¡Stop the count! ¡Trump the Massive Dump Truck Trump already has 6 times as many votes as Kamala Haven’t Come Up with an Insulting Name to Give Her! ¡A Big win! ¡E’en the radical Marxist AP admits it! ¡Already the scheming communist Democrats are scheming to manufacture votes from immigrant states trying to jump the border like Alaska & Hawaii!
O, I see: it’s ’cause we don’t need to waste government resources monitoring elections when the certified specialists, the Proud Boys, are on the case.
I sure feel safe voting with these average apple-pie Americans loitering around. If you honkeys are so proud, ¿why are you covering your faces? Have some self-esteem for your physical appearances, guys: I’m sure you’re all very beautiful.
Not gonna lie: seeing so many news articles & posts talking ’bout how Harris is going to SMASH this election like a like button — ¡look @ this poll showing her lead! — especially after all the polls showing Republican leads not that long ago, doesn’t assure me, but just give me Vietnam flashbacks to all the euphoria ’hind the 2016 election.
Tho, I have to say, I’m suspicious o’ some o’ the ( unofficial, I must emphasize ) results I’m seeing from AP, claiming that Trump has already won Utah despite 0 votes being counted & showing the 2 main candidates as Trump & Cornel West. You can’t discount West so early.
As always, Daily Kos performs their biannual duty o’ being their readers’ therapist, soothing them that all those red splotches on the map from the impatient vote counters in the southeast doesn’t prove anything, the cities are on their way.
I can’t believe the self-described “Black Nazi” who insulted MLK Jr., expressed holocaust denial, & engaged in a bunch of other 4chan-level edgelord antics didn’t win. Maybe he was too woke. If he bit the head off a communist on live television instead o’ lamely just calling for some passive-tense killing o’ communists & socialists — ¡quit being a welfare queen & waiting for the government to do it for you, pull up your own bootstraps, & do it yourself, Robinson! — I’m sure he would’ve done better. I’m also not sure why Daily Kos emphasized the least bad part o’ this candidate: if a politician wants to perv out on porn sites, I believe that’s between them & God.
Anyway, I have much mo’ important updates from a much mo’ vital news source:
The title sounds very alarming, but the content just says, “This thing won’t be called on Tuesday night”. ¿I guess a bunch o’ liberals expected Harris to absolutely destroy Trump ’cause they don’t like him, despite most polls promising a close election?
This is just like 2016 and 2020. There will be lots of ink spilled over the reality that half this country is totally okay with a racist, insurrectionist, convicted felon. I can’t even fathom how we recover from that, but we must.
¿How many times do you have to relearn this lesson, Kos?
Ultimate cope: “Well, a’least we did better than Kerry in 2004” & “Yeah, but we won the popular vote again, so that means demographics is destiny still”, the latter o’ which is strange in response to a president who threatens to be a dictator.
Well, it’s that time o’ the quadrennium: time to flip that coin & see if the us’s pseudeodemocracy will hobble on a few mo’ years or whether Massive Dumps Truck Trump will say, “¡You’re fired!” to its electoral system & say “¡Lock her up!” to lady liberty, as well as all o’ his enemies, from Dark Brando Sando to that McDonalds clerk who was a bit snide when taking his order. It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade since I 1st started doing these weird articles in 2014 — that 1st article being, honestly, still the best 1 I’ve written so far.
Let’s start off by rubbing our crystal ball, 538, & seeing what they forecast will be the leader of our impending doom:
Well, given how tiny the difference ’tween 53 & 46, that doesn’t give much o’ a hint — well, other than Joseph Kishore o’ the Socialist Equality Party better prepare himself for a big disappointment. Well, maybe Nate Silver on his baby Substack website has something that will give us a better clue:
But that’s all nugatory; unlike these vacillating cowards, The Mezunian has a forecast that is guaranteed to turn out true:
This is guaranteed to be true, since any vote that is not for the Englesist Magical Socialist™ Party is bourgeois treason, — including those from other socialist parties, which are fake socialism, & therefore they don’t count & are reactionary, too — & therefore invalid. Therefore, ¡stop the count! All those who whine ’bout vote counting not being immediate should rest easy when the Magical Socialists are in power, as you’ll ne’er need to vote ’gain when our warm protection is wrapped round you.
Anyway, I’m not surprised the candidate whose last presidency involved a catastrophic failure to take seriously a pandemic that killed millions & that ended with an attempted coup & being the only president to refuse to work with the next president during transition would be competitive with a woman who, um, changed her mind on fracking & supporting cutting funding to police, I guess. ¿Whate’er happened to Republicans being against high government spending? Funny how they only oppose spending when it involves helping people get fed or shelter & not when it involves violence or environmental destruction — almost like they’re just sociopaths who just make up an arbitrary self-contradictory definition o’ “freedom” to shroud their violent & apocalyptic fetishes.
Anyway, if Republicans’ “this entire ethnicity o’ people are literally trash” “joke” wasn’t hilarious ’nough — ¿why can’t Democrats take a joke? ¡Such humorless wokes! — then their response to Dark Brando Sando’s ( accurate ) comeback that Trump & his sycophants are, in fact, garbage, which deeply triggered Republicans ( looks like Republicans are the ones who can’t take “jokes” now ) by… dressing in garbage bags, confirming Dark Brando Sando’s claim: “yes, we are in fact garbage, & proud o’ it”. This is just 1 step ’way from my exaggerated joke ’bout Republicans shitting their pants to own the libs who tell them it’s bad to do so, & why The Mezunian won a Pulitzer Prize in “describing those Republican crackers exactly as they be”. & this is why all o’er the US you see despair from those with functioning brains & self-respect: there is no chance o’ teaching sanity to people who proudly dress in garbage bags to extol their rotten inner natures. Luckily, it’s doubtful that these idiots make up mo’ than a very loud minority & the appearance o’ their importance is only due to the highlight given to them by o’eranxious liberals & conservatives desperate to pretend Republicans are still normal — since the alternative is to admit that regular conservatism has become utterly irrelevant & that the only reasonable alternative to fascism in the US is some form o’ leftist.
Anyway, as per tradition, it’s time we take a look @ a bunch o’ blogs & news sources I ignore rest o’ the year:
Counterpunch
This time bitter obscure commie rag Counterpunch has much mo’ interesting articles than the usual ol’ man grumbling o’ “regardless o’ who wins, it’s a victory for capitalism”, which, ’course, isn’t news @ all, but older than time, & was already said decades ago in a much catchier song by Chumbawamba:
This lists a bunch o’ super fashionable rappers that all the zoomzooms admire like Li’l Pimp, 50 Cent, & Li’l Wayne — just like how my nephew always rocks it to Limp Bizkit & Foo Fighters — &… honestly jumps from simplistic assumption to simplistic assumption, like that black people like Trump — sorry, “a percentage” o’ black people like Trump, which is backed by a source that just lists a bunch o’ anecdotes o’ fake TikTok rhinestone-ass rappers & rap influencers like DJ Akademiks Kendrick Lamar rightfully criticized in “Watch the Party Die”, no real statistics — ’cause he’s under criminal charges ( um… ¿What? ). Let me also say that it’s funny that this writer shames “primarily white media commentators” for “ignoring” this connection while constantly referencing The New York Times talking ’bout this connection: as we all know, The New York Times is the blackest o’ news sources in the US, with such hood alumni that are deep in the culture like DJ David Brooks, Ross “Douthat Boi”, & Thomas “The Funky Stacheman” Friedman. Anyway, this certainly doesn’t mean Republicans or The New York Times are mo’ inline with contemporary hiphop culture than Democrats: back in 2016 Obama rightfully predicted the true top dog o’ rap ’tween Kendrick Lamar & Drake 8 years early. Actual polls show the surprisingly contrary data that the black woman is mo’ popular with young black men than the white supremacist. E’en mo’ surprising, despite writing so many articles ’bout the Israeli-Palestinian War & the US’s role in it, this article makes no mention o’ the Biden administration’s controversial assistance to Israel during their bombardment o’ Gaza playing a role in Gen Z black people’s cooling on the Democrats, which would certainly be a mo’ logical connection than some rando whiteboy named Nicky Jam supporting Trump — especially since he took it back after that “Puerto Rico is an island of trash” “joke”, being Puerto Rican himself. ¡Oops!
This article offers us the stunning sapphire o’ wisdom that the US should be, like, mo’ democratic & less autocratic.
So in reading the digital tea leaves of social media and the strident voices of pundits, prognosticators and provocateurs — apparently there is an America out there lying in ruins, buried in garbage and now needs a strongman, carrying the flags of hate, fear, fatalism and racism — riding in to save-the-day from the clutches of a degenerate zombie democracy, then dumped in the landfill of history and set on fire.
Really?? America DOES need to become a WAY better democracy — at home and abroad.
Cracka, ¿you couldn’t e’en show any receipts from said social media? & you can’t blame people for wanting zombie democracy: the Halloween season is still in the air. Wait a month or 2 & people’ll be calling for degenerate gingerbread democracy.
A tedious reiteration o’ the moral quagmire ’tween the “lesser o’ evils” Democrat apologists & the faux-revolutionary Jill Steinists that e’ery reader o’ this magazine must be tired o’ reading. Ne’er mind that there are much better 3rd-party alternatives to Stein.
Counterpunch contrasts the few people who want to watch a bunch o’ ol’ politicos spewing stale propaganda @ people vs. the large crowds o’ people who would rather watch bland entertainment like football & some Marvel movie, but makes no mention o’ the people who do actually interesting things, like visiting obscure caves & taking photos o’ rare wildlife.
This is the best article I found, a look @ various British political groups’ attempts @ influencing US elections, a reverse o’ the usual US-centric focus on how the US influences other countries’ politics. I emphasize “attempts” ’cause it also lists many ways in which it fails, including attempts to convince Americans not to vote for George W. Bush in 2004, to which the nationalistic American conservative, predictably, reacted with trite stereotypical insults gainst said Brits ’bout bad teeth & how tiny their island is. ’Course, other countries trying to influence US elections is well known, such as recent examples o’ information campaigns from Russia, Ukraine, Israel, & Palestine to strengthen or weaken the US’s assistance toward Ukraine & Israel & the mutual spread o’ far right movements ’cross Europe & the US, including Hungarian authoritarian leader Orbán speaking @ US CPAC, & is an inevitability in our interconnected modern world where the internet can make international communication happen in seconds. Notably, the normally normatively-outspoken Counterpunch is ambiguous on whether they consider foreign influence genuinely troubling, but with rarer instances like British influence getting less attention, or if the negative tone applied to British influence is ironic, mocking the way the media hyperventilates o’er the influence o’ nations the media doesn’t like like Russia, Palestine, or China.
If there’s 1 thing I’ve gathered from my years o’ experience studying Venezuelan politics & listening to Venezuelans themselves it’s that one should not trust any English-speaking honkeys like this article writer — or anything any mainstream American media like The New York Times or The Washington Post — say ’bout what Venezuelans think, as it’s usually either capitalists sucking off American stooges or leftists sucking off a clearly corrupt & incompetent authoritarian & it seems that most Venezuelans I’ve heard don’t like any o’ their politicians any mo’ than Americans like theirs. Also, it’s hard not to see that it is a combination o’ the US intentionally sabotaging the Venezuelan economy thru sanctions & Chavez & Maduro’s incompetent handling o’ infrastructure development ( contrast Venezuela’s inability to make much money off their large amount of oil to heavily-sanctioned Russia’s ability to still make money off their oil ).
& indeed, Counterpunch’s defense o’ Maduro’s “victory” in 2024 is farther than e’en most left-wing organizations would go. To put it into perspective, contrast with Democracy Now!, a well-respected left-leaning non-profit news organization that usually defended Venezuela’s government, a’least gainst western media’s prematurely hysterical criticisms, in the past, but whose news article on the 2024 Venezuelan election was damning in how curt it was & how much it focused on Maduro’s authoritarian actions gainst protesters & his electoral rival. Most notably, the left-wing The Guardian, which has also defended Maduro’s democratic cred in the past, in what has to be their best-researched & sourced article I’ve seen from them, links to multiple collections o’ scanned vote tallies. I myself did the math on the proportions & calculated that, yeah, e’en if e’ery single vote not accounted for was for Maduro, it would be impossible for Maduro to have a higher vote count. Unless these collections involved an impressive amount o’ document-doctoring. Contrast this with the Venezuelan electoral authority refusing to release actual voting data, with the only “proof” o’ Maduro’s victory coming from the executive-captured supreme court. Counterpunch handwaves this by pointing out that many countries settle electoral disputes with the court system, including here in the US when Trump challenged Biden’s victory in 2020, while neglecting the mention the fact that US elections still provide publicly-available election results data, which is the actual issue.
Counterpunch prove themselves to be hypocritical imperialist apologists by spewing Russian propaganda that the US forced Russia to bloodily invade Ukraine to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, while not e’en going so far as to assert that the US was e’er trying to make Ukraine do so, much less provide any source to back it up, with the closest being the cowardly vague assertion, also without any evidence, that “[v]ery few outside the West, however, share this perspective” ( why non-European opinions should be relevant to European issues is ne’er answered, either; Eastern Europe certainly seems to be taking the west’s side mo’, with e’en Hungary slightly preferring the US o’er Russia ). ’Course, like much Russian apologia, they completely ignore Ukraine’s perspective, treating them as just a pawn relevant only to petty archaic Cold-War squabbles ’tween the US & Russia, not a real country with real people with lives, wants & concerns — just like how Israel apologists treat Palestinians. & much like how Israel has no “right” to have a neighbor that likes them or doesn’t ally themselves with Israeli enemies like Iran or how the US has no “right” to have neighbors like Cuba not be allied with communists they don’t like, Russia has no “right” to have a neighbor that isn’t allied with the west. Maybe Russia should stop threatening violence gainst their fellow Eastern European countries & start actually treating them like allies & Eastern European countries wouldn’t need to desperately turn to Western European powers — who, to be fair, probably do want to exploit them, let’s be real. But Counterpunch, ’course, needs to ignore Eastern Europe, ’cause treating Russia as a poor li’l victim compared to Eastern European countries — most o’ which were former victims o’ the imperialistic Soviet Union — is obviously absurd. I am consistent in treating these countries, ’cause I actually have some semblance o’ principles; Counterpunch just has stale tankie ideology to regurgitate. That Counterpunch is so willing to ignore Ukraine suffering just for the sake o’ getting yet another jab against the US, as if there aren’t already many valid jabs to take gainst the US, is pathetic & shows that they don’t actually care ’bout victims o’ imperialism.
You can tell how unserious Counterpunch is by how vaguely & how evasively they call for the west to “be diplomatic” & “negotiate”, but don’t give any details on what the west should offer. ¿A promise not to allow Ukraine to join NATO? It seems like Counterpunch is the 1 underrating Russia & treating them condescendingly: Putin would have to be an e’en bigger idiot that the kind o’ leader who would sabotage his country’s economy for the sake o’ 1800s-style empire-building to trust the US’s pinky promise. ¿Remember when the US promised protections for Ukraine after they scammed them into giving up their nukes? By the way, if the west is so obsessed with stoking aggression with Russia, ¿why the hell haven’t any o’ them put actual boots in Ukraine? ¿Why is the US, a country that certainly had no fear o’ invading random countries like Iraq, so averse to occupy Ukraine now that they have the perfect excuse? ¿What would be a better time than now? It could be due to nukes; but if nukes prevent the west from invading Russia, ¿what use would having NATO on Russia’s border have? It’s not like NATO being in Ukraine would make Russian nukes less dangerous for the US.
So insistent on defending Russia that this article contradicts itself in the most absurd way. Read this:
Russia’s slow, grinding use of attrition warfare has paid off: the eastern front is buckling before them and the Ukrainian army, which has put up an astonishingly stout and courageous resistance, is increasingly unable to hold the line.
…
George Beebe sees three options. NATO escalates and becomes directly involved in the fighting – action that could have unspeakable consequences. More likely, Ukraine could suffer a collapse – a combination of military and political failure as the ability to put an effective army in the field is lost.
I want to note that the 1st paragraph is pretty much the only time this article admits Ukraine has any role in this war beyond being NPCs, but still, thru vague language, treats the war mo’ like a friendly competition ’tween 2 admirable competitors rather than a 1-sided imperialistic invasion. Replace “Russia” with “The US” & “Ukraine” with “Iraq” & you have an average op-ed from Thomas Friedman in the kind o’ mainstream American media gainst which Counterpunch pretends they have any kind o’ principled distinction.
Anyway, these paragraphs give us BINGO on the Russian propaganda card by indulging in cope claims that Ukraine is going to collapse under Russia’s brilliant military strategy o’ taking a very long time, — in sharp contrast to Russia’s early expectation o’ a quick victory, now that it has clearly failed — but then claims that NATO “escalating” ( unlike Russia, which is merely fighting a defensive war o’ invasion ) “could have unspeakable consequences”, which are that “Ukraine could suffer a collapse” — implying that the latter would be mo’ likely if the former happened, in contrast to the already-existent s’posed inevitable collapse promised in the earlier paragraph. So this article is claiming that extra military power from some o’ the world’s strongest countries would make Ukraine mo’ likely to collapse than not “escalating” & letting Ukraine be alone in what this article just claimed was a s’posed inevitable loss. If this is true, Russia should want Ukraine to join NATO to make Russia safer, as apparently Ukraine getting help from NATO makes Ukraine weaker than Ukraine by themselves. Obviously this article writer didn’t mean this & is just an idiot who didn’t think thru what he wrote.
O, sorry, this is the actual “solution” to preventing Ukrainian collapse:
The third option, and clearly the preferable one for Beebe, is that the West changes course and “picks up the phone”, ending its refusal to negotiate.
¡Just pick up the phone! ¡It’s that simple! You’ll notice that this paragraph doesn’t say what the west should do after picking up said phone or what negotiations the west should offer. Putin certainly hasn’t taken seriously the west’s insistence that they aren’t trying to allow force Ukraine to join NATO, so I can’t imagine promising it 1 mo’ time would convince him. Nowhere does this article acknowledge the possibility that there is nothing the west could promise or offer Russia that would deter Russia from their invasion o’ Ukraine — that Russia wants nothing better than the conquer Ukraine. If they did acknowledge such a possibility, their fantasy that the Russian invasion could be solved by e’eryone just sticking dicks in each other’s bums & just be friends would be dashed to pieces.
But, ¡wait! ¿What’s this?
The Ukrainians face a terrible dilemma. Most seem to realize the war is lost. Any attempt at negotiation with the Russians, however, would unleash internal pressures inside Ukraine that could lead to a coup, assassinations or other upheaval. The US won’t want the war to end before President Biden leaves office in January 2025 – and may prolong the agony, loss of life and the ceding of yet more territory to Russia for US domestic reasons rather than the best interests of Ukraine. Where is all this leading?
OK, so now Counterpunch is claiming that attempts to negotiate would, in fact, make Ukraine mo’ likely to collapse. So it sounds like e’ery option somehow makes Ukraine mo’ likely to collapse, like how all 5 moles in those desert caves in EarthBound are the 3rd strongest mole. ¿Does this article writer — there’s just 1 name attributed — have multiple personality disorder? You can’t e’en defend this as the writer being just pessimistic ’bout any good outcome for Ukraine, — which, to be fair, would make sense e’en if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia, given how much damage Ukraine has already taken — since this article clearly took a chiding tone toward the west for “refusing to negotiate”. ¿Why do you think the west should stop refusing to negotiate if you think that would lead to a coup in Ukraine?
Also, baseless conspiracy theory that doesn’t e’en make any sense & just proves that this article writer is just spewing inane bullshit that’s different from what the lamestream media would say to sound special, no matter how dumb it is. ¿Why would Biden not want the war to end before he leaves office? ¿Because successfully resolving a war would make him look too good?
After having read & critiqued way mo’ than I expected from Counterpunch, I would like to take back my earlier snide remark: maybe Counterpunch should just stick to the trite “regardless o’ the election results, it’s still a victory for capitalism” article. Anyway, I hope your drive for $75,000 goes well, I guess — o’ which you boast comes from only 1% o’ your audience. I guess that means us people who don’t donate — after my recent New York trip I’m broke, sorry — are the true 99%.
Grade: F
The Nation
’Pon seeing the front page o’ The Nation I came up with a new drinking game: take a drink e’ery time I see an article ’long the lines o’ “Here’s why you should vote Democrat despite the whole Gazabombing”. Right @ the top I saw 2:
The 1st article was the basic rigamarole, tho ’twas interesting learning ’bout this “fusion ticket” thing, which we don’t have in Washington State, where we don’t really have political parties, technically: candidates optionally list their “preferred” party, but you don’t need to register for any party beyond checking some box during primaries promising you won’t cheat & vote for a different party for the presidential election during the general election. I was mildly annoyed by the self-aggrandizing way the writer bragged, “I was one of the first public figures to demand that the Biden administration call for a ceasefire”, which is a questionable claim, but whate’er. It’s an o’erall competent article compared to the Counterpunch articles, which felt like they were just hastily typed out in an hour.
I like this treasure’s focus on the theme o’ invisibility: while the Pneumos @ the beginning hinder you by covering your face, making you able to see yourself but not your surroundings, taking potions that the Mad Scienstein throws @ you, which make you unable to see yourself but not your surroundings, is necessary for progress. & yet being unable to see yourself makes the next series o’ jumps mo’ treacherous than normal. All o’ this really instills the duality o’ status conditions in this game.
My qualms are that I feel the 3rd treasure in the game is a bit early for making players do platforming while invisible. Also, having to get to where the gray chest & gray key are, right next to each other but blocked by an seeing-eye doors, while invisible, only to have to fall back down, eliminate one’s invisibility by going thru a pipe, & then climb back up & do the same platforming one did invisible while visible so they can return to the gray chest, — which is only accessible while visible, for unexplained reasons — feels repetitive, specially since the latter part is easier: once you’ve jumped o’er these platforms while invisible, doing the same while able to see perfectly just feels silly. I think this treasure would’ve been stronger if they, A, placed it later in the game, & B, were able to program in some kind o’ challenge where you have to do platforming — maybe the same platforming — but with a Pneumo o’er your head, able to see yourself but not your surroundings, as an extra challenge for the gray chest. Maybe they could’ve had a new area, where you couldn’t take any enemies, & had the Pneumo as the only thing you could pick up & have @ the end blocks you have to throw the Pneumo @ to pass thru.
No joke this time. It’s finally time we examine what may be 1 o’ the most memetic albums in all nu-metal, The Sickness, the album with the world-conquering “Down with the Sickness”.
I don’t think I mentioned it before, but @ 1 point in my life Disturbed was my favorite band, ’tween when e’en lamer bands like Papa Roach were & when I stopped relying on mainstream radio for music discovery. Now my favorite metal music is real art, like Ghost SiIvaGunner & DJ Cumberbund Pig Destroyer, Cattle Decapitation, Anal Cunt, & Death, which I listen to from my vinyl record player while sipping my glass o’ Sangiovese Grosso Kraken rum in my purple rope. While Ten Thousand Fists was the 1st album I listened to, The Sickness immediately became my favorite o’ theirs ’pon listening to it. As I hinted @ in my review o’ Ten Thousand Fists, that album has lost much o’ its charm for me. ¿Will the same happen for The Sickness?
E’en many Disturbed fans look down on this album as being “simple”, but they’re just fake hipsters ( if they were real hipsters they’d be listening to actually serious music, like Aborted Fetus ). As we will see, some o’ the songs on this album are, indeed, simple, but there’s also a bit o’ variety, especially compared to Ten Thousand Fists, which was hardly math metal, which I’m pretty certain is a real genre, or later albums, which mostly coalesced round the same sound, albeit 1 I moderately enjoy ( Evolution & onward would coalesce round a new sound, & that sound was “sucking like Imagine Dragon My Nuts ’Cross Your Face” ). Songs like “Fear”, “Numb”, & — for better or for worse — “Droppin’ Plates” employ styles & sounds that Disturbed would ne’er try ’gain.
1. Voices
This was always my favorite song off this album, essentially a better version o’ “Down with the Sickness”, with faster, catchier verses that are much funner to sing ’long to like “Liberate” from their following album, — albeit also as repetitive — a mo’ melodic chorus with mo’ interesting pitch variations, & a bridge that is o’er the top in a mo’ fun, fast-paced way than “Down with the Sickness”’s infamously cringe bridge, especially since the fact that the singer is s’posed to be insane makes it feel mo’ fitting & lack the pretensions o’ “Down with the Sickness”. Admittedly, the opening “¡SOOOAAAAH!”s aren’t as iconic as the famous “¡OH-WAH-AH-AH-AH!”s, but you can’t have e’erything.
In essence, this song has aged ’bout as well as a Disturbed song could & is still a certified spookyween banger.
Song Grade: S
Music Video
I love the concept o’ this music video: some dorky cubicle worker listening to Disturbed with cheap, shitty headphones — what I imagine to be the average Disturbed fan, tho nowadays we go a step further in being asocial by just working from home — while some bald ghost man who’s his schizophrenic illusion tells him to tie up his boss & coworker who keep fucking with him while he’s trying to work, or… tossing the papers on the floor to the woman who handed him too much work with a smug smile. Honestly, these violent fantasies are tame as fuck. E’en mo’ tame, when the man breaks, he doesn’t e’en do anything mo’ than take off his tie, mess up his hair so he looks like Jesse Pinkman, & go attend a Disturbed concert. Not the most exciting concert, either: it looks like it’s in some guy’s garage they weren’t using @ the time, so, sure, you guys can use it for you music video, I guess.
Music Video Grade: B
2. The Game
In contrast to the goofy vague “¡I’M SO CRAZY!” lyrics o’ the previous song, this song is way mo’, well, disturbing & a much less fun song to sing ’long to, since it’s impossible for me not to interpret this as an anthem from an abuser, specially when it ends with lines like, “THAT LITTLE BITCH SHE WENT AND SHE TOLD A LIE / NEVER FUCKING LIE TO ME”. Obviously I don’t think any members o’ this band wanted to portray such behavior as positive any mo’ than they think having “violence fetishes” is a good thing ( & in fact they have an anti-abuse anthem in the form o’ “Façade” off their 4th album ); but the exploitation o’ violence gainst women as a source for drama & horror — the “dead girl” effect — is a cheap effect that, like the general machoposturing — or “toxic masculinity”, as all the hip zoomzooms call it now — & edgelordism o’ nu-metal, hasn’t aged well — tho, to be fair, Deftones did e’en more o’ the same thing @ the time, with “Digital Bath” from their magnum opus, “White Pony”, exploiting the image o’ a woman being electrocuted to death in a bath tub for cheap horror, & has received li’l flack by critics. ’Course, the main character here presents this as mutual abuse, — mutual abuse that the singer apparently likes — but since the woman in question ne’er gets a word out herself, it’s a mystery to the listener whether or not the singer is being honest or making this up to justify his own violence. Thank you for reading my literary analysis o’ “The Game” from Disturbed in the House We’re Droppin’ Plates’s Pulitzer-winning classic, “The Sickness”.
In terms o’ the actual music, I have to admit the catchy chorus does make it hard not to want to sing ’long, being e’en faster & having e’en mo’ sudden changes in tone, pitch, volume, & speed to really drive home how bonkers the singer is. In contrast, the verses have a weaker, softer, mo’ morose voice to them, especially the bridge, sounding mo’ jarring in contrast & sounding mo’ like an actual killer. This is not the most mindboggling artistic decision, but is certainly mo’ interesting than, say, Five Singer Game Grumps’ nonstop “I’M SO CRAZY & ANGRY I DON’T GIVE A FUCK” growling that only e’er sounds like not just an actor, but a bad actor. David Draiman may not be anywhere close to winning an Emmy, but he’s a’least on the level o’ a theater club member, which is high standing in the world o’ nu-metal. I also like the goofy wub-wub music that plays thru most o’ this song, like this “game” is some ICP-esque game show.
Grade: B
3. Stupify
A song so garbled that hardly anyone knows what the hell Draiman is singing — including the censors for the radio versions, which oft censor the innocent “animal” during Draiman’s opening monologue, but let Draiman’s constant birdlike squawks o’ “¡FYAACK!” run unabated. That’s fine, as when you read the lyrics, they just read like random amping, leading me to believe that Draiman composed these lyrics based more on what words he could sing in an interesting rhythm rather than for their meaning: the 1st verse has him complain line after line ’bout how nobody will give him 1 teeny li’l fuck; — or, sorry, I mean, “¡FYAACK!” — the 2nd verse has him give shoutouts to people from all different walks o’ life, which seems to have nothing to do with the rest o’ the song, but, believe it or not, has mo’ to do with this song’s intended meaning than the rest; the pre-chorus & chorus have the singer seemingly arguing with his fraying mental state, accusing someone o’ “playing around with [their] narrow scope of reality” & babbling nonsense, like asking if “we could put it on credit”; & then, as the cherry on top, during the bridge Draiman chants what turns out to be the Hebrew word “תפחד”, or “tefached”, before pleading with some woman who came out o’ nowhere to not deny him & not be afraid. Apparently this song is an anti-racism song inspired by Draiman’s Orthodox Jewish parents forcing him to break up with a gentile girlfriend when he was a kid. As it turns out, it is us, the listeners, who are truly stupefied. Also, I think they spelled “stupefy” wrong.
While I find the pre-chorus & chorus insatiably catchy & fun to sing ’long to & like the weird chant in the bridge, specially since it has real cultural context & is not just vague Arabian Nights jibberish by some pretending cracker ( looks askance @ Godsmack’s “Voodoo” ), the verses are repetitive, meaningless, & thudding, & the music is pretty boring, with its basic riffs that just sound like walls o’ downtuned guitars & bass — I love downtuned guitars & bass, but not just solid walls o’ it — during the opening & choruses, &, specially, those annoying squeaky guitar riffs during the verses.
Song Grade: B
Music Video
Most o’ this music video is just the band rocking out in a super yellow grungy room with boarded up windows — the kind 2000s music videos loved. ¡But check out these dance moves from Draiman!
This is interspersed by random images o’ some poor, dirty kid in tattered pants sitting on a bed with a long stare & Draiman dressed in a straightjacket in a mental institute — which I guess the kid is in, too. Then the kid looks @ a fish, the fish tank explodes, & then he rises in a T-pose like Jesus, but then is replaced by Draiman in the same pose. What this has to do with racism, I have no idea; but I have long since given up on trying to comprehend this song.
Music Video Grade: C
4. Down with the Sickness
( Unfortunately, I could not find an uncensored version o’ this song on YouTube ).
There’s a reason this song is memed ’bout so hard — arguably memed the most o’ any nu-metal song. E’erything in this song is begging for you to remember it: the opening tribal drums; the animalistic “¡OH-WAH-AH-AH-AH!”; the goofy chorus that sounds like the singer is saying, “COME MONKEY DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS”, but is, tragically, only saying, “COME ON GET DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS”; &, ’course, the infamously hammy bridge where the singer shouts & threatens retribution gainst “mommy” after his pleads for her to stop hitting him go unanswered — a bridge so deranged that most radio stations cut it to keep listeners’ sanity. I have read from multiple sources that “mommy” is apparently a metaphor for mother nature & how, like, the world itself, like, totally abuses you, man, tho Genius’s game theory is that “mommy” is, like, society, man, & it, like, has “fascist tendencies”, & is possibly also Ness from EarthBound. Either explanation is so hilariously pretentious that they ne’er fail to bring a smile to my face.
So it will surprise my readers that my favorite part o’ this song was ne’er any o’ these elements, but the least-considered verses, where Draiman starts by singing a calm chant, only to gradually build into louder & mo’ erratic singing, as if the singer is going from sane to insane within the verses.
’Course, I can’t do a review ’bout the memetic quality o’ “Down with the Sickness” without bringing up the meme possibly just as famous, Dicksturbed”s “Down with the Gheyness”, a true LGBTQIA+ anthem for my fellow rainbow people, which I, unfortunately, can’t embed ’cause YouTube is homophobic & it’s age-restricted & for some reason I can’t tell YouTube that my blog isn’t G-rated.
Song Grade: 👇🤒
Music Video
I’m disappointed in how tepid this monumental song’s music video is: it’s just the band on stage playing while showing clips o’ them standing around or walking toward stage & their fanbase rockin’ out, yo. Literally the most cliché music video.
Also, I didn’t remember this, since it’s been years since I’ve listened to the radio edit version o’ this song where they cut out the “no mommy” part, — or years since I’ve listened to a radio @ all, really — but I just noticed how janky & abrupt the cut is.
Music Video Grade: F
5. Violence Fetish
& then you have a song literally called “Violence Fetish”. There’s not much to say ’bout this song: it plays the same trick “The Game” does with the soft morose voice during the verses as a contrast to the lurid title, tho here it’s a bit too squeaky for my liking. I do like the melody o’ the pre-chorus’s “you’re pushing & fighting yooooour waaaay…”, only to abruptly shift to growling, “¡YOOOOU’RE RIPPING IN HAAAAAALF!”. I also find the opening lines o’ the chorus, “bring the violence / it’s significant” weird in the contrast o’ such a trashy concept & the somewhat highbrow “significant”, especially the weird way Draiman o’erpronounces the word.
The music is a mix for me. I kind o’ like the bass thumps o’ the verses, but am not a fan o’ the screeching squeaks coming from the guitars during the 1st 2 choruses.
Grade: B
6. Fear
Now here’s an underrated song, & the 1st to truly use the electronic elements o’ this album to great use, opening with what was to me an iconic Halloween-type melody that seems to foreshadow the music style o’ Ghost later, only for Draiman to suddenly shout, “FEAR SOMETHING AGAIN” — which I always thought was “HE’S HAUNTING AGAIN” as a kid, but whate’er — followed by an onomatopoeia that I actually think is superior to “¡OW-WAH-AH-AH-AH!”: some distorted, faded, “¡HA! ¡HA! ¡HA!” or “¡AH! ¡AH! ¡AH!”.
The verses, backed by similar spook synths, are when Draiman starts to get into the kind o’ grade-A cheese whiteboy wannabe-gangster rap that nu-metal is famous for. Just listen to these hard-ass lines straight from the streets o’ Chicago:
punk ass, ¿are you listening? ¿can you hear me? ¿or are you deaf & dumb to my language? ¿do the real words seem to hurt you? well, put ’em up, motherfucker
Tho I think e’en cheesier is when he actually says, “stand back, brother, take your hand back” in the bridge.
The 1 part I don’t like ’bout this song is those damn guitar squeaks during the interlude just after the 2nd chorus. Thankfully they don’t last too long.
Grade: A
7. Numb
An e’en mo’ underrated song that sounds nothing like any other song Disturbed has made: a doom dirge with stretched out guitar noise while Draiman sings in his deepest most morose voice I’ve e’er heard. The verse lyrics are all repetitive, following the pattern o’, “[verbing] in/out/down/now, I’m”, but that fits the numb theme o’ this song, & still manages to make it weird by breaking the sentences in half in each line, ending each like with the beginning o’ the next sentence as if the singer’s numbness is delaying him. It’s not quite as good a depression song as Three Days Grace’s masterpiece, “Drown”, especially since I don’t think the extremely scratchy voice Draiman uses during the choruses really fit all that well, but is a highlight on this album.
Grade: A
8. Want
Unfortunately, after that there is a falloff on this album, starting with “Want”, a song that’s repetitive in a way that doesn’t fit particularly well with this song as “Numb”, both in the verses constantly going, “your mind won’t let you…” & the verses going, “[verbering] now, [verbering] now…”.
This song is very gross, which I guess makes it effective. It’s some guy smarmily telling some woman, “your mind won’t let you see that you want me”, which sounds like a guy who won’t take no for an answer, which is made all the skeevier when talking ’bout this woman “quivering” & “harkening”. This guy sounds like he’s so obsessed with this woman’s mind that he wants to rip out her brain & put it in a jar so he can goon to it. I mean, he literally sings out, “¡SAVOOOR HER MIIIIIIIND, YEAH!” @ the end o’ the bridge. This all very well may be intentional — I must reiterate that this is a band called Disturbed, & believing that heavy metal singers truly want to murder people or be the devil is an amateur mistake. Still, this song goes so far in its goal to be repellent that it generally repels me from listening, which is either a great success or a failing, depending on what you want from art.
Also, lots & lots o’ guitar squeaks.
Grade: 🤮
Music Video
I’m shocked that this song o’ all songs has a music video. It is, like “Down with the Sickness”’s, just concert footage, but with the twist that some o’ the footage is very ol’ footage from I think when they were much younger. Or maybe it’s a fan-made video. All I know is that the singer has hair.
Music Video Grade: D
9. Conflict
& now we have a song e’en mo’ repetitive, constantly reiterating, “[something something] ENEMY” with generic thumping drums in the background. The chorus doesn’t e’en do much to differentiate it from the verses, still reiterating that same pattern, just slightly faster. The bridge tries to add some desperately-needed differentiation, sonically, a’least, with lower, soupier singing & music, but it’s still repetitive “DUH-DUH-DUH” rhythm & none o’ it is anything that wasn’t done better in earlier songs, like “Numb”.
Grade: D
10. Shout 2000
The obligatory 80s cover song. Tho I don’t consider this cover as a song itself near as good as their cover o’ “Land of Confusion”, or as good as half the songs on this album, unlike “Land of Confusion”, I do think this cover is much better than the original, since, honestly, Tears for Fear didn’t do a great job on their original version. They weren’t e’en shouting, for god’s sake. That’s not to say I don’t think this cover could’ve been done better: it’s nowhere the loudest song on this album itself, & all the weird electronic effects & verbal digressions — including a reference to Vanilla Ice, o’ all things — are distracting. None o’ it is funny ’nough to be memeworthy, but it also doesn’t particularly sound great. That said, this song’s all right. It’s inoffensive — not unlike the original Tears for Fear song, which didn’t have amazing lyrics, either. Honestly, I don’t think Disturbed could’ve made this all that great without just making a whole ’nother song, given how meh the original is. “Mad World” would’ve been mo’ fitting, but probably too cliché. Also, given Disturbed’s style o’ doing covers, it probably would’ve been a much worse cover, anyway.
Grade: C
11. Droppin’ Plates
Now here’s a memeworthy song. It is criminal that this song is ignored. ¡Just listen to it! ¡It oozes cheese @ e’ery word! I would have to just transcribe the entire song to list all its goofy lyrics. ’Course, the big 1 is the 1 I keep using to describe them, “Disturbed in the house, we’re droppin’ plates”. As that line indicates, this is Disturbed’s rap-metal song — ’cept sung from the perspective o’ someone whose only experience with rap is the Fresh Prince. Part o’ me thinks this song has to be an intentional joke; but Disturbed apparently were so proud o’ this song that they used part o’ the line “gonna fight the war & use my music as a weapon” to name their special tour.
But I also have to highlight “droppin’ plates on your ass”, which he repeats multiple times, “a little something for your ear hole, ¡GET UP!”, & the chorus, “you know I’m talkin’ ’bout / recogniiitiooooon”, sang/rapped in a weird mix o’ Draiman trying to sound like a rapper & his quiet dirge voice. I also love how this song starts with some
“Dropping plates” is a term where the plate is a vinyl record, basically meaning that Disturbed is making and releasing songs and albums. The whole song, as a matter of fact, is about how their music is the best around. Don’t start picturing David Draiman smashing plates on his kitchen floor anytime soon.
& if that wasn’t goofy ’nough, this album ends with a sex song that’s as sexy as a Davey and Goliath fanfic, with Draiman shouting ’bout how he wants to “GET PSYCHO”, wants you to “give in, give in, DECIDE”, & wants “your power glowing, juicy, flowing, red hot meaning of life”, which I guess means the singer has a fetish for fucking a girl while she’s on her period, since I’m pretty sure cum isn’t red — I guess she’s his cherry pie. The last line they were so proud o’ that they repeated it in both verses. Then in the bridge Draiman goes full scatman while singing ’bout “pretentious whores”. That’s not the Scatman’s World I was promised.
The music… fuck, nobody cares ’bout the music. It’s a god damn Disturbed song ’bout being thirsty.
Grade: 😈🍆🍑🩸
Conclusion
So, ¿does this album still hold up? Sorta yes & no. Musically, no: most songs seem to just throw instruments & especially synth effects @ the wall to create loud noise rather than having much memorable. I don’t think anyone’s going to compare any riffs in this album to the likes found on classic Black Sabbath or Slayer, & those god damn guitar squeaks must’ve been chosen just ’cause they’re loud, not ’cause they sound good. Draiman begins to show his singing — & let’s be real, acting — versatility, but develops his singing better on later albums, especially Believe.
Howe’er, this is an album that sticks in your mind better than most “better” metal. It finds that perfect balance o’ luridness greater than most nu-metal, but not to the exaggerated, gory extent that bands like Cannibal Corpse do, which goes so far that it’s too easy to become numb to it, especially when the growling vocals are so o’erdone that you can’t e’en understand what they’re saying, in contrast to Draiman’s singing, which finds the balance where you can sorta hear what he’s saying most o’ the time. The softer theatrics & pop-catchy melodies, if anything, adds to the weirdness, as do the broader, mo’ down to earth lyrics, especially since they’re still weird — not in viscerality, like most metal bands, but in how ill-fitting they are, like they’re inaccurate translations from ancient texts. Essentially, what Disturbed has ’bove most other metal bands is camp: if other metal bands are the George Romero or Wes Cravens o’ metal bands, Disturbed is the Roger Corman: fascinating in how off the map it is & fueled by their shared lack o’ giving a fuck how nonsensical their work is. For better or worse, only a band like Disturbed could make songs as fascinatingly weird as “Stupify”, “Want”, “Meaning of Life”, “Droppin’ Plates”, &, yes, “Down with the Sickness”. ¿Could you imagine anyone else e’en coming up with a bizarre, false slang term like, “down with the sickness”? ¡Nobody e’er said that! ¡Nobody said “droppin’ plates”! Those were not things people said until Disturbed unleashed them on the world like the sins o’ humanity ’pon opening Pandora’s Box. I could probably survive fine without Ten Thousand Fists, & maybe e’en Believe; ¿but The Sickness? We would lose a lot a culture with that loss.
So while I don’t imagine this album getting anywhere near the top o’ Rate Your Music, where silly things like “musicianship” & “complex themes” play the highest importance, on Mezun’s scale o’ memeworthiness, The Sickness earns its legendary status.
’Nother similar treasure to “Bank of the Wild River” & “The Tidal Coast”’s green treasures. Despite “Bank of the Wild River”’s having the boss, I rank this e’er-so-slightly ’bove that treasure. While Tower of Revival’s wire mesh is just a large rectangle broken off by spikes, like “The Tidal Coast”’s, rather than the snaky design o’ “Bank of the Wild River”’s, its path is more o’ an open maze, stretching in all directions rather than just going rightward, with mo’ meaningful dead ends than just having music coins — tho it does have them, too — & its path is less obvious. Also, there is mo’ enemy variety & challenge, replacing the slow-moving Kushimushi bug enemies & their awkward hitboxes with the faster sparks & Applebies· Granted, I do still prefer the look o’ “Bank of the Wild River”s mo’ natural vines than the o’erbearing grayness o’ this level.
Mo’ importantly, this treasure has an actual relevant challenge to getting the green key, forcing you to deliberately eat 1 o’ the Appleby’s apples that you mostly try to avoid to become fat & break thru the donut blocks to reach it. The more open mesh allows them to hide the key, downward on the left after the initial rise leftward, the last direction players would likely think to go, given the way this level goes upward & is a tower.
Tho having nothing to do with this level’s general lake theme, this treasure’s gimmick o’ having you cross platforms obscured by leaves is interesting in itself — & unlike “The Grasslands”, where it’s just trial & error, here they gave you a way to judge where solid ground is with all the helpful Spearheads scattered round, walking o’er the hidden platforms & not walking on the areas that are just empty space.
This treasure avoids the problems that its close cousin, the green treasure o’ “The Vast Plain” has, lacking all its padding & focusing purely on platforming to get the key while having the red chest door placed right under the beanstalk, cleverly opened up by the beanstalk not by letting you access the upper area but by having the beanstalk lift the rock that was previously blocking it.
Evanescence is 1 o’ those nu-metal bands that still gets a lot o’ slack & is still called cringe while bands like Linkin Park & e’en Limp Bizkit to some extent have been rehabilitated a bit, & I’m going to be that annoying progressive & say that it’s probably ’cause this band is girly, as well as having tinges o’ emo & goth, made most notorious by that infamously cheesy fanfic, which is still a meme, but now for all the mysteries surrounding its author. I find this strange, as there has been a backlash gainst the macho-posturing o’ nu-metal — especially their love o’ the homophobic F-slur, made most infamous by Fred Durst & Jonathan Davis’s attempt @ a rap battle that soils the otherwise good Follow the Leader, & which is definitely mo’ cringe than anything on this album — in contrast to, say, the mo’ sensitive Linkin Park, & a renewed appreciation for emo/goth bands — some nerds are going to rage @ me for just throwing those both into a single group, but nobody fucking cares, guys — like My Chemical Romance. After all, as the Boom-Booms love to say, younger generations are so sensitive these days, what with their functioning nerves that haven’t decayed into dead skin yet. ¿Is it time for J. J. W. Mezun, Certified Nu-Metal Expert, to rehabilitate Evanescence the way they single-handedly made Three Days Grace the biggest rock band o’ 2024?
1. Going Under
Amy Lee’s deep, filtered demon voice declaring, “now i will tell you what i’ve done for you”, is a great, iconic way to open an album ( tho I can’t help comparing it to the opening to the famous 90s “You Oughta Know”, where Alanis Morissette opens with, “i want you to know that i’m happy for you” in a similarly slow & menacing — albeit less spectral — voice ).
In fact, Amy Lee showed her versatility as a singer in this song, especially during the 2nd verse, where she switches from the opening filtered voice to an e’en mo’ ghostly, serpentine whispery voice, to mo’ melodic singing as it transitions to the chorus. Also, while most o’ the song’s music is pretty basic riffs, — albeit making a mo’ interesting contrast to Lee’s mo’ melodic singing than, say, Five Funky Dijon Lunch Ivan Moody’s standard metal gruff shouting — I like the subtle off-kilter piano notes ’hind the 2nd chorus.
The music video is just a clusterfuck, & yet still mo’ coherent than half the music videos for Three Days Grace’s self-titled. While scenes jump from Amy Lee swimming underwater like the Little Mermaid to their guitarist, Ben Moody, sweating while dealing with nosy reporters with distorted faces, it all revolves round the theme o’ the trials o’ fame… which would be mo’ believable if this weren’t the 2nd single o’ their debut album: you crackas weren’t dealing with the trials o’ fame yet. It’s like when Eminem was whining ’bout e’eryone trying to cancel him before anyone knew what his name was on The Slim Shady LP. Also, apparently Billboard listed this as 1 o’ the 15th scariest music videos in 2013. I can only presume this was written by a TV Troper who still insists that the original Luigi’s Mansion is scary.
Grade: A
2. Bring Me To Life
1 o’ the most iconic spooky, scary skeleton songs: the opening piano notes, Amy Lee’s saturnine voice singing, “¿how can you see into my eyes like open doors?”, & a few lines mo’, only for her to be accompanied by a ghostly voice in the background & the guitar riffs starting up, then a pause before the chorus… & then suddenly Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park some jebroni-ass cracka tryin’ to see Compton named Paul McCoy in some tough-guy standard Limp-Bizkit-ass nu-metal voice going, “¡Wake me up!” & “¡I can’t wake up!” like he’s Amy Lee’s hype man, her Favor Flav, while Lee tries to continue singing despite this distraction. Amy Lee was understandably not keen on her label forcing Evanescence to add a rapper to this song, — tho thankful that e’ery song didn’t need rippity rapping, like the label originally wanted, in stark contrast to Linkin Park’s label wanting the real Mike Shinoda to not rap, & for their DJ to wear a cowboy hat & lab coat, which, maybe they should’ve considered that other idea… — but I have to admit it adds to the cheesy charm o’ this song, especially when McCoy himself starts using his own spooky voice that sounds like he’s almost vomiting, with, “¡there’s nothing inside!”, just before the end.
But, no offense to Paul McCoy ( despite repeatedly dunking on him in the previous paragraph — I’m just playin’, Paul, you know I love you ), but the best version o’ this song is a live version with the 1, the only, “I love it when you call me big Papa” Jacoby Shaddix, where the band pauses just before the famous rap verse in the bridge with some amping music while Amy Lee hypes the fuck up his intro, telling the audience to clap their hands & calling out, “¡Jacoby, get out here, help me out with this!”, all for Jacoby to sing some short, goofy rap bars. It’s spectacular & the 1 time I wish I’d seen something live.
Grade: S
3. Everybody’s Fool
I can’t write ’bout this song without writing ’bout the amazing version o’ this song I found in some files I was rescuing from my sister’s corrupted hard drive, a version I thought was some troll YouTube poop version some wag making fun o’ Evanescence made: it started with cheesy sitcom music with some kid shouting, “¡Pepperoni!”, & then some cheesy Italian voice saying, “Mmm, ¡I love it!”, ending with some bizarre message, “There is nothing better than a good lie”, before the song actually starts. & just when you think it’s going to be the normal song, in the middle o’ it you hear random jackhammering noises.
So it’s to my shock when I finally saw the music video for this song & discovered, no, that wasn’t some troll: that’s the music video version o’ this song:
Also, the “jackhammering” was apparently the engine o’ a motorcycle fake Amy Lee was riding while Jonathan Davis from Korn in his Grandmaster Flash tracksuit gives an approving nod, just before she passed 1 o’ them a blue can o’ “LIES” cola, which should go well with the “Lies Pizza” sold @ the beginning o’ the music video. These scenes are interspersed with scenes o’ puff-faced emo Amy Lee dressed in a hoodie or track pants ( ¿why is it cool when the biker dude wears track pants, but the woman’s the loser for doing so? ) in dim lit rooms or elevators, trying to force herself to smile in the mirror; dealing with nosy Karens too naïve to know that you should ne’er fuck with a gloomy-looking cracka, ’cause they may be packin’ & ready to start a school shootin’ early; &, my own personal favorite pastime, laying in bed feeling sorry for herself. This juxtaposition o’ cheesy, dumb, faux-50s style fake adverts & 2000s-era emo depression makes this music video an S rank for me.
As for the song itself… it’s fairly catchy, tho I didn’t find the music memorable.
So far this song’s lyrics are mo’ focused than the mo’ abstract previous songs. Admittedly, I’ve always been cynical for as long as I remember & have ne’er been into celebrities, so I personally have trouble relating to the feeling o’ disillusionment with celebrities. We can’t say it’s not still relevant, tho: I know I keep referencing the Great Beef War o’ 2024, — & that’s mostly on purpose as a running joke — but the bridge where Amy Lee sings menacingly, “without the mask / ¿where will you hide? / can’t find yourself / lost in your lie…”, can’t not remind me o’ the final verse o’ “meet the grahams”: “take the mask off / i wanna see what’s under them achievements / ¿why believe you? you never gave us nothin’ to believe in”. I mean, obviously it’s not as dark as that song: this song is Luigi’s Mansion to that song’s Resident Evil. But I like Luigi’s Mansion, so that’s no problem. In any case, I’m standing on the take that this song is harder than anything Five Filing Debt Crunch has e’er written. If anything, our better understanding o’ the dark side o’ celebrity now — the way Britney Spears would later be treated, all o’ the sexual assault happening then that would only come to light later, & much mo’ — make this song’s message o’ celebrity deceit much darker in hindsight & make the warnings o’ not desiring to be a celebrity much mo’ resonant.
( I should note that the fact that this album’s composition was inspired by real trauma doesn’t surprise me as much as it might some, especially since I already knew ’bout the story o’ the younger sister dying, which we’ll get to later; in fact, a lot mo’ melodramatic nu-metal bands accused o’ being middle-class whiny white boy emos than people realize did: for instance, Chester Bennington o’ Linking Park & Jonathan Davis o’ Korn were both sexually abused as children, the latter o’ which became the basis for the Korn song “Daddy” [ & Bennington was poor before Linkin Park got big ] ).
Grade: B
4. My Immortal
O, the infamous song. I wonder if nowadays this song is mo’ well-known as the title o’ that infamously bad Harry Potter fanfic o’er, well, the song itself. ¿Has anyone e’er brought up the fanfic to Amy Lee? After a short online search, I found that the answer is apparently yes: her own sister. That’s pretty funny.
That being said… Yeah, I ne’er felt this song, & the same goes for now. That’s not surprising, since I rarely go for slow, sparse ballads, & this 1 doesn’t have the kind o’ creative lyrics that make up for that. I mean the pre-chorus literally has the line, “these wounds won’t seem to heal”, which I would assume was ripped off from Linkin Park’s “Crawling” if not for the fact that Hybrid Theory came out round the time this song was 1st released, so they must’ve been written independently. Considering how trite the phrase is, that’s not too strange a coincidence to believe.
The music video includes a slightly better version, with real piano, better vocals, & guitar in the last 3rd or so. The guitar really does add a much-needed break to the monotonous piano melody that doesn’t seem to change much e’en in the choruses, but doesn’t make the song that much better, really. Hell, e’en the music video itself is boring, just showing black & white footage o’ Amy Lee sitting in a tree or lying on a roof or Ben Moody wandering random streets.
Grade: F
5. Haunted
Under no circumstance will any o’ the lyrics I wrote when I was 15 be released unto the world.
Anyway, this is more like the kind o’ spooky skeleton music I like, with the opening organ — ¿is that what that instrument is? — with building muffled drums while Lee drones her lyrics, only to pause with heartbeatlike beeps before going into the chorus.
The lyrics are, ’course, very cheesy, generic spooky stuff, which is fine —
The song’s lyrics are based off of a short story guitarist Ben Moody had written about an 8-year-old girl who gets trapped in a house after her ball bounces inside and is kept alive through another occupant of the house.
10 years later, she has grown dependent on the man who occupies the house for survival and while she wants to kill the man and escape, she has conflicting thoughts about the situation. On the one hand, she has the chance to finally leave the house if he dies and on the other, the man has been the only person she’s known for a decade and is the only constant in an ever-changing house.
( Genius doesn’t cite a source, but I was able to track down sources in the form o’ people claiming to be Amy & Ben — using the spy names “Snow White” & “efanar”, respectively, ’cause ’course those are the names those dorks would use — on an Evanescence fan forum. I have no idea why I’m putting this much effort into research like I’m deconstructing a political economics article, but I am apparently that afraid o’ being caught passing on fake news ’bout a 2000s rock band most people forgot ’bout. Guess I’m the dork ).
How the hell does a weird-ass story like that turn into vague lyrics ’bout feeling “so hollow inside” & how the singer “can feel you pull me down”. If I had to guess before this tidbit, I would’ve guessed this was ’bout the feeling o’ depression.
I also have to say it’s kinda weird that Moody wrote a short story ’bout a li’l girl kidnapped & groomed by some “figure” for 10 years, who is described as “rap[ing] her mind and watch[ing] her when she sleeps”, & then essentially develops Stockholm Syndrome ( insert cliché Twilight joke ), & that it’s written mo’ as a titillating spooky story, going into detail how “pale and dirty” her skin has become & how “Sun has not graced her flesh in over a decade” than any kind o’ genuine outrage against such things happening, especially given the aforementioned allegations gainst him. Personally, when I was that age I was making silly Pokémon comics ’bout an evil genius Torchic who tries to enslave all humans, not this fucked-up shit.
Grade: B
6. Tourniquet
OK, now this song’s lyrics are pretty metal, which is funny, as it’s actually a cover o’ a song by a Christian death metal band, — you know, the genre mainly inspired by such Christlike bands as Slayer — Soul Embraced, written by that band’s guitarist, Rocky Gray, who was a drummer for some o’ Evanescence’s live shows. This version is much better than Soul Embraced’s, as Soul Embraced’s singer does the Cookie Monster singing that for some reason so many death metal bands do, still under the delusion that it doesn’t make them sound e’en goofier than a nu-metal or ordinary Christian rock band. While some o’ the weird filters put o’er her voice dampens this a bit, Amy Lee still sounds mo’ like someone actually praying to God than, well, the Cookie Monster. Also, the opening riffs sound like the opening riffs to Nickelback’s “Because of You”. I don’t think that’s their fault, as “Because of You” came afterward, but it’s not my fault that that riff will always be associated in my head with that song.
This song makes a metaphor ’bout being damned to hell & separated by God by comparing that to a tourniquet being used to staunch the flow o’ blood before finally amputating the limb. Hell yeah. In this case I think it’s better that the lyrics themselves don’t go beyond mentioning tourniquets: knowing what they are & how they’re used gives the full story. What is important is @ the end where it’s revealed why the singer fears they may be damned to hell:
tourniquet, my suicide
Let me just say that, in contrast to the ✝-rock Thousand Foot Krutch’s tone-deaf song on ( maybe ) suicide ’bout how sorry the dead singer is for the trouble they caused for the “victims” still living & how they should just be an example for how the still-living should act ( by not dying ), this ✝-rock song showing genuine empathy with suicidal people with a Job-like protest before God is refreshing. I find religious songs where one writes honestly ’bout one’s struggles with their religion & the unquestionable injustice o’ the world much mo’ interesting than straight moralizing.
I’m mixed on the music itself. I like the opening noise, but some o’ the electric sounds don’t fit well, especially those fake-sounding drums, which sound like they belong mo’ in a Drake song than a 2000s rock cover o’ a death metal song. It’s a nitpick, tho.
Grade: A
7. Imaginary
I’m serious, I’m not fucking showing any o’ you assholes my shitty ol’ teenage song lyrics. They make Thousand Foot Krutch’s “Rawkfist” sound like “Big Poppa” in comparison.
I know this song is pretty silly, but I would argue it has some o’ the most creative lyrics, with vague abstract terms we’ve heard in so many o’ these albums ’bout pain & feeling hollow replaced by deep imagery o’ raindrops telling a story as they fall or “alarm-clock-screaming monsters”. I also like how that 1st bit o’ fantasy hints @ to the cause o’ this seemingly childish fantasizing, hinted @ in the 2nd verse, but mo’ fully revealed in the bridge: the singer’s insomnia induced by lonely fear o’ the real world. Maybe this is me reading my own experience too much into it, but I can tell you, in the past when I had a miserable job spending 13 hours a day filling liquor trays for airlines my alarm clock was genuinely the scariest noise for me; & the dread o’ such ticking time bomb going off eventually oft soured what was otherwise 1 o’ the few respites from said miserable job & wishing for sleep being 1 o’ the few escapes from said dread — especially since part o’ that dread was not getting ’nough sleep & being miserably exhausted the next day.
The twinkly piano notes & strings are a bit cheesy… but if one didn’t want cheesy, an Evanescent album probably isn’t the best choice o’ listening material.
Grade: A
8. Taking Over Me
Sigh.
Here is the chorus to some emo-ass song I wrote in October 2006, when I had just turned 15 — or a’least typed-up: I’m just going by the file modification date — called “Pain Game”, in all-caps, as if I was making fun o’ how dumb it sounds e’en back then:
TICKING, CLICKING IT’S GOING DOWN THE DRAIN YOU WILL NEVER BE THE SAME KICKING, DEPICTING IT’S HURTING YOUR BRAIN YOU WISH YOU WERE OUT OF THIS GAME
I’m dead serious when I say I’m not letting the rap verses e’er ’scape to the public, as doing so would be chemical warfare on the general public, & thus a war crime. Clearly back then I had not honed the craft that I would later possess to create such classics as “I met Dr. Jekyll” & “I’m spillin’ ya beans”.
Evanescence would never again scale the heights their debut record Fallen propelled them to. When you hear a track like “Taking Over Me,” an album cut, it’s clear how they sold 15 million copies of this record. Amy Lee’s incredible vocals are matched by a heavily produced and flawless guitar riff carrying the message of a person losing their sense of self in an unrequited relationship. It’s a track that easily could have been a single.
The song was secretly written about Amy Lee’s future husband, Josh Hartzler.
( Laughs ). OK, I didn’t expect a review from their biggest fan. I think “flawless guitar riff” is a bit much, — ¿how is Ben Moody ne’er mentioned ’mong the guitar legends like Jimi Hendrix, Tom Morello, or Carlos Santana? — especially immediately after the phrase, “heavily produced”. Usually people are being disparaging when they say that.
Anyway, this song is basically a silly love song from the perspective o’ a stalker, which certainly fits well in an album like this. That’s not me making fun o’ it: Amy Lee says so herself:
As with Bring Me To Life, I was writing that one about Josh kinda too, secretly. A lot of my lyrics have double meanings. There is the main meaning and then there’s the secret, sub-meaning for me. The main meaning was storytelling from the eyes of the stalker – with the line, ‘You don’t remember me, but I remember you.’ It was sort of the prequel to Snow White Queen. But the underneath meaning was that I was having all these feelings for this guy that I couldn’t tell him about. Why tell one story when you can two? I do that so often!
It’s really precious that Amy’s treating the common literary device known as subtext like it’s some new invention o’ hers. Also, ¿are those really 2 different meanings? I mean, if you’re writing songs ’bout someone you’re romancing after but with whom you don’t actually have a relationship, I mean, we kind o’ call that stalking, too…
Grade: B
9. Hello
OK, here’s the song ’bout Lee’s dead sister. Thankfully, it’s much better than “My Immortal”, which makes me wonder why they picked that awful song to be the single ( not to say that either o’ these absolute bangers make the best radio hit material ). The lyrics are much better than you’d expect from a nu-metal song, where o’ersang wangst ’bout ¿HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO MEEEE?, e’en if sometimes based on real trauma, is the norm. Going with the mo’ unsettling vibe o’ someone refusing to accept the death o’ a loved one — as well as the dissonant tone o’ giving this song the friendly title, “Hello” — is a much better choice &, ironically, makes it feel mo’ real, as, unfortunately, all the “¿HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO MEEEE?” songs make it impossible to discern genuine tragedy from “My mom wouldn’t buy me those $40 name-brand jeans @ Hot Topic — ¡life is so unfair!”, like a musical form o’ the boy who cried wolf.
While the lyrics & piano notes are suitably creepy, the strings are a bit cliché, & it feels like it’s missing something to really make it stand out — tho I do like the falling, stretching notes ’tween verses.
Grade: B
10. My Last Breath
I like the imagery o’ a song from the point o’ view o’ someone on their last breath before death, tho I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else made a song with a similar premise.
There’s just 1 problem I have with this song:
“My Last Breath” is the tenth track off of Evanescence’s debut album, Fallen. The song was inspired by the 9/11 attacks that killed just under 3,000 people in New York City, New York and Washington, D.C., United States.
¿Who would’ve thought that making a song ’bout 9/11 would be the cringiest thing Evanescence did on their 1st album? Not to be 1 o’ those edgelords who think those random strangers totally deserved it, or whate’er, or that the reactionary religious fanatic who had no problem being on the same side as the US when they were ganging up on communists is some underrated genius revolutionary with his brilliant plan to attack a bunch o’ random civilians & do no damage to the US state itself, — that’s why Bin Laden is dead, Al-Qaeda is irrelevant, & the US… well, if the US falls, it’ll be self-inflicted & due to economic factors that would’ve happened without Bin Laden’s spectacle — but honkeys be acting like this was the 1st time thousands o’ people had died, & hardly any songs dealt with the political ramifications o’ the attack, which is weird, since it clearly was a political attack.
It’s funny that another quote, which seems to confirm that Genius isn’t making this up, has Ben Moody say, “‘My Last Breath’ came from right after the September 11th thing”, calling it “the September 11th thing”, as if he didn’t e’en care ’bout it.
That being said, I do like the line “look for me in the white forest”, which sounds majestic, till you realize it’s referring to a graveyard o’ white tombstones. There are far worse 9/11 songs & this 1 is broad ’nough to extend beyond that specific topic.
I do wish the song’s sound fit mo’ with the breathing motif, like Three Days Grace’s “Drown”, with its ending sounding like the song itself is drowning @ the end.
Grade: B
11. Whisper
¿Why does this album end with this rather forgettable song & not the song called “My Last Breath”?
“Whisper” is something that we still play on stage a lot and I love playing it, it’s a great live song. But lyrically it doesn’t hold a ton of meaning for me anymore ‘cause I’m not really at a very dark place in my life at all right now.
I guess the Latin chanting @ the end is a decent album closer, tho kind o’ cliché.
Grade: C
Conclusion
Album Grade: B
Well, that was October’s nostalgic novelty nu-metal album. Join me next month as we look @ another album.
The crux o’ this treasure, hopping ’long falling leaves while trying to avoid the water shots the fish spits @ you or falling into the lake, is a unique challenge that meshes well with the forest theme while adding the water twist to it. I specially like how they make this room darker & bluer than the rest o’ the level, giving it a mo’ mossy feel. Howe’er, it’s hard to ignore that said unique mechanic is just a new paint job o’er falling platforms & projectiles, which are not the most exotic o’ mechanics, especially in a game like this.
While I like the way they foreshadowed the green key from the beginning, I don’t feel like they tied it into the actual green treasure itself very well. Maybe if what you need to reach the green key, hopping off enemies, was what unlocked the leaf room, but that’s not the case; & e’en tho the sequence requires you to get the high-jump boots before the treasure that unlocks this treasure, I don’t think you actually need to high jump to jump ’cross the leaves. It seems they could’ve found a way to hide it ’mong the leaves — maybe have extra leaves ’bove & to the left @ a branching point. Or, hell, they could’ve placed it high up in the trees, which otherwise just has music coins. That would cohere a bit better since you have to jump ’cross tiny leaves that disappear soon after you land on them.
