Top 100 singles of all time: 81 – Cyndi Lauper – True Colors

Another one from the 80s. This Grammy-winning song was a Billboard number one for Cyndi Lauper in July 1986. True Colors was the title track from her second album, and won the award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. 

Reinspired Year 2 mixtape

It’s been exactly two years since I started this blog and the difference it has made to my life has been remarkable. Not the writing part; I’ve always done that. Even when I wasn’t writing for publication, I was wittering away on internet forums or clogging up Facebook with my rantings. No, it’s the inspiration. It’s like being in love. You know, the butterflies-in-the-tummy feeling you get that makes you feel like you’ll just burst if you don’t shout it from the rooftops – that’s how I feel when I hear a great song. It goes far beyond just transforming my mood or giving me an idea. The word “inspiration” is related to breathing, and that’s how essential and natural this process is. I might have a conscious discipline to blog every day, but that just facilitates my discovery of these wonderful tunes – the words that appear on the screen are just a manifestation, a by-product of the process. If I couldn’t write, I’d just have to speak about it, and if I couldn’t speak I’d grunt and gibber. I’d point. I’d take you by the hand and drag you over to the record player. This. Hear it. Now.

These are just a few of the songs that have inspired me in the past 12 months. You can hear them as a Youtube Playlist (click to stream). Enjoy!

Nerdgasm alert! Brilliant fan-made BioShock film as real movie goes on hiatus

When Gore Verbinski dropped directing duties for the BioShock movie citing the R-rating’s likely effect on ticket sales, dreams of a film that would actually do justice to the game diminished. Now that even the 28 Weeks Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has fled, the sub-marine dystopia is dead in the water. The BioShock film is officially on hold.

Fresnadillo told The Playlist, “To be honest, by now, I’m completely out of that, and developing other stuff. Right now it’s on hold. The studio and the video game company, they have to reach some kind of agreement about the budget and the rating.”

First impressions: Grimes – Visions

I’m with Wallace Wylie on this: Visions is a very frustrating album. It has some great songs – Symphonia IX and Oblivion for two – but it does tend towards the K-Pop. It’s that kind of saccharine, twee kitsch that sounds like a musical incarnation of that new My Little Pony TV series: everyone says it’s “awesome” when really it’s just “not bad”. 

The joy of ridiculously difficult video games?

I wrote a while back about how I don’t really enjoy slow-paced games that require a lot of thinking, and never understood why people would deliberately seek out very difficult games. Much as I loved the setting and style of the original Deus Ex, I don’t think I’ll be returning any time soon, because it just feels like punishment. I gave up on Vampire TMB: Bloodlines annoyingly near the end because I just couldn’t get past that werewolf, and … it just wasn’t fun any more.

This intriguing article from The New Yorker spells out for me what I’d been missing before: it isn’t actually about having fun at all. 

#musicmonday : Fever Ray – When I Grow Up

Me: “Do you think Danielle Dax is curled up in a ball, whimpering, somewhere?”

Him Indoors: “She’s probably muttering … please reissue my greatest hits … please reissue my greatest hits …” 

Missing Logic: Avatar

Avatar is showing this weekend on British TV, which reminds me of some pretty obvious problems.

THE FILM

It’s Pocahontas as played out by Smurfs, remember? Gorgeous Sam Worthington escapes his wheelchair in a virtual body (or “avatar”) on a pretty rainforest planet. He falls in love with the girl-Smurf (Zoe Saldana) and organises a rebellion against the evil US army. 

7 of the most unspeakably infuriating videos ever

I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive Him Indoors for bringing this to my attention. I’ll grudgingly admit that the video is clever, but the song is awful, they look simply ridiculous and that missing apostrophe is driving me nuts.

Someone should send this to Einsturzende Neubauten and tell them “this is your legacy”. But I quite value my life so it won’t be me. 

First impressions: Alexander Tucker – Dorwytch

Last year was a pretty good year for music. I know this because every month for the past 15 months, I’ve had to narrow down my choice of what to spend my music budget on: I never make it through my to-buy list.

Alexander Tucker has been on my list for months – ever since I heard Red String and instantly fell in love. It’s indicative of Dorwytch, but not to the point where the album’s so samey you get bored. It’s too fresh and breezy for that – like a picnic on a summer’s day, but minus the tweeness, ants and strawberries. 

Will Blood and Chrome be frakking awesome?

The new trailer for Battlestar Galactica‘s spin-off series Blood and Chrome is doing the rounds, and it looks impressive. “Reimagined” BSG was – particularly in the second season – probably the best television drama ever made, before it petered off in the final season and its first spin-off Caprica was a little weak. Here’s hoping Blood and Chrome will do better. The concept art above makes it look interesting, at least.

Click here for trailer