Like the level before this, this level’s shape fits its position on the o’erworld: much as the previous course was @ the peak where you go up & down, this level continues the downward trajectory. Howe’er, this level has mo’ interesting challenges. The 1st room challenges you to climb down a series o’ thin platforms while dodging the Pirate Gooms. Not the hardest challenge @ this point o’ the game, but it a’least feels fresh.
E’en better, later on in this level they build on this by having ’nother room where you go down thin platforms with Pirate Gooms, but this time they give you a star & let you just ram thru them for free hearts.
As e’eryone knows, my favorite genre o’ news article is that genre o’ porn known as self-masturbation. Newspapers writers ( or the editors who force them to write these articles or they won’t get the Twix candy bars they get as their salary ), lacking any semblance o’ self-awareness, wonder all the time why people aren’t taking their “news” seriously while rewarding their loyal readers with faces full o’ cum. Well, ¡get your spoons, folks, ’cause we’re digging right in! This is “We Have Two Medias in This Country, and They’re Going to Elect Donald Trump” from some newspaper called The New Republic. Man, I wish we had a new republic, but I get the feeling that their name is a reference to how the US felt new 2 centuries ago.
It’s often asked in my circles: Why isn’t Joe Biden getting more credit for his accomplishments? As with anything, there’s no single reason.
If this writer were as smart as they think they are, they would follow this inane question not by throwing out a bunch o’ answers that sound like they make sense, strewn o’ any evidence, but with their own questions: ¿“credit by whom” & “credit for what”? Obviously Biden isn’t going to get credit from right-wing media, whose express purpose is to make him look bad. This has always been the case & has ne’er been a full stop to Democrats winning in the past. ¿Does this writer not remember how Obama was blamed for a recession his Republican predecessor had caused? If anything, there are far mo’ Democrats defensive o’ Biden than of Obama — probably due to being mo’ sensitive to the prospect o’ losing to Trump after scoffing @ the idea back in 2016. To put it into perspective, Ralph Nader, who infamously ran as a 3rd-party candidate to deliberately siphon off votes from the Democratic party as a form o’ going on strike, has said he will support Biden ’cause he prefers “autocracy” — which, weirdly, in his mind, don’t suppress votes or suppress freedom o’ speech, which sounds exactly what actual autocracies do — to fascism. ( If Nader had a better grasp o’ words he’d have maybe been able to come closer to a mo’ accurate term to describe mainstream US politics, like “oligarchy”, which is not as authoritarian as autocracy, but not quite democracy ).
Inflation is a factor.
It should be noted that while Biden did help pass bills that ameliorated inflation, he also insisted in following decorum tradition in keeping Trump’s shitty head o’ the Federal Reserve, who has been trying to sabotage the possibility o’ wages keeping up with inflation. Perhaps we could talk ’bout the media’s terrible framing o’ inflation, inflating its own importance when in sexy grand #s, while ignoring the fact that wages have been barely keeping ’bove inflation for decades.
But there is one overwhelming factor in play: the media.
Underpinning this whole article is 1 major fallacy: that “media” — which is so vague it’s practically meaningless, specially as the internet has opened up all avenues as potential forms o’ propaganda, but I’m going to take, given the clues this article offers, as newspapers, or as young people call it, “dying media” or “irrelevant media” — plays a vital role in election’s outcomes. There’s a good reason for this fallacy: it can be nonfalsifiably defended, as one can easily scrounge up a ’scuse, no matter what the papers say, that what the papers said made people think howe’er they think. The fact that the media — which, to its credit, is a’least not gullible ’nough to fall for e’en Trump — has been warning gainst Trump for years, only for him to win in 2016, doesn’t matter, ’cause bad news is good news, & this only made people like him mo’ thru o’erexposure, somehow. Ne’er mind that the vast, vast majority o’ Trump fans don’t read The New York Times. It’s widely acknowledged that Trump’s win in 2016 was mo’ a loss for Clinton: the culprit was a low turnout by Democrats, people who are much mo’ likely to read The New York Times. You’d think all these warnings would’ve induced them to get out & vote if we assumed that e’en the majority o’ Democrats let themselves be inspired by The New York Times. If we reject this assumption, we get a much simpler picture — both to Trump’s victory & to The New York Times’s falling #s.
Or rather, the two medias.
In fact, there are many mo’ medias if one isn’t geriatric & ventures beyond only the few richest o’ newspapers or TV channels.
At the same time, as a culture, it’s consistently obsessed with who “won the day,” while placing far less value on the fact that the civic and democratic health of the country is nurtured through practices such as deliberation, compromise, and sober governance.
This is a remarkable statement in how contradictory it is to the central thesis o’ this article. Later on he will assert that the problem is that “the media” is too obsessed with both-sidesing e’erything — which is essentially refusing to call any side ( well, any o’ the 2 officially-accepted rich, powerful sides ) a winner.
“Deliberation, compromise, and sober governance” are so vague, they’re basically just empty superlatives. Right-wingers are very sober & deliberate when they are exploiting people’s superstitious bigotries to divide & conquer them. As for “compromise” — ¿compromise with whom? As this article will admit many times, the media has done a great job o’ compromising with bigots while speaking on various topics like Israel vs. Palestine or Venezuela’s political issues with the subtlety o’ a Jack Chick comic. ¿Was Thomas Friedman, longtime writer for The New York Times, & thus very much o’ the traditional, not the fringe right-wing, media, evoking “compromise” when he told Muslims to, & I quote, “suck on this” in reference to the US’s illegal war gainst Iraq?
Let me begin by discussing these two medias. The first, of course, is what we call the mainstream media: The New York Times, The Washington Post, the major (non-Fox) news networks, a handful of other newspapers and magazines. This has also been known as the “agenda-setting media,” because historically, that’s what they did: Whatever was the lead story in The New York Times that day filtered down, through the wire services and other delivery systems, to every newspaper and television and radio station in the United States.
My biggest question: if a few small newspapers like The New York Times & The Washington Post held the “historical” role o’ essentially monopolizing the media & “setting agenda” — which is a nice way o’ enforcing beliefs — like communist dictators, — which is this writer’s inane claim, not mine, remember — ¿would that not have been just as “tragic for democracy”, as this writer claimed earlier was an upcoming threat? I don’t know ’bout this writer, but where I come from democracies don’t have their entire agenda decided by a tiny minority o’ large organizations but allow things like free thought. Luckily that’s not the case & this idiotic writer is just spewing right-wing conspiracy theories &, in actual fact, nobody gives a shit what The New York Times says.
Then there’s an avowedly right-wing propaganda network. This got cranked up in the 1970s, when conservatives, irate over what they (not incorrectly) saw as a strong liberal bias in the mainstream media, decided to build their own.
Here’s a golden rule for knowing what one’s political leanings are, regardless o’ what they say in some sad attempt to crank the overton window: if one thinks the media is biased on 1 side, one is biased on the other side. Nobody who is taken serious within the left-wing community considers the media to be left-wing any mo’ than anyone who is taken serious within the right-wing community considers the media to be right-wing ( the fact that this writer probably isn’t taken seriously by either, or by anyone, is a different story… ).
Note, ’course, that nowhere in this article does this writer provide any evidence o’ this “not incorrect” liberal bias, which would get this writer a pretty nasty grade in my high school. I guess my high school just had higher standards than The New Republic.
Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post. In the 1980s, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon started The Washington Times. In the 1990s, right-wing talk radio exploded (enabled, in part, by a 2–1 decision by a judicial panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals making the Fairness Doctrine discretionary; those judges were Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork). Then the Fox News Channel was launched.
Also, there’s an inherent contradiction to this story: you just claimed that the media was liberal biased, but then say that the Fairness Doctrine, which pressured the media to take a balanced approach to issues ( how well this could be done, given the subjectivity o’ what a “balanced” approach is, — many bizarrely consider being 100% pro-Israel & anti-Palestine or being explicitly pro-capitalist & anti-socialist to be “centrist” views in the US ( & only the US ), for instance — is a different story ), & imply that it was effective. But if ’twere effective, the media would have been balanced, not “liberal biased”.
Back then, even with the launch of Fox, the mainstream media was much larger and more influential than the right-wing media. If the mainstream media was a beachball, the right-wing media was the size of a golf ball.
Today? They’re about the same size. In fact, the right-wing media might finally be bigger.
That’s OK, ’cause both are dwarfed by some high-school dropout “influencer”’s X account.
The success of the right-wing media is by and large due to the way they speak in lockstep, with one voice, and the way they push one very partisan agenda. They promote Republicans and conservatives, and they say nothing good ever about Democrats or liberals (exception: people who go off the reservation and willingly foul the Democratic-liberal nest, like Joe Manchin or some liberal academic or talking head who turns right, like Glenn Greenwald). Their guiding ethos is not journalistic but political: to advance one party and creed and work their readers and viewers into a constant state of agitation about the other party and creed.
Sure, they’re “liberal,” in two senses. First, their editorial pages typically endorse Democrats. And second, they are culturally liberal, because they are mostly based in big cities and their staffs include lots of LGBTQ people, for example, and precious few evangelical Christians.
When The New York Times or CNN or MSNBC gets a scoop about serious corruption in the Biden administration, they pursue the lead and, if verified, report it.
So, to the loud and bumptious anti-Biden chorus that blames him for everything bad, there is no equally loud and bumptious pro-Biden answering chorus speaking as one and giving him credit for everything good.
You’ve clearly ne’er been on /r/politics. ’Gain, there’s no such thing as liberal media — well, ’cept for “mainstream” media, which is liberally-biased ’cause they don’t fire all gay people & only spread bigoted lies ’bout trans people half the time, but treat mediocre Democrat president evenly with insurrectionist Republican presidents. ¿Daily Kos? Ne’er heard o’ ’em. It’s embarrassing that this writer’s revealing their lack o’ knowledge o’ any media beyond the most basic & trying to present it as “wisdom”.
¿Why should it matter that much how well these newspapers treat equally rich & powerful white men like Biden & Trump? ¿How does these various newspapers treat working class people or Palestinian civilians or trans people?
And with respect to economics specifically, the imbalance is made worse by the fact that the mainstream business press, as Tim Noah pointed out not long ago, tends to accentuate the negative and see bad news nearly always coming around the corner.
That & they’re ignorant o’ the complexities o’ economics & will accept whate’er some salesman economist like Paul Krugman says uncritically.
It is blatant to me how much this writer is deliberately ignoring factors. When talking ’bout demographics like “not hating LGBTQ+ people”, urban, & the vague term “culturally liberal”, ¿how do you not list the economic status o’ the people who run these papers when talking ’bout skewed economic perspectives? ¿Is it because that would mean this pretend leftist — or “liberal”: I’m not sure if this writer considers “liberal” to be separate from “leftist”, as some people think; but if they do, that would make the term “liberal-biased” weird, as it would leave a giant question mark where leftists would fall: in such a circumstance “liberal-biased” would seem to be a pejorative for “centrist-biased” — would have to critically analyze the US’s very-much-pro-rich economy using actual left-wing ideas, & not just, “well, inflation’s lower than expected, so there’s no reason the average working class person should complain that they’ll still have to work 40 hours as a menial worker drone till they’re in their 60s while others get rich lying to people”.
Most reporters know that they are personally pretty liberal, so they overcompensate for that.
Sorry, let me fix that: “Most reporters know that they are personally rich, white, & cis, so they’re equally biased in favor o’ their material interests as Republicans”.
Most of them went to elite schools and have maybe never known a Southerner or an evangelical, so they overcompensate for that as well.
¿Do they o’ercompensate for their ignorance & lack o’ class interests with the urban working class or religions that are not the dominant religion in the US, like Muslims, too? ¿Why does this writer think there has ne’er been a rich Southerner or evangelical or that these people have ne’er been to elite schools? Clearly this writer has ne’er gone to an elite school, ’cause they are unbelievably stupid if they expect anyone with a brain to think “Southerns” ( which, when used in this context, only e’er includes white people: e’en tho southern states like Mississippi & Georgia have ’mong the highest ratio o’ black populations, black southerners might as well be imaginary people to these ignorant journalists ) & evangelicals are the most victimized minorities in the US. This person is literally just regurgitating the most inane, obviously false right-wing lies e’er & pretending to be fighting gainst right-wing lies while doing so.
That’s what gave us all those stories of reporters venturing out into the heartland to try to “understand” Trump voters.
Right: stupidity.
Meanwhile, no reporters are sent to pro-Palestinian protests to “understand” them: their newspapers just call them antisemites ( tho, bizarrely, the pro-Israel protests aren’t Islamaphobic or arabphobic, e’en tho, as a “Jewish state”, Israel, inherently, treats anyone outside that religion or race as 2nd-class, just as nobody would seriously think the US could be a “Christian state” or “white state” & not treat non-Christians or non-white as 2nd-class citizens ) & gleefully join their Republican friends in calling for them to be obliterated.
And all those stories about people who refused to wear masks or get their shots.
Yeah, it really shows the lack o’ good taste in these newspapers that they would rather focus on useless morons than people who have actual interesting problems. Good thing I read actually good news so I didn’t have to read this garbage.
How many more of these can we bear to read, I kept wondering at the time.
Yeah, it’s tragic you’re too uneducated to know there are better outlets out there.
And I couldn’t help but notice that there was no mass effort to find and understand Biden voters after he won in 2020.
Maybe ’cause it’s boring to read the obvious.
“¿Why did you vote for Biden?”.
“I’m not a dumbass”.
“Thank you for this interview”.
I sent a journalist, Marion Renault, down to red America (Mobile, Alabama, specifically) to report on the people who were following the rules—who were wearing their masks and getting vaccines in an inhospitable milieu. She produced a beautiful, moving report that I felt certain would land her on TV and get attention. No one cared.
& this is how our young journalists 1st discovers this beautiful economic system known as capitalism.
It didn’t fit the narrative—either right-wing or mainstream. Not enough chaos or conflict to be found in American citizens helping to knit up the civic fabric during a traumatizing pandemic, I guess.
I mean, if you armed the pro-mask people & had them violently fight back gainst the already-violent disease-spreaders, maybe you could have both conflict & be on the right side. Maybe the problem isn’t just that the “liberal” side is too willing to “understand” the other side, but also that they’re not willing to actually fight gainst the other side, but keep insisting that the most important thing is to tell warm fuzzy stories ’bout grandma getting her COVID vaccine rather than preparing oneself for all the right-wingers arming themselves & getting away with terrorist attacks.
So, to show you how idiotic this writer is, they acknowledge that the problem is economic, — that the media has to lie in a way that helps right-wingers to entice the moronic cattle that makes up their audience, any intelligent person having long abandoned these Jerry Springer sideshows long ago in disgust in search o’ actual honest information — but their recommendation is… the mainstream media should just stop doing the bad things they personally don’t like, e’en if it goes gainst their material interests. Just “call a lie a lie”, bro. ¿Why should they do that when, as businesses in a capitalist system where any failure to fully profit hurts your competitive edge, specially in a medium like newspapers that are becoming narrower & narrower monopolies, making money is e’erything? They claim, “Remember that we are not just in the “news” business. We’re in the information business. We’re in the preservation of the civic fabric business. And we’re in the business of people”, but they’re wrong: their business is selling people what they want to hear & what gets them to view your ads.If the country loses democracy, it’s not as if that’s a full impediment to The New York Times; they can still make money selling what King Trump tells them to say. As they themselves say, they’re perfectly comfortable with kowtowing to Republicans.
But there is much better news: people don’t need to read either the mainstream media or the right-wing media, but can read from an infinite variety o’ media — or better, read actual scientific studies, statistics, history books by actual historians or economics books by actual economists & not hack journalists with creative writing degrees. Or they could just read The Onion, since it’s just as informative & much funnier.
But, no, you should totally spend that monthly $10 to save democracy from “dying in darkness” by filling some rich, white, Republican newspaper owner’s large stash o’ Scrooge McDuck cash.
This level saves its best ideas for the treasure, which is fitting, as beating this level doesn’t open anything else. After a bridge o’ switch blocks o’er spikes you reach a long path o’ spikes you can’t cross without taking a hit or maybe using the jet powerup if you have it & a door. @ the end o’ that door’s room is a switch & ’nother door. Going thru this door will seem to lead you back out where you entered, but with a bridge newly created before you, but that’s wrong: this is a repeated setpiece later in the level. If you instead go back to the door in which you entered the switch room & exit that way, you’ll see a newly created ladder just beside the door, leading to the path toward the key.
The better course no. 35. Being an autoscroller, this level is still slow & boring, & this level still has plenty o’ banal rooms with Pirate Gooms — tho in this level they a’least put the Pirate Gooms up on higher, smaller platforms that leave li’l time to sneak up on them from behind, so they actually pose some semblance o’ danger here.
All right, all you sinners: get out your angel horns &, as their biggest song goes, get ready to ¡MOOOVE! & step into the circle & shake like green dew ( I don’t care if the official lyrics say “like we do”: as a kid I heard “green dew”, & nobody will change my mind on this subject. The 1st Council o’ Nicaea has made their decision ).
1. Phenomenon
This song’s lyrics are less cringe & mo’ miracle-spherical word-taco rap that any 5th-tier rapper could spit & I wouldn’t spit out my drink. Like a lot o’ Thousand Foot Krutch songs, there’s a lot o’ vague incitements to dance with only vague references to faith: “raise up the lighters, praise to the righteous”. ¿Isn’t raising your lighter usually something you do for slow, moving songs, not bops? If you’re following the advice o’ a later line to “¡roll! open your soul, maybe lose control” then you’re liable to accidentally fling your lighter or bump it into someone & possible start a fire. Awfully irresponsible for this godly band to inspire pyromania.
Other lines are weirder:
don’t let these spiders crawl up beside us they want to bite us, inject the virus
¿What does Thousand Foot Krutch have gainst spiders? The only place where they’re mentioned in The Bible is the book o’ Job, 1 o’ the world’s earliest emo songs, where he just calls their webs useless. It wasn’t spiders who tasted o’ the wicked fruit o’ knowledge. Spiders are innocent & will all be written in the book o’ the saved when the floods come once mo’.
Mo’ puzzling are these lines from the bridge:
i’m not invisible like you next time things get a little messed up
¿Who’s “you”? ¿Me? I’m not invisible. ¿Why does Thousand Foot Krutch ( I’m gonna get sick o’ typing that name ) assume their audience is invisible? They don’t learn “Vanish” till they get the Phantom magicite from the Magitek Research Facility.
This is mo’ absurd when you consider the lines that come just before:
tired of being ordinary don’t care if there’s people staring
I mean, if your audience is invisible, they should definitely not care if people are staring. ¿Staring @ what? ¿People dancing? That’s what people do in the concerts this song was clearly aimed @. ¿What idiots would be gawking @ people dancing @ a rock concert?
The song is about being bold and confident in your faith, and getting down to the beat of this Christian song.
This was either written by an middle-aged youth pastor or someone making fun o’ people who listen to this band. I refuse to believe that e’en 80% o’ the people who listen to this band unironically would use the phrase “getting down to the beat of this Christian song”.
Vague lyrics aside, I have to admit that this song is catchy, tho not nearly as much as “Move”, which, now that I think ’bout it, is clearly just them doing this song ’gain, with its vague lyrics exhorting its listeners to dance. For 1, this song’s actual music, its guitar riffs, bass riffs, & drumbeats, are generic, whereas “Move” had cool high-pitched noodly notes.
Grade: B
2. Step To Me
See, now this song’ got a pretty cool bassline. Tho I don’t know how I feel ’bout the weird muffled “dow-now-dow-now” riffs that come up e’ery now & then.
& like “Phenomenon”, this song has a catchy chorus with lyrics that are hopelessly vague.
Actually, this song’s chorus falls right into Cartmanesque love songs for Jesus territory, asking someone to “hold me tight in your arms tonight” while later telling this addressee “you’re my answer to the question why”.
This becomes e’en mo’ confusing when we look @ the verses, which take a much different tone:
i’m sick of letting you control me & all the places that i go i’m never giving in to you again take, take another look @ me take another look & tell me what you see all of these cats tryin’ to get under my skin but they can’t step over me
Now the person he’s talking to ( ¿the same person? ) is an antagonistic figure whose not going to step to them, bro. Indeed, near the end o’ the song the singer asserts, “but you can’t hold me”, which is the exact opposite o’ what he was requesting in the chorus. Either the chorus & verses are aimed @ different people & the lyricist didn’t bother to connect them or the singer in this song is a tsundere.
Deep within all these vague words o’ “I love you” & “No, you cats ain’t controllin’ me, son” is this weird line:
couldn’t see it ’til I multiplied you
These lyrics are building a consistent case that Thousand Foot Krutch are engaging in witchcraft & must be burned @ the stake ( that song, which is a hard S-grade, is a treat to you, the reader, for being good ).
“Step To Me” depicts TFK frontman Trevor Mcnevan’s battle in his beliefs between accepting and allowing God to be in control of his life, and being in denial and frustrated by God.
So it is decreed canon by the priests o’ song meanings: this song is ’bout wanting to hate-fuck God. Real rad o’ Thousand Foot Krutch to cover a Nine Inch Nails song.
Grade: B
3. Last Words
When I was young I always thought this song was just a less-good “Jumper” by Third Eye Blind. Howe’er, thanks to Genius’s annotation & rereading the lyrics, I have discovered that rather than this song being an uplifting song from a nonsuicidal person toward somebody considering suicide, it is, in fact, ’bout the dead person apologizing for dying:
i’m sorry i left you i’m living in a world of regret don’t cry if you can hear me i never meant to hurt you dearly i’m so wrong sincerely don’t stop take life seriously
Now, Genius only says that this person “probably killed themself”, &, indeed, the lyrics are vague ’nough that it could just be someone dead regretting how useless their life was sitting round just masturbating all day before dying o’ diabetes ’cause they ate nothing but McDonalds — or how sinful was their life sitting round just masturbating all day before dying o’ diabetes ’cause they ate nothing but McDonalds. That’s a good thing for TFK, as writing a song depicting a suicidal person as the asshole is, ironically, an assholish move in itself. Actually, ’less this person was a real asshole in life ( ’gain, the lyrics are so vague that we get no information beyond “there’s so much I’ve done wrong” & mumblings ’bout “all the times I’ve lied and hurt you”, which could be referring to anything from Walter White running a secret meth business to secretly masturbating to porn all day in shame ’hind their loved one’s back ), depicting the dead person as an asshole for being dead is still an assholish move.
Anyway, the singer then goes on to exhort the listener — you — to treasure life & all its sunsets & to “thank God in the morning for another day” — preferably before or after you start your morning jerk-off session, as God doesn’t want to talk to you while you’re doing that kind o’ thing, or while you’re using the bathroom, by the way, you weirdo.
But halfway thru the 2nd verse, the advice gets confusing:
those people please love them don’t hate them we’re not above them you can have everything but have nothing listen I’ve got to tell you something
¿Who are “those people”? ¿People who die? ¿Suicidal people? ¿Sinners? I’m listening, but you’re not telling me anything @ all.
Unfortunately, ’cause o’ this, this song didn’t work for me, as I still just ended up wasting the rest o’ my day masturbating, & now I still haven’t caught up on my ¡Mega Microstories! backlog. Worse yet: ¡I forgot to thank God this morning for creating ’nother day! ¡How rude! ( They make 1 e’ery day: @ a certain point it stops becoming impressive & starts becoming rote ).
The chorus is decently catchy, but the singer’s voice gets real squeaky & annoying in this song. Also, the riffs, baselines, & drums just feel like random sputtering, specially @ the beginning.
Grade: D
4. This Is A Call
This is a hokey-ass ballad — & considering how white this band’s “hard” songs are, you can only imagine how supernova this shit is. I want to specially emphasize the chorus melody ,— what has, so far, been the best part o’ these songs — which is some square-dance “dum de dum de dum dum, dum de dum de dum dum” shit. I hate it.
The lyrics are the cheesiest shit e’er, including the vital inclusion o’ the mother with cancer. Best o’ all, the singer follows up this revelation with the rhyme, “& her friends don’t understand her”.
The 2nd verse is much less dramatic, being mostly ’bout some guy whose useless & has a boring life & probably spends all day masturbating. So that verse is ’bout Jon Arbuckle.
These are my favorite lines in this song:
take me to a place where nothing’s wrong & thanks for coming, shut the door
Also:
well if you’re real then save me Jesus
Jesus: <I have some bad news for you…>.
Grade: S & F
5. Rawkfist
WARNING: YOU ARE ’BOUT TO ENCOUNTER A POTENTIALLY LETHAL DOSE O’ CRINGE. PEOPLE WITH LOW TOLERANCE FOR CRINGE SHOULD AVOID WATCHING OR LISTENING TO THE FOLLOWING YOUTUBE VIDEO. IF YOU START TO FEEL YOUR SOUL LEAVE YOUR BODY FROM CRINGE O’ERDOSE, STOP WATCHING OR LISTENING TO THIS VIDEO IMMEDIATELY & VISIT YOUR DOCTOR TO TEST FOR CRINGESCARS.
1st, ¿what the hell is that haircut that the guitarist has in this music video? Also, I love how @ the end o’ the music video — after the singer drops his final rawkfist — they all start glowing. Presumably God has looked down @ their wicked ( ¡but in a good way! ) tune & has prematurely given them eternal life so he can listen to their rad beats for eternity.
¿What else is there for me to say ’bout this song? As soon as you are hit with those immortal words screamed out loud —
¡throw up your rawkfist! ¡if you’re feelin’ it when I drop this!
— you know you’re in for the ultimate o’ nu-metal cheese.
If you don’t believe me when I tell you that Thousand Foot Krutch puts Kendrick to shame, let me show you these sharp lyrics:
show ’em how we slow this spot, let ‘s make it hot let’s shock ’em with the bodyrock ’til the party stops it’s time to take it up a notch & keep it locked for all the headbangers in the parking lot here we come if you’re ready or not no time to talk ’cause we on the clock bringin’ that ¡uhh! ¡uhh! to your block let me show ya where we’re comin’ from, it don’t stop
Um, ¿what is this “¡uhh! ¡uhh!” they are bringing to my block? Perhaps they should keep that to themselves privately.
The chorus is, bizarrely, much calmer ’bout all it took to both make & break this amazing music. For the LORD said to Adam, “For dust thou art, & unto dust shalt thou return”; & so the LORD’s favorite rock band that their grandmother will let them listen to shalt say to their song, “For cheese thou art, & unto cheese shalt thou return”. Amen.
ESPN’s Sports Center used it for their Ultimate Highlight showcases during the program. The TV Series Smallville used it in the episode “Velocity” in season 3.
The idea o’ this song being used in these 2 places amused me so much that I had to look them up. I couldn’t find the 1st, but luckily I found the scene from Smallville:
Seeing this scene with youngster Superman locked in baby Lex Luthor’s devious trap where he’s poisoned with kryotonite ignited by race cars while this song plays is the very definition o’ heaven described in Dante Alghieri’s divine comedy — ’cause that’s what it is, comedy antikryptonite.
Also notable for being one of the few tracks off of Phenomenon that showcased their rap/hip-hop influences from their debut studio album “Set it Off.”
¿What? All o’ these songs so far ’cept the ballad have had rapped verses. ¿Did the person who wrote this not listen to the rest o’ the album?
Grade: 🪨✊
6. Faith, Love, and Happiness
O, right… There’s mo’ than half this album left. Whoopie.
Actually, I think I can sympathize with these lyrics:
everyone is up in my face need to get outta this place it’s hard to see with you in front of my face just another perfect day acting like they wanna talk to me so fake yet so friendly my eyes can see even the back of me ¿won’t you just let me be?
O, wait, ne’ermind:
all I want is faith, love & happiness
Speak for yourself: I don’t want that shit.
I do like how they sneak in 1 mo’ misanthropic line just after that:
every time one runs away another one’s returning
You said, it, brother. Amen.
Hey, wait… ¿What’s this?
every which way I turn I’ve got the option of a million choices every single word I say is judged by a million critics every which way you turn you got the sound of a million voices every single move you make is torn by a million cynics
Shit, they saw me comin’. ¡Turn the car around!
This is your 1st album anyone cared ’bout. Cracka, a million critics weren’t sayin’ shit ’bout you yet.
So spake Genius:
Generalizing the common issues and hardships that people face in this world, singer Trevor Mcnevan believes that in order to be content with our lives, we need a solid relationship with God.
Well, you can tell God — who I know was responsible for this being written, I know you’re there, God — I told them they need to give me some space, as I’m not emotionally ready for commitment right now.
Sonically, this song is fine. I kind o’ like the rhythm o’ the verses. Apparently TFK did, too, as they reuse it for the chorus. The music itself is just chugga-chugga rock riffs, tho.
Grade: C
7. I Climb
I fucking hate this stop-&-go melody all thruout the verses, pre-choruses, & choruses, not helped by the whining tone thruout the singing. There’s also an ugly airiness to how the instruments sound.
Also likely a continuation of narration in the story from the previous tracks “Last Words” and “Faith, Love and Happiness,” this song is about how the individual(s) mentioned are struggling with their outlook on life, and how they are occasionally able to see past their problems and realize God’s love and care for them.
Ugh. ¿So it’s just a rehash o’ the previous song? I’m getting a sneaking suspicion that this band, like many mid-tier bands, had only a couple good songs & filled the rest with filler.
Grade: F
8. Quicken
This song is all o’er the place, specially the verses, which slow & speed up in erratic ways. Just listen to the 2nd verse. Sadly, none o’ it leads to anything catchy or interesting, & the lyrics are… what you expect.
Grade: D
9. New Design
Genius didn’t e’en bother to make an annotation for this song, presumably ’cause e’en the only fan who cared ’nough to write the earlier entries got bored & stopped listening by this point. Similarly, we don’t need to say anything ’bout this song.
Grade: 😴
10. Bounce
All right, we’re back to that rippity rapping:
it’s TFK we rock the party & keep the party jumpin’ in an old school way
¡Ha, ha, ha! “Old school”. Yeah, they’re rocking the party like Moses did in 1200 BC. ¡Real hiphop, honkey!
You know they slay like King David with lines like this:
play for a team that’s called “not to mess with”
O shit, I don’t mess with any team called “not to mess with”. ¡They be endin’ those sentences with prepositions, dawg!
& check out the scenario
You know, I was going to make fun o’ them for ripping off A Tribe Called Quest, but then realized I mixed up their lines “Check the rhime [sic]” & “¿What’s the scenario?”, so that hilarious joke doesn’t work. But, you know what, you readers have been so patient with these boring album-end filler songs that I think you deserve a treat in the form o’ an actually good rap song, so here you go:
Grade: ⚔️
11. Ordinary
This song is so lazy it just repeats the exact verse twice. The singer also doesn’t bother keeping any kind o’ coherent melody thruout this song, with a particularly boring chorus melody. I would make a joke ’bout this song being ordinary itself, but it’s actually a weird mix o’ weird, but not in an interesting way.
Genius also had nothing to say ’bout this song. In fact, spoiler, they have nothing mo’ to say ’bout the rest o’ this album, as e’en the hardcore TFK fan who was writing them fell off before this point. I may be the only person lame ’nough to go thru this whole album.
Grade: D
12. Break the Silence
¡The last song! ¡We’re almost free! ¡Thank you LORD up high!
This song sounds just like the previous few, with the exception o’ the Korn-like “om-ne-om-ne-om-ne-om” scatting in the bridge. The chorus melody isn’t bad… but it’s not good ’nough that I will e’er listen to this song ’gain.
Grade: C
It’s unfortunate that this album fell off so hard @ the end, as the 1st 6 songs offered so much potential. Such is the risk o’ me stupidly reviewing an entire album.
