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Laughing Man

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Blog Entries posted by Laughing Man

  2. Laughing Man

    Disintegration

    By Laughing Man,

    (click for larger image)
     
    180 gram double LP in gatefold packaging, featuring the full 12-track album remastered from the original tapes.
     
    only my second vinyl purchase ever, but it was just $25 brand new at FYE. couldn't pass it up.
  3. Laughing Man

    M83

    By Laughing Man,

    from top to bottom:
     
    - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (US edition with bonus disc)
    - Before the Dawn Heals Us
    - Saturdays = Youth
    - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
    - Junk
     
    also owned digitally: the Oblivion original motion picture soundtrack. pretty dull soundtrack for a pretty dull movie, although the title track featuring Susanne Sundfør is still one of my favorite M83 songs.
     
    I'm currently missing Digital Shades Vol. 1, which is a short instrumental ambient album and not really a full-blown studio album, as well as the self-titled debut which is just kind of okay and probably the least interesting thing they've ever done.
     
    the new album Junk is easily the weakest M83 album yet from a songwriting standpoint, and it's getting extremely mixed reviews. while it's definitely a huge disappointment coming 5 years after the near-masterpiece Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, I personally enjoy it for what it is: a collection of schlocky, tongue-in-cheek pop songs that pay tribute to the cheesiest aspects of late-70s/early-80s music and culture.
  4. Laughing Man
    this past Tuesday marked the release of another shameful record label cash-grab Michael Jackson posthumous "album" consisting of songs that Jackson rejected and likely never would've wanted released, updated to modern pop radio "standards" and featuring vocals that may or may not even be the real King of Pop himself.
     
    like anyone who legitimately respected the man as an entertainer, instead of supporting corporate greed and the desecration of his legacy I've elected to use this occasion as an excuse (not that one is necessary) to instead reflect on what I consider the best years of his career, the Epic Records releases of Off the Wall through HIStory: Past, Present and Future Book I.
     
    in doing so I've decided to follow up my previous "album collection" blog entries with one dedicated to the King of Pop.
     

     
    (click for larger image)
     
    stack on left, top to bottom:
     
    - Off the Wall (special edition)
    - Thriller (special edition)
    - Bad (special edition)
    - Dangerous (special edition)
    - HIStory: Past, Present and Future Book I
    - This Is It (single-disc edition; technically a posthumous release, but it was one that Jackson himself had approved and been involved with before his death, so I count it as his final legitimate release.)
     
    on the right is the "collector's edition" released last year of Jackson's 2003 compilation Number Ones. although it resembles vinyl packaging, it's actually an 8x8 digipak housing a standard CD and featuring an 8x8 version of the album's booklet with "enhanced graphics".
     
    I've yet to pick up Invincible - honestly, I've been holding off on it because I simply find it to be a disappointing release. that said, I do plan on picking it up sometime soon along with Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix.
     
    as a side-note, writing this has reminded me that I never posted any pictures of my completed The Cure collection - my favorite band of all time with the largest amount of albums by a single artist I own to show for it. I'll probably do that soon.
  5. Laughing Man

    Sixth Metalversary

    By Laughing Man,

    on this day six years ago I made my first foray into the world of heavy metal music with the album As Daylight Dies by Killswitch Engage.
     
    up to that point I'd really only listened to generic radio rock and alternative bands. I heard their rather misleading single “Starting Over” on the radio and really liked it, but the album that was from wasn’t out yet, so I picked up As Daylight Dies from Walmart one night instead. as soon as the first song started I was floored. I’d never heard anything like it before. wasn’t sure whether I loved or hated what I was hearing at first, but eventually it grew to be the former.
     
    my tastes have changed and diversified a lot since then, but that album really opened up a whole new musical world for me and it'll always hold a special place in my heart. gonna listen to it tonight to mark the occasion.
  10. Laughing Man

    Paradise Lost

    By Laughing Man,

    over the past year these guys went from being a band I had a somewhat casual interest in to being a band I consider one of my all-time favorites. in the last few months I've worked to obtain all their essential albums and this is the result. I'm still missing their debut Lost Paradise, the more synthpop-oriented albums Host and Believe in Nothing, and the 2005 self-titled album, although most of those aren't as well-received as the ones I've got so they're not quite as high-priority. I would also like to get their recent rarities compilation Tragic Illusion 25 at some point, probably digitally.
     

     
    top to bottom:
     
    - Gothic (Icarus Argentina pressing)
    - Shades of God
    - Icon
    - Draconian Times
    - One Second
    - Reflection (best-of compilation)
    - Symbol of Life (US edition with bonus tracks)
    - In Requiem
    - Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us
    - Tragic Idol
    - The Plague Within (US digipak edition with bonus track. currently my favorite album of 2015.)
  12. Laughing Man
    NEW VOLBEAT ALBUM.
     
    mixed feelings on the title. it fits with their theme and all, but it doesn't really roll off the tongue and it isn't as cool as past titles like Rock the Rebel/Metal the Devil or Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood.
     
    title aside, it's pretty much guaranteed to rock in every sense of the word.
     
    so color me psyched.
     
    OH. sidenote. just to make this relevant to people unfamiliar with the band. like all of their previous albums, it's being produced (along with Rob Caggiano of Anthrax fame) by Jacob Hansen, who also produced Cryoshell's debut album and all of their subsequent singles.
  13. Laughing Man
    if you live in the US and there's a primary in your state today and you're able, go out and vote
     
    I want to vote in the primary but because of my current living/family situation and the way voting works in my state, I unfortunately can't. so if you have the opportunity to vote and you pass on it, I'm judging you extra hard today
  14. Laughing Man

    Age of..

    By Laughing Man,

    ..Adaline looks like a terrible film. sad to see Harrison Ford waste his talent like that.
     
    this was just something I observed when I saw its poster while at the cinema to see a far less popular film that I'm sure nobody here has seen nor cares about, Avengers: Age of Ultron. great film. liked it better than the previous Avengers movie, although both certainly fall short of the first one.
     
    interestingly, it would seem that Ultron has decided to take a different route in his plan to fight humanity, as he parked a (presumably stolen) S.H.I.E.L.D. truck in front of the cinema and started making rude hand gestures at people. Iron Man was there too, but I guess he didn't see a problem with this because he mostly just stood around in the lobby and did absolutely nothing.
  15. Laughing Man
    that's right, last night I rewatched the original Friday the 13th!
     
    regardless of all the movies and shows he's done or his numerous Hollywood connections, I'll always remember Kevin Bacon as the guy who got stabbed in the throat with an arrow from underneath the bed.
  16. Laughing Man

    I'm feelin it

    By Laughing Man,

    the awakening, that is.
     
    just got back from The Force Awakens. instead of talking about how much I liked it, here's my ranking for the Star Wars film series from best to worst:
     
    1. The Empire Strikes Back
    2. The Force Awakens
    3. Star Wars (AKA A New Hope)
    4. Return of the Jedi
    5. Revenge of the Sith
    6. Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure
    7. Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
    8. The Phantom Menace
    9. The Star Wars Holiday Special
    10. the Clone Wars theatrical movie
    11. the instructional VHS that came with the interactive Star Wars board game I had in the 90s
    12. Attack of the Clones
  17. Laughing Man
    100 points to anybody who get gets the title reference
     
    anyway so I guess I didn't have to sneak, but I was in and out of the hospital this evening
     
    it's ok I'm ok everything's ok, I just had kind of a potentially brain-damagingly high fever that refused to go down
     
    they pumped me full of meds and fluids and did every medical test known to man
     
    so far as they can tell it's just some kind of virus that should go away within a few days with the proper medication
  18. Laughing Man

    #xmas #swag #yolo

    By Laughing Man,

    - $40 Visa gift card (from sister)
    - All the Lights in the Sky 「Complete」 CD by Area 11 (pre-order)
    - 5 Classic Albums CD box set by Rush
    - $170 Amazon gift card
    - a bunch of shirts
    - 16 snap-together CD storage boxes
    - Minecraft Creeper action figure
    - Minecraft Zombie action figure
    - Minecraft Overworld Survival Pack action figure set
    - Edgar Allan Poe action figure (?????)
    - Desktop drumkit
    - Touch screen-compatible gloves
    - 32GB iPod Touch
     
    happy Boxing Day everyone. don't forget to put your gloves on and go punch somebody.
  19. Laughing Man

    Children of Bodom

    By Laughing Man,

    after getting a damaged copy, waiting for a refund, ordering another, waiting an unusually long time for it to be shipped, and then finally getting the final piece needed today, I've completed another discography collection.
     
    from top to bottom:
     
    - Something Wild (2008 deluxe reissue)
    - Hatebreeder (2008 deluxe reissue)
    - Follow the Reaper (US edition)
    - Hate Crew Deathroll (US edition)
    - Are You Dead Yet? (US edition)
    - Blooddrunk (US edition)
    - Halo of Blood
     
    also owned, but not pictured:
     
    - Relentless Reckless Forever (I own this digitally. I bought it entirely with free credits I saved up over the summer from an AmazonMP3 promotion a couple years back and I still felt ripped off. I even tried, unsuccessfully, to get it refunded by telling them I bought it by mistake. I absolutely hate this album with a passion and have no intention of ever wasting money on a physical copy. it's bad enough that I've wasted hard drive space on the MP3s. I'd rather just pretend the album doesn't even exist.)
  20. Laughing Man

    Hypocrisy

    By Laughing Man,

    upon receiving A Taste of Extreme Divinity in the mail today, I've pretty much completed my Hypocrisy collection. I'm still missing some things - like their first three albums which are different in style and just not as good in my opinion, and both versions of the band's horrible attempt at cashing in on the nu-metal craze with Catch 22 - but all of the core albums in the band's discography that display their unique mix of death metal, melody, spacey atmospherics, and lyrical themes obsessed with the paranormal, extraterrestrial, and horror that make them one of my top 5 favorite bands of all time are represented now.
     

     
    from top to bottom:
     
    - The Final Chapter
    - Hypocrisy (German digipak edition)
    - Into the Abyss
    - The Arrival
    - Virus (CD/DVD limited edition)
    - A Taste of Extreme Divinity (U.S. limited edition)
    - End of Disclosure (digipak limited edition)
     
    also owned, but not pictured:
     
    - Abducted (2003 reissue, owned digitally because the CD is hard to find at a decent price)
  21. Laughing Man
    casting Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor in Batman/Superman seems like a weird idea until you realize that he's actually the same age as Henry Cavill
     
    if he plays the character anything like he played Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, though, I can see him pulling it off pretty well
  23. Laughing Man

    Meshuggah

    By Laughing Man,

    normally I post complete collections, but I'm very quickly running out of those so here's one that's only mostly complete.
     
    I'm currently missing the original 2002 version of Nothing, the EP I (which was just reissued last year, but I haven't been able to find it yet), and the Rare Trax compilation.
     

     
    from top to bottom:
     
    - Contradictions Collapse (2008 reissue with 4/5 of the None EP as bonus tracks)
    - Destroy Erase Improve (2008 reissue with the other 1/4 of the None EP as a bonus track, among others)
    - Chaosphere (2008 reissue with The True Human Design EP as bonus tracks)
    - Catch Thirtythree
    - Nothing (2006 remixed/remastered/partly re-recorded reissue)
    - ObZen
    - Koloss
     
    also owned, but not pictured:
     
    - Pitch Black EP (free digital download from Scion A/V, also included as bonus tracks on the 2014 reissue of the I EP)
  24. Laughing Man

    a blog entry

    By Laughing Man,

    hey yeah why not
     
    so I have a new job, and that's been basically consuming my life
     
    it kinda sucks but it pays pretty well for what it is I guess
     
    I just got my first paycheck and I already spent like 1/4 of it though, probably shouldn't do that lol
     
    also I had to call off work a couple days ago because I've been sick. still feel pretty bad but hopefully I'll be fine to work tomorrow
     
    not really closer to any of my goals yet but I guess this is a start at least
     
    so yeah that's that. that's what's new with me. what's new with you
  25. Laughing Man

    The Killing

    By Laughing Man,

    without a doubt the most depressing show on television right now.
     
    last night's episode literally had me sobbing
     
     
    unrelated: anyone else ever wake up and think "I'm going to buy Michael Jackson's entire Epic Records studio discography" because I did
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