I was going to post this in the Your Day thread in The Lounge, but then I thought "hey, why don't I just put it in my journal" and headed straight over here. In the Norwegian class at school, we got an assignment where we had to write about a travel, in Neo-Norwegian (a language that was created because ordinary Norwegian was moving too far away from the traditional lingo). So I started writing about a guy who wakes up in a dark forest, tied between two trees. He manages to snake his way out from the rope, takes a look around, and finds himself next to the ashes of Fantoft Stave Chuch. Varg Vikernes and some other guy are there, and our protagonist hears that he's going to be sacrificed to Odin. He runs away, trips, prays, and next thing, he's right in front of God, AKA this guy (a pop artist who became famous over here after receiving a total of 0 votes in the Eurovision Song Contest). God sends him an hour back in time to Euronymous' house, where he is supposed to kill Varg Vikernes, as God is pretty pissed at him, aaaand then I had to save the file because I didn't have time to write any more than that. But here's the cool part: I looked at the word count right after I saved, and guess what? It was 666. The only way it could be even more kvlt, was if God was the bad guy in the story.

Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Year: 2014
Expectations before listening: Bitchin'...ness

So I expected some really cool Ulver/Drudkh-sounding stuff with demonic screams mixed in with angelic female vocals. Instead, I got some pretty bland Ulver/Drudkh-sounding stuff with okay female vocals and ridiculous screams. The first two tracks are clean, but on the third, "Må Du Brænde i Helvede" ("you must burn in Hell"), the screams kick in. They...

• Are too distorted. Think of the vocal filters used by Burzum on Filosofem, but so severe that you can't even tell whether or not the vocalist is actually pronouncing real words.
• Are inconsistent. Suddenly she's screaming, and after five seconds, she's done. It seems like she just threw them in randomly for good measure.
• Are badly mixed. At times you can barely even hear them. Sure, black metal is supposed to have crappy production, but won't you at least let us hear the vocals?

Oh, and the Gregorian chanting is too loud. I started playing the album, and after a while, there was an instrumental black metal part. I turned the volume up, but then the clean singing was back, and I had to turn the volume down again because it was uncomfortably loud. Oh, and the riffs aren't really anything special. Trollheart, listen to Bergtatt: Et eeventyr i 5 capitler instead. It's like this, but a lot better.

2.5/5

So I have a little tradition of listening to crappy music just for the hell of bitching about it afterwards (Justin Bieber Week, Nickelback Week, Pierce the Veil Week). So I'm listening to Imagine Dragons right now. At least one of my friends listen to them, and I realized that I can't actually talk about the group with them if I only know two of their songs. So here I am, listening to Imagine Dragons. And I'm not happy. Imagine Dragons is on the list named "bands that piss Briks off". Why? They're labelled as "indie rock", even though they're just some bland pop/alternative group. Here's what a conversation with one of the fans might sound like:

"I don't really like the pop music of today, y'know? I mostly dig indie. Imagine Dragons and Ed Sheeran, y'know. What do you listen to?"
"Well, I try to listen to a little bit of everything... some black metal, some punk, some indie..."
"Indie? Cool! Did you hear that new Imagine Dragons song?"
"Nah. They don't really interest me."
"Oh. How about Ed Sheeran? Isn't 'I See Fire' just awesome?"
"Well, I'm not really a fan. I think it's a bit bl.."
"You said you listen to indie, but you don't even like the two most important indie artists, like, ever? What kind of unsophisticated bum are you?" *adjusts trilby in disgust*

Artists like, say, Nicki Minaj, don't piss me off nearly as much. Nicki is terrible and people know it. She even has some comedy value because she sounds so goddamn ridiculous. But people feel superior when listening to anything labelled as "indie", because it makes them seem as if they actually give a crap about music and seeking out talented artists. So people get all snobby about their taste, start looking down on people with minds too simple to appreciate bland guitar pop, and don't realize that their taste is actually kind of ****ty.

Alright, now I'm just being a huge, flaming hypocrite. But that's what happens when my argumental skills can't catch up with my anger. Please don't hate me.

Artist: Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft
Album: Für Immer
Year: 1982
Genre: Neue Deutsche Welle, EBM

"Briks, that's not a punk album. And it's not old-school New Wave either. Silly." Yeah, yeah, I don't care. They were on the punk compilation this section is based around, and I liked what I heard, so I decided to check this out even though it doesn't really fit the title of the section. And I'm pretty glad I did, because this was some good stuff. The whole album is twisted, fun, danceable and even a little bit scary (it being in German might be a contributing factor).

4/5