-pop anthem that tackles gender politics and the media: "When will we stop saying things 'cause they're all listening/No, the kids ain't all right/And they do what they see 'cause it's all on TV/Oh, the kids ain't all right." It's theoretically an enervating way to end an album whose primary virtue is its sense of escapism, snapping us back to a reality where kids predictably emulate the bad behavior of our leaders and one ill-advised remark can send the stock market into a nosedive. At just 37 minutes, however, Future Nostalgia seems to understand that the best diversions are as fleeting as they are exhilarating, so we should enjoy them while we can.
Label: Warner Release Date: March 27, 2020 Buy: Amazon
The 10 Best Albums of 1984
We take a look back and reflect on the music that defined one of the most definable of decades.
In my introduction to Slant's list of the 100 Best Albums of the 1980s, I noted that, while '80s pop culture is largely remembered for its frivolity, the social unrest that stirred beneath the decade's brightly colored gloss and greed resulted in not just the guilt-driven good intentions of enterprises like the star-studded USA for Africa, but a generation of artists whose music genuinely reflected the state of the world. From political violence across the pond and the struggles and dreams of the American working class, to race relations, sexuality, and gender, no topic was left unexcavated by the pop, rock, and hip-hop artists of the Reagan era. As we enter the 2020s, an entire generation removed from the '80s, it seems as good a time as any to once again look back and reflect on the music that defined one of the most definable of decades. Sal Cinquemani
Honorable Mention: Minutemen, Double Nickels on the Dime; R.E.M., Reckoning; Meat Puppets, Meat Puppets II; Madonna, Like a Virgin; U2, The Unforgettable Fire; Laurie Anderson, Mister Heartbreak; Chaka Khan, I Feel for You; Run-DMC, Run-DMC; The Bangles, All Over the Place; Los Lobos, How Will the Wolf Survive?
10. Husker Du, Zen Arcade
With 1984's Zen Arcade, Hüsker Dü married their fast and furious brand of punk with swirling psychedelica, elaborate noise arrangements, and a newfound melodious side. Bob Mould's cacophonous solos and treble-heavy riffing are raw and intense, while his sullen acoustic jams are gorgeous in their own melancholic way, and he even gets raise-your-fist anthemic with "Turn on the News." With all this sonic shapeshifting, and an exhausting 70 minutes on the clock, Zen Arcade is something of an operatic frenzy, one where violent forays of rapid-fire punk are set to eccentric and elaborate structures. Huw Jones
9. Art of Noise, Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise
"In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born," wrote Luigi Russolo in a letter to fellow Italian futurist composer Balilla Pretella. And in the late 20th century, avant-garde electronic-pop collective Art of Noise, who took their name from Russolo's famous essay, was born, concocting cacophonous collages of digital beats and samples that would influence an entire generation of knob twirlers. The group's 1984 debut opens with the proto-political "A Time for Fear (Who's Afraid)," portions of broadcasts from the U.S. invasion of Grenada building to industrial beats and a minimalist sub-bass that informed the work of future pioneers like Björk and Tricky. Surprisingly, it's the album's least noisy track, the 10-minute instrumental chill-out "Moments In Love," that truly veers off into some exhilaratingly strange, unexpected territory. Russolo would be proud. Cinquemani
8. Cocteau Twins, Treasure
No, you still can't make out a damn thing that Elizabeth Frazer sings on Treasure. But you don't need to: Her rolling, ululating syllables impart the kind of feelings that verbal communication is notoriously ill-suited for, and besides, when she swoops between the extremes of her range on a devastating number like "Lorelei," you'll swear you're speaking her language. Robin Guthrie's hypnotic guitar playing, by turns majestic and muscular, is everything that dream-pop guitar should be—if not for My Bloody Valentine, maybe all it ever would be. Critics sometimes protested that the Cocteau Twins shouldn't really be considered a rock band at all, and that's fine by me: When "Donimo" closes the album with operatic splendor, it's clear that they're something far more special. Matthew Cole
7. Tina Turner, Private Dancer
Like another mega-successful pop monster, Michael Jackson's Thriller, Private Dancer is a staggering display of self-affirming artistry and vocal expression. For Turner, who was 45 when the album was released, it also represented a kind of vindication, with songs like the gritty, powerful "What's Love Got to Do with It" and the sultry ultimatum "Better Be Good to Me" all but destroying the false pretense that she was somehow only fit to play second fiddle to Ike. Both a personal liberation and sonic redemption, Private Dancer established Turner not only as a genuine diva, but a bona fide force of nature. Kevin Liedel
6. Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense
Inseparable from Jonathan Demme's concert doc of the same name, arguably the finest concert film ever made, and subject to endless hemming and hawing among Talking Heads's diehards for the elisions made to said concert's set list when the soundtrack was being produced, Stop Making Sense remains a divisive album. A 1999 reissue rectified many of the most common complaints about the original release, nearly doubling the length of the album and restoring some continuity to the band's performance, but that takes nothing away from the fact that Stop Making Sense, even in its truncated original form, is a testament to one of the most compelling, forward-thinking bands of the rock era at the peak of their craft. Jonathan Keefe
Through the Years: Madonna's Iconic "Vogue" Turns 30
From MTV to Madame X, the queen of pop's ode to voguing continues to endure three decades later.
Released in March of 1990, Madonna's "Vogue" wasn't just a hit single—it was a cultural phenomenon. Ironically, no other song better exemplifies both the singer's influence on pop culture and the accusations of appropriation that have been lobbed at her over the years. The track, produced by Shep Pettibone, is at once a musical map of disco, shamelessly ripping MFSB's "Love Is the Message" and Salsoul Orchestra's "Ooh, I Love It (Love Break)," and an enduring prototype of its own, spawning countless copycats and spoofs in the early '90s and inspiring covers by more contemporary acolytes like Britney Spears, Rihanna, and Katy Perry. The queen of pop herself has even paid homage to her own hit, erupting into the song's refrain at the end of her 1992 single "Deeper and Deeper" and sampling elements of the track on 2015's "Holy Water" and her most recent club hit, "I Don't Search I Find." Like the Harlem drag balls that inspired it, "Vogue" is about presentation, and unlike, say, "Like a Virgin," the queen of reinvention has found little need to fuss with perfection. Sal Cinquemani
Music Video (1990)
Look closely when that butler brushes off the bannister. Nope, no dust there; the finger pulls clean. Those who objected to Madonna's co-opting two vibrant New York scenes—ball culture and the house underground—had every reason to cast any available aspersions once the instant-classic music video for "Vogue" hit the airwaves. Directed with diamond-cut precision by David Fincher long before he became the fussiest of the A-list auteurs, the already plush song became a plummy fantasia of Old Hollywood luxury, and an actualization of the sort of glamour Paris Is Burning's drag queens and dance-floor ninjas openly longed for. And it came with a steep price tag. "It makes no difference if you're black or white," goes the familiar refrain, but it's unclear whether Madonna realized to what extent the clip's flawless, monochromatic cinematography would underline the point. To some, the video (like New York's ball scene) represented the ultimate democratization of beauty. To others, a presumptuously preemptive eradication of the racial question entirely. Eric Henderson
Blond Ambition Tour (1990)
Compared to the spectacles Madonna would go on to stage for the song over the next quarter century, the premier live performances of "Vogue" were surprisingly quaint. Stripped down to the bare basics (aside from the dancers' headdresses, even the costumes consisted solely of simple black spandex), the Blond Ambition version of the song came closest to capturing the essence of the gay ballroom scene the lyrics were inspired by: presentational, preening, and all about the pose. Cinquemani
Rock the Vote (1990)
Along with "Vogue," this year also marks the 30th anniversary of Rock the Vote, the nonprofit organization aimed at mobilizing and registering young voters. In 1990, the group made its national debut with a TV spot featuring Madonna and two of her Blond Ambition dancers harmonizing to a cheeky, revamped version of her then-recent smash. In what might seem tame by today's standards, the sight of the world's biggest pop star draped in the American flag, comparing freedom of speech to sex, threatening to give non-voters a "spanky," and name-dropping Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., all while dressed in red lace lingerie, twisted more than a few panties among the Moral Majority. And that was before it was revealed she wasn't even registered to vote. Cinquemani
MTV Video Music Awards (1990)
Indulging in a cheeky bit of dress-me-up make believe, Madonna's performance at the 1990 VMAs gracefully elided politics altogether in favor of lace-front cosplay. Borrowing liberally from Dangerous Liaisons, specifically costume designer James Acheson's cleavage-crushing bodice, Madonna and regalia flitted around a rec room, taunting a bevy of eligible suitors in short pants, punctuating every tease with an audible snap of fans that sounded more like trashcan lids. Sandwiched as the song was between "Like a Prayer" on one side and "Justify My Love" and Erotica on the other, it was nice to see at least one performance of the song that revels in the simple thrill of innocent ribaldry. Henderson
The Girlie Show Tour (1993)
Not by any stretch the most iconic performance of the tune, and in fact very likely the most rote of the bunch, especially when you consider its place in context with the surrounding Erotica-heavy content, against which "Vogue" can't help but sound just a smidge "Let's All Go to the Lobby." The Mata Hari headdress promises subversion that never really materializes, which is hardly a surprise given Madonna—clad in a boy bra and chunky platform military boots—has probably never looked more rectangular. This marked the last time she would perform the song in concert for more than a decade, and the vague sense that an increasingly doom-obsessed Madonna was vaguely bored with the song's escapism is palpable here. Henderson
Review: Pearl Jam's Gigaton Finds the Band Locked in a Holding Pattern
The more the band moves outside their comfort zone, the worthier they become of their apparent permanence.3
"I changed by not changing at all," Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder once solemnly intoned on 1993's "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town." That sentiment has become something of a guiding principle for a veteran rock band that, despite lacking Nirvana's raw emotion and the Smashing Pumpkins's sense of theatricality, has managed to outlast many of their alt-rock contemporaries. While Vedder has penned some indelible rock songs—"Yellow Ledbetter" is but one example—Pearl Jam has been locked in cruise control since the late '90s, and their latest, Gigaton, is largely more of the same.
The album's opening track, "Who Ever Said," comes out swinging with some growling, interlocking guitar riffs. Vedder's voice is likewise in fine form (he's beginning to sound a bit like Chris Cornell, who was always a better singer) and he delivers some clever wordplay: "'It's all in the delivery,' said the messenger who is now dead." The song's hook—"Whoever said it's all been said?"—seems to directly confront the notion that the band is out of ideas. And for a couple of minutes, Pearl Jam sounds determined to prove their naysayers wrong—until the song shifts into a meandering second movement and ultimately peters out. In that way, it serves as a microcosm of the album as a whole: a few good ideas and moments of experimentation alongside some baffling head-scratchers.
Most baffling is "Superblood Wolfmoon," which boasts a two-step rhythm with skittering cymbal fills, giving it a nervous energy that's matched by Vedder's clipped delivery. But the kludgy guitars feel oddly out of sync with the song's too-muchness, and the lyrics read like an attempt to confront political catastrophe through the prism of personal loss and weird fiction. Elsewhere, "Buckle Up" suffers from a lyrical fuzziness: "Firstly do no harm, then put your seatbelt on, buckle up!" Vedder seems to be trying to address the importance of self-care, but the song's loping rhythm and his warbly delivery make the lyrics sound like a goofy P.S.A.
Occasionally, Vedder and company's experimentation works. Despite its silly title, "Dance of the Clairvoyants" is a successful reworking of the band's signature sound. The track's elastic, funk-inspired rhythm section and unsettling synth riff are a good match for Vedder's vocals, which sound alternately enraged and exhausted. "When the past is the present and the future's no more/When every tomorrow's no more," he sings, sounding like a man who's lived more lives than he can remember. In sharp contrast to that track's maximalism, "Comes Then Goes" is a gentle, country-inflected ballad that showcases Vedder's often under-appreciated vocal range. Reliability may be what's made Pearl Jam such a powerful mainstay, but the more they move outside their comfort zone, and away from their longstanding identity (or lack thereof), the worthier they become of their apparent permanence.
Label: Republic Release Date: March 27, 2020 Buy: Amazon
Review: Walking Proof Finds Lilly Hiatt in Full Command of Her Craft
The singer melds influences as disparate as backwoods country and garage punk into a cohesive signature sound.4.5
Lilly Hiatt's songs are disarmingly personal and immensely endearing, even when she's singing about fucking up—which is pretty often. There's an almost parasocial element to Hiatt's songwriting: Her voice is like that of an old friend who's perpetually in various stages of getting her shit together. Her love life, in particular, always seems to be a mess, and she's looking for a shoulder to lean on.
Hiatt's fourth album, Walking Proof, forms something of a thematic trilogy with her last two: 2015's Royal Blue, a portrait of a relationship in its death throes, and 2017's harder, darker Trinity Lane, which depicted its immediate aftermath. Hiatt spent both albums seeking solace and guidance for her troubles everywhere she could, from family to her favorite records. On Walking Proof, she's emerged wiser and more confident, ready even to dispense advice of her own. She also finds herself in full command of her broad stylistic palette, melding influences as disparate as backwoods country and garage punk into a cohesive signature sound.
Written for the singer's sister, Georgia Rae Hiatt, the album's opening track, "Rae," offers a hint of Hiatt's new, more positive outlook. It's the kind of sweet, tender ode, built around a pretty tremolo rhythm guitar riff, that could have appeared on either of her previous two albums, but in the context of the songs that follow, the hook line sounds almost like an atonement: "I put so much on you, Rae." She appears to have put some of her problems behind her, and that becomes clear on "P-Town," ostensibly another Lilly Hiatt song about a failed relationship. This one, however, is electrifying and ebullient, sounding like a classic Loretta Lynn track amped up with huge, fuzzy guitars. "I don't think I'm who we thought I was," Hiatt suggests, perhaps taken aback by her newfound sense of defiance.
The rest of the album's first half showcases Hiatt's impressive musical range, shifting from the punk-tinged power-pop of "Little Believer" to the brittle guitar rock of "Some Kind of Drug" to the sweet balladry of "Candy Lunch." Walking Proof hits an emotional apex at its midpoint with a pair of country songs. The title track is a gorgeous slice of electric guitar-infused mountain music that suits Hiatt's high, keening voice perfectly, as if it's wafting down from the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her ethereal presence underscores the authority and experience behind her words: "I could tell you that it's easy, but that wouldn't be the truth/If you ever need to call me, well you know there's walking proof." She could well be singing to her past self as much as anyone else. The same goes for "Drawl," a call to embrace one's idiosyncracies rather than conform: "I've hid behind my hair too/Told myself I'm nothing new."
There are a couple of lingering references to Hiatt's past relationship problems. But when, in the hauntingly stark closer "Scream," she claims, "I swear to God I'm done with him," it's convincing this time. That's because she sounds so invigorated by her new beginnings, romantic and otherwise. "I got a man…He makes me feel real good/Yeah he treats me right," she declares on the country anthem "Never Play Guitar." On "Brightest Star," she assures the new guy: "So don't worry 'bout that other guy/You just got the right tattoos/The brightest star in my whole sky is you." These aren't exactly the most poetic or complicated of romantic pledges, but given Hiatt's history, they're rather profound in their simplicity.
Label: New West Release Date: March 27, 2020 Buy: Amazon
The 15 Best Björk Music Videos
One of pop music's most forward-minded performers, Björk has always been at the forefront of the video medium.
Though Björk had enjoyed minor cult fame as the lead singer of the prog-punk band the Sugarcubes, it only took one solo album to solidify the Icelandic artist as a viable pop iconoclast. The plainly titled Debut and its accompanying music videos showcased the endlessly fascinating sides to Björk's offbeat persona, from sweater-clad explorer ("Human Behaviour") to trailer-hitch improvisational performance artist ("Big Time Sensuality"). Subsequent eras found the singer delving deeper into surrealism ("Army of Me"), technology ("Hyperballad"), and, occasionally, raw performance ("Pagan Poetry" and "Black Lake"). One of pop music's most forward-thinking performers, Björk has always been at the forefront of the video medium, a true multimedia pioneer whose influence can be seen in the work of Arca, FKA twigs, and countless others who have followed her wake.
15. "Army of Me"
Directed by French filmmaker Michel Gondry, the video for "Army of Me," the first single from 1995's Post, is a surreal vision that complements the track's call for self-sufficiency with a dreamlike, often nonsensical, narrative. On a mission to rescue a man from an art installation at a local museum, Björk drives a giant tank—a nod toward the film Tank Girl, in which the song is featured—through a cartoonish urban landscape, encountering a thieving gorilla-dentist who snatches a diamond from the singer's mouth along the way. Sal Cinquemani
14. "Human Behaviour"
Björk's very first music video as a solo artist was also the start of a fruitful professional relationship with frequent collaborator Michel Gondry. "Human Behaviour," in which the singer is chased by a stuffed bear in a twisted nod to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, literally set the stage for both of the respective auteurs' careers. Cinquemani
13. "Crystalline"
The eighth (and, to date, most recent) collaboration between Björk and Michel Gondry, 2011's "Crystalline" boasts a charmingly and deceptively simple concept—Björk portrays a lunar goddess-cum-club-kid overseeing a meteor shower on the surface of the moon like a musical conductor—that nods to both A Trip to the Moon and early stop-motion animation. Cinquemani
12. "The Gate"
In the same sense that Stéphane Sednaoui's interpretation of "Big Time Sensuality" stripped away everything extemporaneous to find more than enough in that essential Björkish energy, director Andrew Thomas Huang sees the spectrum of life itself within his muse and assigns it the only appropriate visual analogue. Dressed in a corrugated prism, Björk gets her groove back in a spasmic frenzy of pure, OLED fireworks. In "All Neon Like," she promised to weave a "marvelous web of glow-in-the-dark threads," and with "The Gate," she's delivered. Eric Henderson
11. "Mutual Core"
Eric Henderson calls this video "little tectonic plate of horrors." The lyrics to "Mutual Core" sometimes feel like Björk is reading from a science textbook ("As fast as your fingernail grows/The Atlantic Ridge drifts"), but the video, a sort of sequel to the Gondry-directed 1997 clip for "Jóga," brings the song to explosive life, with Björk, naturally, in the role of neglected Mother Nature. Cinquemani
The 10 Best Albums of 1983
We take a look back and reflect on the music that defined one of the most definable of decades.
In my introduction to Slant's list of the 100 Best Albums of the 1980s, I noted that, while '80s pop culture is largely remembered for its frivolity, the social unrest that stirred beneath the decade's brightly colored gloss and greed resulted in not just the guilt-driven good intentions of enterprises like the star-studded USA for Africa, but a generation of artists whose music genuinely reflected the state of the world. From political violence across the pond and the struggles and dreams of the American working class, to race relations, sexuality, and gender, no topic was left unexcavated by the pop, rock, and hip-hop artists of the Reagan era. As we enter the 2020s, an entire generation removed from the '80s, it seems as good a time as any to once again look back and reflect on the music that defined one of the most definable of decades. Sal Cinquemani
Honorable Mention: Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This); Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Doppelganger; David Bowie, Let's Dance; Malcolm McLaren, Duck Rock; The Pointer Sisters, Break Out; Minutemen, What Makes a Man Start Fires? ; Def Leppard, Pyromania; Paul Simon, Hearts and Bones; Cocteau Twins, Head Over Heels; Zazou/Bekaye/CY1, Noir et Blanc
10. The Police, Synchronicity
Their status as classic rock radio titans has made the Police seem like a much less weird band than they were. On paper, a fusion of jazz-reggae and world-punk with yowly, philosophically inflected lyrics might sound like abject torture. And yet, for a couple of years, they were pretty much the biggest band in the world. Like all Police albums, Synchronicity has a couple of clunkers—the Andy Summers-penned "Mother" is a howling nuisance, and the loping "Walking in Your Footsteps," in which Sting asks dinosaurs for advice about nuclear disarmament, is less playful than it should be—but the heights are sublime. The band comes out with guns blazing on "Synchronicity I," a head-spinning song that makes a forceful case for Stewart Copeland being the best drummer in rock history. "Synchronicity II" and "Miss Gradenko" are excellent Cold War-era time capsules into the growing disaffection with Western culture. At its heart, Synchronicity is a breakup album though. During recording, Sting was in the process of divorcing his first wife, and the band wouldn't survive much longer. The triptych of "Every Breath You Take," "King of Pain," and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" depict all the messy ugliness, from obsession to miserable wallowing, that accompany the death of a failed relationship. After this album, Sting would dissolve the band so he could focus on making the type of music that fades into the background at a grocery store, but he'll always be the king of pain. Seth Wilson
9. U2, War
The aptly titled War found U2 not only diving into the jagged terrain of British politics, but likewise, developing a harsher, needle-nosed sound. The album finds the band in attack mode, where on standout tracks like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" an instrument as refined as the violin takes turns playing electrical whip, wailing animal, and battle cry across the song's marching protest beat. This is U2 at their angriest, each piece infused with a sense of dark urgency that reaches a frothy head on "New Year's Day." Bono's resolution, "I will begin again," is perhaps indicative of the spiritual introspection to come on The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree, but for War, the music is as immediate, violent, and striking as its subject matter. Kevin Liedel
8. Talking Heads, Speaking in Tongues
If the title of the Talking Heads' sixth album found them embracing their lyrical Dadaism with an almost religious zealotry, and if the title's mission statement is more than fulfilled in the likes of "Moon Rocks" ("I ate a rock from the moon/Got shicked once, shocked twice") and "Girlfriend Is Better" (where "Stop making sense" became a mantra), it's also worth noting that the tunes were counterintuitively accessible like never before, no more so than "Burning Down the House," which set fire to no wave and planted one of the many seeds for new wave. Eric Henderson
7. Eurythmics, Touch
If Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) proved that the Eurhythmics had mastered the new wave genre's icy detachment and ironic distance better than just about anyone, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart's follow-up, Touch, found them ready to move on to greater challenges. The album may not be as song-for-song consistent as Sweet Dreams, but it's far more diverse in its style, leaning heavily on the soulfulness of Lennox's performances to keep its synth-pop aesthetic grounded in palpably human emotions. To that end, standout cuts like "Who's That Girl" and the defiant "Aqua" confirm Lennox's status as one of pop music's most gifted, singular vocalists. Jonathan Keefe
6. Madonna, Madonna
Few would deny that Madonna went on to pursue deeper goals than the simple pop perfection of Madonna. But any debut album that yields a "Holiday" and a "Lucky Star," both released as singles in the span of two consecutive days (albeit an ocean apart), is still pretty untouchable. Wistful and eager to please, Madonna's sparkling ditties aren't so much "post-disco" as they are "disco ain't going nowhere, so shut up and dance." Like a heavenly body atop the surging underground currents of every synth-heavy dance subgenre that preceded her, Madonna's cultural co-opting is nothing if not fervent. Henderson


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Muslim Pro: Prayer Times Quran v8.4.5 [Premium]
Minimum Requirements: 4.0.3+
APK Description: #1 Prayer time App 15 million users in 215 countries
Recognized by millions of Islam followers through the Muslim world as the most accurate Prayer time & Azan application on mobile devices. Muslim Pro also features the full Quran with Arabic scripts, phonetics, translations and audio recitations as well as a Qibla locator, an Islamic Hijri calendar, a map of halal restaurants and Mosques, and dua's. MAIN FEATURES: – Fasting times during Ramadan – Accurate Prayer time calculator based on your current location – Azan / Adhan: visual and audio notifications / calls for prayer – The Holy Quran (Al Qur'an) with recitations (mp3 audio), phonetics and translations – Dua's from the popular "Hisnul Muslim" book (Fortress of the Muslim) – Halal restaurants and mosques locations around you – Animated Qibla compass to show you the direction to Mecca – Muslim calendar to estimate holy dates such as Eid-Ul-Fitr and Eid-Ul-Adha – Islamic greeting cards – 99 names of Allah – App and Quran fully translated to: Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Deutsch, English, Español, Français, Italiano, Nerderlands, Português, Türkçe, العربية, اردو, русский, 简体中文, 日本語, ภาษาไทย
IMPORTANT NOTES (1) if you feel that the app is giving you wrong prayer times, it is most likely related to your settings. Please make sure that you have selected the correct convention/calculation method and other parameters.
• Other minor bug fixes and improvements. — If you like the app and the progress we're making, please show us your support by submitting a 5* review. May Allah reward you!
This app has no advertisements
More Info:
Download Instructions: PREMIUM features Unlocked | Maps works

subset: commoncrawl


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This afternoon, I noticed that my Nokia Lumia 800 prompted me for a voicemail password out of nowhere. Thinking that there was some connectivity glitch, I entered the password and guess what, it took me to a visual voicemail screen! I have not seen that screen on my Lumia before, and as I was made to understand, Visual Voicemail for Windows Phone was only available if you added a 4G LTE plan with AT&T.
Before everyone gets excited, I should provide a few disclaimers: I am on my company's corporate plan, so I don't know what plan I am on. However, knowing that my plan is actually an "iPhone data" plan, I know it could not be a 4G LTE plan, since there is no such plan. The other thing is that the screen stays at "syncing voicemail" and does not actually show me my voicemails. At some point this afternoon, I did get a message that it was not able to connect and that I could call the traditional voicemail. I restarted the phone to see if this disappeared, and it has not, so I suppose this functionality may actually be rolling out slowly. I sure hope so.
Could this be another move by Nokia (and AT&T) to further the Windows Phone cause? We have seen that Nokia has been able to get a few exclusives and are making quite a splash in bringing the Windows Phone platform on par with iOS and Android. Could this be another move in that plan?
I am unable to confirm if this is true with other non-Lumia or non-LTE devices. If anyone has a Windows Phone (Lumia or otherwise) and is with AT&T but *not* on a 4G LTE plan, let me know. Let's hope things are changing at AT&T with regard to their love of Windows Phone.
Update: I never saw it on my AT&T Samsung Focus, but here's a response I saw on twitter:
@TheRomit I dont think so. I've had this on my Focus for over a month ever since I forced the 8107 update. It's stuck on 'syncing voicemail'
— karelj (@karelj) May 11, 2012
More, from twitter:
@TheRomit @wpcentral @wmpoweruser Samsung Focus here, no go.
— Brett Lemoine (@bremic9188) May 11, 2012


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Watchuseek Blog
Monday, August 15, 2011
Swiss pride: Franck Muller Crazy Hours Totally Switzerland Only Watch 2011
Franck Muller, founded in 1991, prides itself on perpetuating the great tradition of "Horlogerie" by creating and developing remarkable complications never before seen.
The manufacture's artistry resides in its ability to launch watches which are considered masterpieces in terms of design and precise mechanisms. And each Franck Muller timepiece is made within the Swiss watchmaking tradition.
Ever since Only Watch began, 53 year old Franck Muller has always personally intervened to lend his skill and expertise to such an important cause. And for 2011, the brand is proud to participate in the Only Watch Auction whose funds this year will be donated entirely to the Monégasque Association for Muscular Dystrophy.
Franck Muller has decided to present one of its most famous watches, the Crazy Hours. The hallmark exploding numerals of the Crazy Hours dial reveal the hours in their chronological order, but the hour hand jumps every time that the minute hand completes its revolution, creating a new and arresting way to read time.
For Only Watch, Franck Muller has created a very special dial designed to elicit a surge of Swiss pride from the Swiss residents of Monaco, who make up one of the largest communities in the Rocher, for the colours used were specially selected to symbolise the Helvetica flag and the Monte-Carlo principality.
Reference: 1300 CH
Calibre: FM 2800 HF
Movement: Automatic
Dimensions of Movement: 25.60 mm Height: 5.20 mm
Display: Hours in the middle jumping in uncoording way and minutes
Functions: Winding-shaft with two positions
Power Reserve: 42 hours
Frequency: 28'000 vibrations / hour
Number of Components: 186
Number of Jewels: 23
Water-resistance: 3 ATM
Movement Decoration: Côtes de Genève, diamond polishing, hand-bevelling, circular graining, bi-colour rhodium-plating and hand-engraving
Dial: Sun-stamped translucent lacquered red dial with
Case: Long Island: 18 carat white gold
Case Dimensions: Width: 35.20 mm x Length: 59.20 mm x Height: 13.30mm
Strap: Hand-sewn red alligator strap
Posted by Michael West at 12:35 PM No comments: Links to this post
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One of the new additions to the Republican Party platform is opposition to Agenda 21. In its section on leadership in international organizations, the platform now reads, "We strongly reject the U.N. Agenda 21 as erosive of American sovereignty, and we oppose any form of U.N. Global Tax." I'm glad they added this language to the platform, but I wonder how many people who voted in favor of this addition know what Agenda 21 is.
Agenda 21 is a plan put forth by the United Nations that seeks to implement "sustainable development." Nebulous government-speak terms like "smart meters," "smart growth," "sustainable communities," "greenways," and my personal favorite, "social justice" all have to do with the U.N.'s Agenda 21. On the surface, sure they sound good. Why would we not be in favor of "smart" things and "sustainability?" Why would we not be in favor of "social justice?" They sound like things we could be in favor of, but what do they mean by them?
At the U.N.'s "Earth Summit" in 1992, George H. W. Bush was one of 178 world leaders who signed the Agenda 21 protocol and agreed with its goals. Maurice Strong was the Secretary General at this conference. He stated that "current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable."
Agenda 21 is all about environmental control. It seeks to ration natural resources in the same way that Obamacare will ration healthcare. Energy will be rationed based on the assumption that our government owns all resources including food, water and land. Local Agenda 21 initiatives will mandate certain appliances and outlaw others based on energy consumption, and your energy consumption will be monitored so that you don't "go over your limit." Homes and buildings will have to be built or rebuilt to meet new "green" building codes or else face hefty fines. It seeks to transition citizens away from rural areas and into cities. It wants to "wean" people off private vehicles (because of "dirty" fossil fuels) and have them start using public transportation like high-speed rail. Outdoor recreational activities will be restricted because those practices are not "sustainable."
"Social justice" means the abolition of private property. Here's an excerpt from a report published at the U.N.'s Habitat I Conference in 1976:
Land…cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. The provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interest of society as a whole.
It's not fair that individuals own land or property. What will make it fair is if it is collectively owned. The United Nations wants to mandate global communism. They just don't call it that. They call it "social justice." And they're going to execute "social justice" through "sustainable development."
These things are already happening in our own country. Over 600 cities and counties across the U.S. have become members of ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives), "an international association of local governments as well as national and regional local government organizations who have made a commitment to sustainable development." Check here to see if your town, city or county is a member.
In 1993, a year after Bush Sr. signed the Agenda 21 protocol, President Clinton issued an executive order that created the PCSD (President's Council on Sustainable Development). This group made Agenda 21 public policy and sought to implement its goals at the local level through ICLEI. J. Gary Lawrence was an adviser to this council. He advised that people should not know about Agenda 21 because if they knew about it, they would be opposed to it:
Participating in a UN advocated planning process would very likely bring out many of the conspiracy-fixated groups and individuals in our society….This segment of our society who fear 'one-world government' and a UN invasion of the United States through which our individual freedom would be stripped away would actively work to defeat any elected official who joined 'the conspiracy' by undertaking LA21. So we call our process something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management or smart growth.
And this is why we don't ever hear about it. They control the language in media. Their agenda is shrouded in vague terms that could mean anything, and people are naïve enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. Since the creation of Clinton's PCSD, Obama has issued executive orders creating similar and more expansive "councils" that work to further the U.N.'s agenda.
Tom Madrecki is a spokesman for Smart Growth America, another one of those Agenda 21 type organizations. He doesn't like the fact that Agenda 21 is in the new Republican platform. He said, "The fact that it's in the platform gives credence to something that just shouldn't get any." He's concerned that such a mainstream position opposing Agenda 21 will only serve to stir dissent and will "continue halting beneficial conversations about community planning." There's another one of those buzz phrases…"community planning."
It's great that the Republican Party has officially taken a stand against the United Nations and its global communist agenda. I hope it stays in their platform, and I hope Romney and other elected republicans will work tirelessly to expose the U.N. for what they really are and to extricate the U.S. from the organization itself, thus restoring our national sovereignty.
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at firstname.lastname@example.com or 410-430-5349
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest
Contact Publisher Joe Albero at firstname.lastname@example.com or 410-430-5349
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Agenda 21' And Why Is The GOP Now Opposed To It?
at 9/04/2012 12:15:00 PM
3 comments:
You can take my SUV but YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY TOASTER.
We're doomed.
- September 4, 2012 at 12:38 PM
Sounds like the plan Maryland has now put forth by the enviromental lobby.
- September 4, 2012 at 2:05 PM
thank you for exposing this. i've been trying to get people to read and understand what has been happening with this deceptive plan for months.
- September 4, 2012 at 2:42 PM
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PI-3 Breast Cancer Chemo Gift Mastectomy Survivor Awareness Pray Until Something Happens Keychain
Pray Until Something Happens Keychain For Men & Women This is one of my favorites and a perfect gift for both him and/or her. It's a different unique style then most you find. The focal PUSH Quote charm is 25mm/1"inch with a metal clip attach piece. Other charms include the enamel ribbon charm as shown in the picture and a silver plated cross charm. Your design will be gift boxed & ready to give if needed.
Designs for a Warrior ~ Made by a Warrior
I create each item with sincere care and love. I'm a multiple disease Princess Warrior since 2008 and it's my honor to create your design. I make sure to 'Pay it Forward' every chance I get.
FJJCreations donates a percentage of ALL sales to various organizations, fundraisers and events. I update this information online about every 2-3 months. It's pretty exciting to see all FJJCreations has been able to do from your amazing support. It's more than buying a piece of jewelry; you're helping to send Warrior Hugs around the world in Awareness & Support.


text: In the age of advanced technology, commuting by flight has become more prerequisite. The comfort, class and speed of flights by no means can be replaced with any other mode of transportation. However, with the prices airline tickets going up day by day the airfares have been on boom lately. In this situation, laying your hands on Airline tickets from Denver to Barcelona can be time consuming for you. There will be more opportunities for you to book flights from Denver to Barcelona at low flight fare deals. Undertaking a bit of elaborate research on the internet will also help you to save on airline tickets reservations. Flightfaredeals offers you discounted airlines tickets with widest choice of payment options and facilitates. Book flight with us to save money on one way, round trip and group flights.


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If you won't listen to headphones unblessed by a rapper's licensing deal — and neither Dre nor Ludacris are good enough for you — look to 50 Cent. The former rapper turned Vitamin Water kingpin's newest headphone is here.
Street by 50 (sound familiar?) touts emphasised bass, 40 mm drivers and... they're black and blue? I think if you were to switch the S with a b, you'd have a lot of people fooled. These headphones look just like Ludacris'. Which look a lot like Dre's. Maybe they sound good. You'll almost certainly be able to buy a better, non-50 Cent pair for less money, though no pricing or availability info is out yet. They could have at least made these out of kevlar like the new RAZR. [SMS by 50]


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Megan Willis
Class of 2013
Major/Minor: English, International Studies/Creative Writing
I work for The Elm, Rose O'Neill Literary House, and as a Tour Guide. When left to my own devices, I tend to get lost and create mischief. I also enjoy coloring, animals, and tofu.
Campus Involvement
- Majors: English and International Studies
- Minor: Creative Writing
- Concentration: European Studies
- Languages: English, a smattering of Spanish, and learning German
- Admissions Tour Guide
- Art History club
- The Elm
- International Studies Council
- Model United Nations
- Photography club
- Resident Assistant
- Study Abroad: I have visited China; I hope to study abroad either Germany or Australia
Hometown and high school? Arnold, MD/Old Mill HS
Future plans? I am hoping to be accepted into the Peace Corps immediately after graduation; and if that fails I will go live in a box in Greenwich Village surviving on canned foods while attempting to sell poetry.


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|Artist: Dawn
|Date Added: July 2, 2012
|Steps: 7
|Favorited: 30 (view)
|Views: 0 in last hour, 2 in last day, 10 in last week, 27617 total
|Comments: 0
|Tags: how to draw angel beats, how to draw angel beats characters
Description: Well guys, here is a lesson based on yet another character from the seemingly popular 'Angel Beats'. Up next I will be showing you "how to draw Yui", step by step. She is a fan of the band 'Girls Dead Monster'. Instead of being part of the band, she is instead an assistant, but she later becomes the bands new rhythm guitarist. One of the recognizable traits to Yui is how fast she talks, and how incredibly hyper she is. Some people find Yui to be annoying and sometimes there will be aggressive arguments between who ever it may be that is arguing with Yui at the time. Even though there is a lot of bickering back and forth, these girls genuinely care about one another. Yui's style is pretty sweet because he wears some shackles on her wrists, as well as a pair of devilish wings. Her musical instrument of choice is a Gibson SG special guitar. She is definitely a character that gets around because later in the series she also eventually becomes one of the main figures of the SSS. I had fun drawing Yui because I find her interesting and pretty. If you are a fan of Angel Beats, you should know who she is. I will be back with more drawing fun so stay tuned in. Adios people and like always enjoy!


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Photographer Andrew Cull and some friends have held a little contest to see who can take the best "portraits" of Skyrim characters. The winners are absolutely ridiculous.
Sure, it helps that in each shot the visuals appear to have been modded to within an inch of their lives, but whatever, they're still great "photos".
There were 18 portraits selected at first, with a further 18 to be picked in a few weeks' time. You can check them all out here.
(via Kotaku AU)


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NATO Air Headquarters Ramstein passes missile defence test
04-05 April 2012
The operational headquarters for NATO's future territorial ballistic missile defence capability passed a significant technical test on 4-5 April as it conducted a series of simulated engagements using assets from across the Alliance.
The NATO command and control capability for ballistic missile defence, located at Headquarters Allied Air Command (HQ AC) in Ramstein, Germany, linked with Patriot missile-defence batteries in Germany and the Netherlands, the US Aegis destroyer "The Sullivans" in the Mediterranean, and NATO and US command elements in Europe and North America, to test the Alliance's ability to counter missile attacks.
Dutch launch crew preparing the Patriot battery for firing.
In a series of simulated engagements, HQ AC Ramstein acted as the link between all the various assets, sharing information between early-warning satellites, ground-and sea-based sensor platforms, interceptors and HQs to oversee the defence against incoming missiles.
This was the first test of HQ AC Ramstein's new role as operational headquarters for ballistic missile defence.
"This is just a first step, a very small step but a very very important step and from what we've seen so far, a successful one," said General Mark A. Welsh, Commander Allied Air Command Ramstein.
Ultimately, NATO's goal is to develop a missile defence capability to protect the Alliance's European populations, territory and forces, as decided by NATO Heads of State and Government at the Lisbon NATO Summit in November 2010.
The exercise marked the first step in implementing the command and control of the future system – a development which is expected to continue in the coming years.
"I believe this has been very successful. We have completed all the objectives we had for the exercise. The entire NATO team has done a magnificent job of creating a capability where there was none even six to eight months ago. We could not have done what we did today without the policy guidance the NAC has given us, or the strategic military direction SACEUR and his SHAPE staff provide. And many NATO Agencies and Programme Office built the technical tools we're using today. These tools where validated using the new BMD modeling and simulation capability of the European Integrated Air and Missile Defense Center in Einsiedlerhof, Germany. Air Command is only a small part of NATO's effort in this mission area, but we're very proud of the role we play," said General Welsh.
(Story courtesy of ACO)
Originally taken from NATO's website: www.nato.int


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Gilliam County Land Records Search Index in the state of Oregon is an undoubtedly one of the reliable search indexes designed to meet the requirements of the genealogists. Vast collection of specifics including full name of the owner of the plot, age of the owner, date and place of birth, names of the grantor and grantee, acres, details on plot document number, parcel, township, watershed, section, serial number, range, specifics about family members, citizenship, occupation and more now can easily be retrieved via this archive tool.
The well-organized Gilliam County Search Index now allows the genealogists and data seekers to access information including county birth certificate information, county death certificate specifics, county divorce decree, county census data, county immigration and naturalization records, county war and enlistment data, county military and service records, county last will and the likes.
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This is the first of four Fall table settings I'm going to share this week. I'm using my favorite basics, mixing and matching them with seasonal pumpkins and gourds, then accenting with candles from my Fall Color Collection.
I love this one - it is a brighter and more colorful table than I typically do. In years past, I gravitated toward the heirloom pumpkins that come in the pastel colors like white, light blue and green.
This year I've been drawn to this rich, deep orange color mixed with gold candles. I'm also in the process or making two different shades of orange linen pillows... coming soon.
The natural linen napkins with the grey and black stripes are the perfect way to bring in a neutral accent to help tone it down a bit.
I filled the Warm Wood Berry Baskets with mini pumpkins - I also think these would look fabulous all the way down a long table, too... maybe the kids table for Halloween or Thanksgiving?!
As you can see, just outside our dining room table is our porch (one of my favorite things about this house). I've added orange mums to my rustic Napa Home & Garden pots.
I like the mum a little oversized, planted in a smaller container - I think it gives it an elegant shape.
Centerpieces don't have to be flowers and they don't have to be complicated. I use this bowl every season (Match Pewter - a wedding gift... remember it filled with pansies in the spring?) - try to find a good staple piece in your home that you can transform each season.
I am obsessed with this new round board I got at Nell Hills (a KC favorite). It was only about $25 and I've already used it in 10 different ways... you'll be seeing a lot of it : ) And, of course, my favorite class candle holders from Target - they hold pillars and tapers.
With all of the bright colors, the plain white plates that I've had for years (Williams-Sonoma Pantry) look great. The glasses are my favorite from Sur La Table.
Stay tuned this week for more table setting ideas using simple accents and seasonal pumpkins and gourds... such a fun challenge to transform the same things into something different each day.


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Currently listing 501 recipes in 28 categories!Latest Recipes
1 pound ground beef (95% lean)
7 to 8 ounces beef chorizo
1-1/2 cups chopped white onions
2 to 4 medium serrano peppers, chopped
2 tablespoons ground ancho chili powder or regular chili powder
2 tablespoons masa harina or cornmeal
1 tablespoon dried Mexican or regular oregano leaves, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
2 cans (15 to 16 ounces each) garbanzo beans or pinto beans, rinsed, drained
1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
Hot cooked rice (optional)
Sliced radishes, crumbled queso fresco, dairy sour cream, sliced green onions, Creamy Avocado Dressing (recipe follows) (optional)
Total recipe time: 45 to 50 minutes
Makes 4 to 6 servings
1. Heat large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Add ground beef, chorizo, onions and peppers; cook 8 to 10 minutes, breaking into 3/4-inch crumbles and stirring occasionally. Remove from skillet with slotted spoon; pour off drippings. Return beef to skillet.
2. Add chili powder, masa harina, oregano and salt; cook and stir 1 minute. Stir in beans and tomatoes; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes before serving.
3. Serve over rice with toppings, if desired.
Creamy Avocado Dressing: Cut 1 medium ripe avocado into chunks. Place avocado, 3/4 cup water, 1/4 cup fresh lime juice, 1 peeled clove garlic and 1/2 teaspoon salt in blender container. Cover; process until smooth. (May be prepared up to 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)
Recipe and photo used with permission by The Beef Checkoff. For more beef information and recipes visit www.BeefItsWhatsForDinner.com
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(Spooning) TROLLING WITH WIRE LINE (SOME IDEAS)
For many years using bunker spoons was always a successful way to catch the larger stripers, yet not many anglers were using this method until recently. Now with the presence of massive schools of bunker, spooning has been reborn.
This type of fishing changed for me a few years ago, when I observed a wounded bunker swimming outside the school he was once part of. As he was swimming more slowly and not as erratic as the rest, a huge striper came and engulfed him. That's when I realized I had it all wrong. This is when I tweaked my home made spoons to swim more subtle. They now have a two foot sweep rather than a four foot sweep. My hook up and catch rate nearly doubled with this new find and the rest is history.
Spooning is a fairly easy style of fishing if you have the right tools. First you must have the right spoon. Many on the market will work but some better than others. My spoons work right out of the package and are made of heavy stainless steel and won't bend after catching larger fish. The action will still be the same fish after fish.
Next you need the right rod to get your spoon to work at its maximum potential. I just started to manufacture such a rod to make this happen. This custom rod is made for bunker spoons exclusively. Although you can purchase a store bought rod, I strongly recommend a custom rod for better performance and durability.
Now you need a good reel. There are a few I would recommend. My first choice is the Canyon Tony Maja Signature Series this reel has a lever drag(Which I prefer when trolling) and has a 40lb drag 6 to one retrieve and will hold 300' of 40lb wire with 200' of 50lb mono backing it is a more compact and lighter than the reels most commonly used . Other reels are the Shimano TLD series the 20 or the 25 or a Penn 113H or the 6/0. I use 40# monel wire. It's more forgiving than stainless. For backing, I then put 50# mono and 15'of 60# mono leader.
Next you need a set of out rodders to make it easier to get the rod out of the holder with a fish on the end of your line. This is no easy task if your outrodder is in a fixed horizontal position. I designed the E-Z Outrodder that lifts to a vertical position to correct this problem.
Okay, now you have the right tackle. It's time for technique. Whether you're using wire, braid, or mono you must know what dept your spoon is swimming at. I use wire exclusively and with spoons that weigh 6-12 ounces they will swim down 10' for every 100' of wire. Spoons that weigh 13-16 ounces will swim down 40'. This may vary with wind and current. Braid and mono is another story. I can't seem to get the same formula no matter who I speak to. Next is speed. This is when you have to pay attention to the tip of your spoon rod. It should have a steady pulsation or pumping action, and can range from two to four knots depending on conditions. Time and season is very important. In the spring, at first light I will fish in shallower water and when the sun reaches a certain level, (usually by 8am) I fish the deep, bass are very light sensitive. In the fall you can fish almost any time of the day because of the angle of the sun.
What size spoon should I use? This is one of the most asked question I get. This past spring was a good example. I was marking a lot of bait and had my larger spoons out to no avail,I then used one of my smaller ones and hit the jackpot. After catching and releasing 7 bass from 26-42lbs, I gutted a smaller one and found small herring and butterfish. So my advice would be try different sizes until you hit it right.
Next most asked question is what dept should my spoons swim . This is where I said you must know where your spoon is at all times. Rule of thumb for me is that I like to swim my spoon 5' under the bait and 10' off structure. When using two or more rods keep them at different depts, until you catch. Another asked question is what direction is best for spoons. From my experience cross current is the best and with the current next. Unfortunately this is a problem when there is a lot of boats trolling, they mostly go north and south. If you are catching in an area and only hooking up going in one direction, I would then pick up my lines and go back and start all over. This is where GPS is essential.
Last is using weights. I never use a drail sinker when there are bluefish around, I lost too many spoons that way when Mr. Bluefish thought my drail was bait. I instead use two barrel swivels, one attaching my wire to a 15' leader and the other sliding from my wire to the other swivel(like A fish finder rig) and attach 4' of 60# braid to a bank sinker( every 6oz brings it down approx. 4-8')
I hope this will help you better understand spooning, this technique has caught more and larger striped bass for me in the past forty years.
Tony Maja
(Note) Do Not leave the pin in when storing your out rodders
Please note, shad rigs, umbrella rigs, or any heavy dredges which require using a tight or locked drag are not suitable and will cause damage to the locking cuts on the Out-Rodders.


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Sample size in LGM?
Mplus Discussion
Growth Modeling of Longitudinal Data
Mikael Samuelsson
posted on Thursday, March 01, 2001 - 12:36 pm
I try applying longitudinal growth modeling on the business start up process. It is an exploratory setting were I investigate old theories in a new setting with new techniques, we have no proceeding analyzes and we have a unique random sample of business ideas in Sweden. The purpose with the model is to test for group invariance between two groups. The two-group final model fit the data well Chi-Square Value 77.398 d.f's 62 P-Value .0899 with 70 free parameters. But in separate analyses one groups model fit the data very well and one only marginally. The model has four time points only continuous normal independent variables /9 time invariant and 1 time varying single item measures /.
The main concern is that the groups' samples consist of n 34 and n 199, together 233 respondents. I went trough some of the Guidelines for sample sizes in SEM (Boomsma 1982, Bentler & Chou 1987) and through the Semnet archives and found very little help, depending on purpose/ model structure/ conservatism, sample size guide lines seems to vary. I understand that the best case would be a larger sample. Long story short question: are there any guidelines for sample sizes in longitudinal growth modeling, and possible recent references?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Friday, March 02, 2001 - 9:24 am
The only guideline that I know of is that you need fewer observations for repeated measures than for cross-sectional data. We have done some simulations (not published) that show n=20 can work well in a very simple growth model. You may want to set up your own Monte Carlo study that mimics your real data to see how this situation performs.
Roxana Dragan
posted on Thursday, May 14, 2009 - 12:54 pm
I try to estimate a growth model with multiple indicators. I have 6 indicators and 6 time points on OECD countries (20 observations). The CFA without invariance means I have 6 factors, one for each time point, and 6 indicators for each factor. This CFA without invariance requires at least 5*6=30 loadings, and 6*7/2=21 variances and covariances for the 6 factors. The loadings and var-cov of the factors add up to 51 parameters, which is larger than 20, the number of observations I have for this analysis. Is this a good reason for not attempting such an analysis? Thank you.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Friday, May 15, 2009 - 9:15 am
Thierno Diallo
posted on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 8:51 am
I am looking for guidelines for sample sizes in longitudinal growth modelind and possible references. I have read the posting on the issue on Mplus discussion. Is there anything knew since your answer in 2001? Thank you.
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 2:38 pm
I can't remember what we said in 2001 but I would say do a Monte Carlo study. See the following paper which is available on the website:
Muthén, L.K. & Muthén, B.O. (2002). How to use a Monte Carlo study to decide on sample size and determine power. Structural Equation Modeling, 4, 599-620.
posted on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 8:07 am
Dear Drs. Muthen:
I have a only limited sample size (n=220, male=110 and females=110) for latent growth modeling with categorical variables and I always have marginal significance in the relationship beteween the independent variable and slope. Is it fine to drop several covariates from the model (e.g. i on covariates, or s on covariates) if these covariates are not significant? In this way, I might get significant findings. Is this way valid?
Linda K. Muthen
posted on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 8:15 am
I would not do this. You should select your covariates based on theory and report the non-significant findings.
Kort Prince
posted on Tuesday, October 20, 2015 - 3:28 pm
Hi - I am wondering if you have any sources that extend your 2002 paper for determining sample sizes to non-normal distributions (specifically binomial and count data)? Is it possible to adapt the information in that paper to apply to these distributions? Thank you for any guidance.
Bengt O. Muthen
posted on Tuesday, October 20, 2015 - 6:30 pm
Q1. No
Q2. Yes, that should be quite possible using monte carlo simulations. Note that every UG example has a monte carlo counterpart on our web site.
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To look at the messenger bag, hoody and that gingham shirt of the average start-up worker, Silicon Valley really has valued function over fashion over the years. Not so, these days- 2014 has seen style and tech fused like never before, as digital stalwarts from Apple to Intel race to collaborate with the fashion world's brightest. And, with NY-based firm CB Insights tracking a massive $1.4 billion of investment into wearable start-ups over the past 5 years – around $500 million of which was doled out in 2014 – the rest of this year and beyond is shaping up to be a retail landscape game changer.
So who are the need-to-know pioneers on the fashion x tech frontier? The Apple Watch, revealed last month, has set the bar high for covetable wearables. Smaller start-ups looking to move into the business of fashion, though, should be taking notes from more than just its high-tech specs and sleek personalisation – perhaps most savvy was the way it was rolled out. The Cupertino launch capitalised on the energy of NYFW – even convincing big fashion names like Natalie Massanet to skip the shows altogether to get a sneak peek – and later hosted a Colette takeover, attended by Karl and Anna, on the penultimate day of Paris Fashion Week. Elsewhere on the wearable scene, Intel and Opening Ceremony's MICA – short for My Intelligent Communication Accessory – will launch this winter. The bracelet fuses luxury semi-precious stones with a 1.6-inch sapphire touch screen, but you'll have to wait until December to find out what exactly its "communication capabilities" are.
With bold statements from fashion and tech's biggest fish, the fear might set in as to whether smaller start-ups can break into the market in 2015. As our NYC global summit will demonstrate on November 18-19, the opportunities in wearables for retailers are huge – and far more tangible than you might first suppose. Industry movers and shakers who will be speaking on wearable innovations over the weekend include Lauren Sherman (editor and strategist at Fashionista), Matthew Woolsey (EVP of Digital at Barneys) and Amy Puliafito of wearable computing company Misfit. The latter company, specializing in stylish fitness and sleep monitors, combines affordability and style with every design: a combination that, though worlds away from the luxury vibe of more news-worthy designs of late, looks ahead to just how wearable wearable tech will be in 2015.
Reported by Claire Healy
Decoded Fashion New York will take place on November 18-19, 2014 at Metropolitan West. The full agenda can be found here.


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Texas mother of three to get first double arm transplant in the U.S.
(CBS News) Katy Hayes, a woman who had all her limbs amputated after developing a deadly infection more than two years ago, is set to become to first American to undergo a double arm transplant.
The 43-year-old mother of three from Kingwood, Texas joined doctors today at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston to announce the milestone at a press conference, CBS Boston reported.
Man gets double arm transplant in Mexico
Pictures: Hand transplant: What next for Emily Fennell?
Pictures: Amazing face transplants (GRAPHIC)
Four days after giving birth to her third child in 2010, Katy developed Streptococcal A infection and slipped into a coma. To save her life and prevent the spread of the infection, doctors had to amputate her arms and legs.
"Both the doctors looked at me and said that I was going to die and that we should prepare the family for my demise," Hayes recalled Wednesday at the press conference.
She survived and said in a video on the hospital's website that the surgeries were "more than she could grasp," but support from her family and her husband of 13 years, Al, helped her get through it. So too did the Harvard-affiliated hospital which after rigorous evaluation approved Hayes for the milestone surgery, a procedure she says has given her the hope to fight forward.
For the procedure, doctors will attach donated arms to where Katy's elbow used to be, first using metal plates and screws to join the bones, before connecting muscles, tendons, arteries, veins and three major nerves of the arm (animation of the surgery). The hospital is working with the New England Organ Bank to find a donor. Dr. Simon Talbot, lead surgeon for the procedure, said at a news conference she will need six months of rehabilitation and may never get feeling or motion in her new hands. But Hayes is hopeful the arms will make her feel more complete.
"I want to hug my children and hug my husband, cook food, and wipe my own bottom; things you guys take for granted," she said. "I have the determination to make these arms my own."
Watch below for a story of Katy's journey from Brigham and Women's Hospital:
Katy Hayes' Journey from BWH Public Affairs on Vimeo.


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Nicole Walker was enjoying her new life in Paris with her daughter, Holly, despite the fact that Brady blackmailed her into leaving Eric by telling Salem PD she killed Deimos. But a surprise pregnancy gives Nicole pause for thought on whether she should head back to Salem to tell Eri...
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If you're into the paranormal and enjoy traveling then check out these paranormal spots in the good ole state of Idaho.
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After the disappointment of not winning the British Grand prix, although claiming a very creditable 2nd place, Lewis Hamilton went to Germany on a mission. Could he fulfil it? read on to find out more
The Yardstick of Creation! A Compulsive Disorder Which Stretches Throughout Religions and Centuries. Where ignorance saves the lives of NO-ONE!
Last Friday we travelled to Southport for an author event. Read on to find out more.
Writing your name with MyNamePix is easy and fast. With our name generator you can write your name on birthday cakes, birthday wishes or custom text on beautiful collection of high resolution photos.
The speed that animals escape from the presence of humans is no match to the speed of their arrows, spears and sophisticated bullets that maim and kill them, for fun, sport, or food. - Jamie
Like humans, animals lend themselves to aggression but only in matters of self-defense or self-preservation. This natural instinct in the latter is induced and stoked by the former in the arena of spectator sport. - Jamie