Music
Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want (4/5)
A really amazing atheistic choice for the music, I still maintain that the opener 'City Song' sounds like a Slipknot track, but the rest is some hardcore, dirty, scary and anxiety driven noise rock. I can totally see why this is a lot of peoples favourite record, and honestly this would definitely have place in my top 5 if I had listened to it before making my list.
Fave Tracks: City Song, Satan In The Wait, The Flammable Man, Less Sex, The Reason They Hate Me.
Nirvana - Nevermind (4/5)
Never properly listened to this album all the way through and I'm glad I finally did, it's a treat, I read somewhere that Kurt didn't like how clean the production on this album was, and honestly I agree with that statement. I feel I gravitate to some songs from the debut album, Bleach, more cause of the punky and dirty production. Nevermind clearly has much better writing though, genuinely a classic.
Fave Tracks: In Bloom, Come As You Are, Lithium, Polly, Territorial Pissings, On a Plain, Something In The Way
The 1975 - A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships (3/5)
A really enjoyable emo poppy album, and some track really do stick with you, but for me this isn't usually stuff I gravitate to, and it also suffers from a long run time and track list, it means it really meanders in the middle, even with the hot start.
Fave Tracks: Give Yourself A Try, Love It If We Made It, The Man Who Married A Robot/Love Theme, It's Not Living (If It's Not With You), I Couldn't Be More In Love.
Nirvana - In Utero (3.5/5)
I can totally see why people think this record is the best out of the three, but for me, and maybe this cause I listened to Nevermind directly before this album, I think In Utero might be my least favourite of the three LPs Nirvana released. It is clearly the blend between the first two albums, and in that respect it should be the best, but I feel like overall it just falls a little short overall. I still really love the album, it's a pretty close call, I guess I was hoping this one would be a 5/5. Heart-Shape Box might be my favourite Nirvana song now though.
Fave Tracks: Heart-Shaped Box, Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle, Milk It, Tourette's.
Ghost - Prequelle (3.5/5)
By far the best Ghost album they have released so far, I feel like Ghost has a large catalogue of great songs, but they all don't sit in one record where you can enjoy them all in a sitting, and this is the closest they've come to that. Let me be clear, the best Ghost songs aren't on here, but quite a few real good ones are.
Fave Tracks: Faith, See The Light, Miasma, Dance Macabre
Movies
Sorry To Bother You (3/5)
Fucking weird, but also has funny moments. I think this needs a rewatch but my overall feeling is that it was fine.
Teen Titans Go! To The Movies (3/5)
A fun movie that is overall quite funny and charming, but has cheesy/cringy moments. I remember when this came out people had this very positive voice for it, being unexpectedly very good, but for me, watching this for the first time in a post-Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse world, this is no where near up to the standard that it could be.
Aquaman (3/5)
The Favourite (4.5/5)
I need to see this movie again right now, every performance by the main three actresses, Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachal Weisz, are all absolutely amazing. The story, all about love told in this really interesting way, with lots of beats, told in a period which is unusual with characters that are unusual, all boils down to nothing really actually changing in the long run and it's just so fucking COOL MAN. WIN ALL THE OSCARS.
Games
Spyro Reignited Trilogy: Spyro The Dragon (4/5)
Just completed the game with the full 120% you can get, it is a lot of fun and you can see the tight map and level design coupled with simple controls and abilities to create a really challenging platformer. I'm looking forward to play the next game and seeing the evolution of the design of these games, as I am a big fan of Jak & Daxter 1 which wasn't made by Insomniac but it was made by Naughty Dog who were working right next to Insomniac during the PS2 days. I see a lot overlap between Spyro and Jak 1. The remaster side of it is gorgeous, I really love the audio design too, but I have some gripes with the controls, I found myself slipping off the edge when doing jumps sometimes when I should be making them, but apart from that there doesn't seem to be any glitches or bugs, it feels really polished and fun to play.
TV
Sex Education - Series 1
Hilarious and Heart-warming, the correct way inclusion should be done, and a coming-of-age tale that still has a lot to go. Also great casting full of actors I haven't seen before bar one. Just a really great British comedy show, go watch. Also, this show has a really weird but cool aesthetic, of the whole show looking like a USA coming-of-age, romantic comedy, teen movie, think The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller type deal, but it's set in the modern day. I noticed this almost immediately when I realised, 1, England is not that sunny, 2, the school doesn't have a school uniform.
Friends - Season 2
Not much to say here, slowly going through the series, Friends, although aged in places, still feels incredibly relevent and also sometimes ahead of the times. It's a strange mix, the show is awesome. Rachel and Ross being an actual couple rules, Monica and Richard was also a great storyline.
Wrestling
NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13
As always a stellar show by New Japan, I didn't love everything but Ospreay/Ibushi, White/Okada and Omega/Tanahashi are really standouts and the ones I'll keep in my mind for my End Of The Year Match candidates.
NJPW New Years Dash
Really shocking and lack luster to see no Elite members that night, it kinda put into perspective the kind of wierd situation New Japan is in now that AEW is around. I'm still holding out hope New Japan will make a deal with AEW and we can get some cross promotional shows between them.
NXT UK Takeover: Blackpool
As a British wrestling fan and someone who considers themselves to be in touch with that wrestling scene, I was dissapointed at the waste of potential here in the first ever NXT UK Takeover. I thought the opening Tag Match was really good, but considering the two teams involved and their history in a place like PROGRESS, felt that it could've been better. Rhea Ripley and Toni Storm had my favourite match of the night, which felt genuine and was just a joy to watch from start to finish. But the whole show ended with a main event which I frankly believe is abysmal. Slow and boring from the outset, multiple botches especially at the end with the top rope spot firmly points it at being really quite awful.
NXT Takeover: Phoenix
For me, I thought this show didn't hit the high points you expected Takeovers to have now. I thought the opening tag to be really good, Gargano/Ricochet to be a bit too dense in their spots and pace, but still a good match, Belair and Shayna to have an alright bout where Belair really shone and The main event to be really quite lack luster considering the match up, the main problem being the finish of the match where Aleister Black hits a Black Mass and then 2 minutes later tries to do it again but hurts his leg and gets pinned. Really quite dumb.
WWE Royal Rumble
Well isn't this a really nice surprise! WWE had a really great PPV for the first time in a while and has firmly brought me back on board from just about under a year away from watching PPVs. The standouts here were the Women's titles matches for me, Asuka/Becky really quite great, Ronda/Sasha a really close second to that. I also really love the cool chemistry between Bryan and AJ, I know it isn't this big fast paced indy-tastic feud that people would expect from those two names, but I think they have a really good flow and it grabs you really quite well. Finn/Brock was a spectacular match, Brock has really gone all out on these past two matches here with Bryan and Finn. Women's Rumble was quite shaky for a long time and only really picked up right at the end. Men's Rumble was much better overall, nothing too shocking or crazy but a really enjoyable rumble all round.
Yeah so that was my January, I hope I convinced you to try out something, brought something to your attention, or made you avoid something you were gonna try, I had fun doing this, dipping into this blog over the month and just adding a few lines of my thoughts. See you all next month I guess!
TV
Sex Education - Series 1
Hilarious and Heart-warming, the correct way inclusion should be done, and a coming-of-age tale that still has a lot to go. Also great casting full of actors I haven't seen before bar one. Just a really great British comedy show, go watch. Also, this show has a really weird but cool aesthetic, of the whole show looking like a USA coming-of-age, romantic comedy, teen movie, think The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller type deal, but it's set in the modern day. I noticed this almost immediately when I realised, 1, England is not that sunny, 2, the school doesn't have a school uniform.
Friends - Season 2
Not much to say here, slowly going through the series, Friends, although aged in places, still feels incredibly relevent and also sometimes ahead of the times. It's a strange mix, the show is awesome. Rachel and Ross being an actual couple rules, Monica and Richard was also a great storyline.
Wrestling
NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13
As always a stellar show by New Japan, I didn't love everything but Ospreay/Ibushi, White/Okada and Omega/Tanahashi are really standouts and the ones I'll keep in my mind for my End Of The Year Match candidates.
NJPW New Years Dash
Really shocking and lack luster to see no Elite members that night, it kinda put into perspective the kind of wierd situation New Japan is in now that AEW is around. I'm still holding out hope New Japan will make a deal with AEW and we can get some cross promotional shows between them.
NXT UK Takeover: Blackpool
As a British wrestling fan and someone who considers themselves to be in touch with that wrestling scene, I was dissapointed at the waste of potential here in the first ever NXT UK Takeover. I thought the opening Tag Match was really good, but considering the two teams involved and their history in a place like PROGRESS, felt that it could've been better. Rhea Ripley and Toni Storm had my favourite match of the night, which felt genuine and was just a joy to watch from start to finish. But the whole show ended with a main event which I frankly believe is abysmal. Slow and boring from the outset, multiple botches especially at the end with the top rope spot firmly points it at being really quite awful.
NXT Takeover: Phoenix
For me, I thought this show didn't hit the high points you expected Takeovers to have now. I thought the opening tag to be really good, Gargano/Ricochet to be a bit too dense in their spots and pace, but still a good match, Belair and Shayna to have an alright bout where Belair really shone and The main event to be really quite lack luster considering the match up, the main problem being the finish of the match where Aleister Black hits a Black Mass and then 2 minutes later tries to do it again but hurts his leg and gets pinned. Really quite dumb.
WWE Royal Rumble
Yeah so that was my January, I hope I convinced you to try out something, brought something to your attention, or made you avoid something you were gonna try, I had fun doing this, dipping into this blog over the month and just adding a few lines of my thoughts. See you all next month I guess!
No comments:
Post a Comment