DouglasReese

https://soundcloud.com/paul-reese-30998502/sets/untitled-third-album Usually I post in "entertainment", but realize this area is more fitting (I'm not a pro-musician, so it's weird to have a thread there). But this is my latest album. Strayed away from vocals this time around, instead embracing the production itself to tell the emotions. I did, however, mix a little bit of spoken word in there. The main inspiration was my current emotional state in these politically heated, and scary times. I was hoping to capture that anxiety, and maybe relieve some of it in the process.

Please be the UO cover. Please be the UO cover.

I don't think I can honestly say Lana has a single track that I hate. Her concepts are so consistent (within her eras, or not) - that it's hard to just call something shyte. I'm not the biggest fan of, say, "Swan Song", but its still a necessary bridge in Honeymoon's story (that "High by the Beach" re-use in the opening, my god ), so I can't outright hate it, even if it's not something I listen to individually. I'm pretty sure the only song of hers that didn't work for me was "Lolita", but it was a bonus track, and it's still oh, so Lana that I respect it.

Ultraviolence is still probably the best album of the decade.

01. Hollyweird 02. Spirits of the Dead 03. Lust for Life 04. Love 05. Starboy Interlude (f./ The Weeknd) 06. Phenomena 07. Moon Man 08. Serial Killer 09. Heart-Shaped Box (f./ Courtney Love) 10. Architecture 11. Black Dahlia 12. Strawberry Fields Forever (f./ Sean Lennon) Wouldn't be surprised if "Lust for Life" only had Weeknd on some background vocals, and uncredited, similarly to "Party Monster". And the themes between the albums are so connected to space, I wouldn't put it past Lana to do a reversal interlude.

Oh my, is this something you created? Because I only found it in Google Images.

"Grigio Sweet" is now available on iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play, Pandora, Spotify, and Tidal. <3 Check it out.

Well, to be fair, I praised it for its flaws. I think its one of the best albums of the decade.

Due to this leak, yet again, I've decided to deactivate my account. I came here for Lana news, and to share art, but I just can't take this debauchery on her craft anymore. It's just too much.

Stoked to announce I start filming my next feature this Wednesday! It's got a cast much larger than I'm used to, so it's both frightening and exciting! The film is a dual story, following a young woman (played by Alexis Day) living in a rural Cincinnati farmhouse, learning that her childhood horse has been diagnosed with a malicious brain tumor. This causes her to go through an existential crisis, which immediately effects her relationship with her boyfriend (played by me). The second story focuses on a young aspiring rapper (and drug addict) played by Trace Hazelbaker, living homeless in downtown Cincinnati - who tries to win back the affections of his ex-girlfriend (Joi Itapson) following a heated, race-related break-up. The two stories are linked together by a single factor, that shows both lives at a crossroads, and both trying to heal their heartache by their own means.

Heil Satan.

Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz is an annoying album. The more you listen to it, the more it gets bothersome before it all self-destructs and places the listener at a loss for how exactly to react to the entire thing. The best way to put it, at 92 minutes in length, is some kind of self-indulgent battlefield of a multitude of inconsistent emotional plateaus. The album doesn’t draw onto the idea of concept – embracing a more pop sensibility of the songs existing as individual entities, and yet it still remains stuck on some kind of warn-down, repetitive cycle from track-to-track. So while something like “Slab of Butter” (an actual title) shares the same production as “I Forgive Yiew” (also, an actual title) two tracks later, its still with an interlude between the tracks that is a 40-second piece called “I’m So Drunk” (again, an actual title). They are conceptually realized, with the same story told, but they are jolted in the middle by something that feels more akin to other tracks on the album as opposed to these two specific similar ones that are played for us. This is, in summation, exactly what we’ve come to expect of the Dead Petz experience upon first listen – songs repeating and repeating – to the point where it actually leaves behind the prospect of concept, and actually sort of reinvents it in some kind of warped way. Again, this is psychedelia, and its done with pop sensibility – but, and here’s the kicker, that doesn’t make it any less annoying than it already has been. The album is annoying. Did I tell you it’s annoying? Because I feel the need to express overtime how annoying this project actually is. It’s deeply annoying. Annoying. But this all sounds like that’s such a bad thing, when in actuality its exactly where Cyrus’ demented, hedonistic vision has its strengths. For an artist who has shaded herself under her studio-controlled image by desecrating it with an overtly sexualized version of herself – there’s never an opportunity to actually explore some kind of uncharted territory within that aesthetic she has plastered on live TV. Yes, “We Can’t Stop” is a track that embraces the same kind of hedonistic ideals that Dead Petz does over and over – but when Cyrus laments on that track that it’s “[her] mouth and [she’ll] say what [she] wants to”, you also think that its true, but she probably would have preferred to say “it’s my mouth and I can blow who I want to”. Cyrus is ready to up the transition from sugar-sweet popstar into sexualized hellion – but what makes her so damn good at this is how she does it with such conviction. Like a hyperactive, animated version of this very premise. Dead Petz’ first line is “yeah, I smoke pot, and yeah I love peace”. It feels genuine in her delivery – like she really believes it – but it’s also a line that is purely ridiculous on any and all levels – much like 80% of the album’s lyrical content. It calls to attention whether honesty is something that can be laughable – but if it laughable, does Cyrus also find herself in on the laughing. Are we laughing with her, or at her? I think the former, and I think she encapsulates that more than anything when she, later, spews out songs about her dead pets – which, yes, includes a blowfish. So conceptually, the album is conceptual – even if it acts like its one-track minded. In fact, you could cut down every other track on the album and have a sturdy little piece with about fifteen tracks on it. However, that’s not what we have, and that’s not what Cyrus is going for. We have Cyrus taking one song, and repeating it consecutively on the album by means of garnering some kind of meaning out of the very same story they all share. Is it more about running out of ideas? Is it because it’s an unedited version of a basement demo piece? Or is it something a lot more viable and humanistic? The theme of the album seems to be about feeling “aimless” and “lost” in such hedonistic excess, but how genuine does that actually make it? If Cyrus begins the album claiming “I don’t give a ” then how can she end it 23 tracks later with “what does it all mean?” There’s a consistency through all the chaos. So basically, is it fair to judge an album for being a big mess when the entire concept sits on an emotional mindset that is completely messy? It helps that the production of the album – done by everybody from Mike Will Made It, to Ariel Pink, to Phantogram, and onto The Flaming Lips – seems to reach for some kind of messiness, as well. Songs don’t always bow down to the typical structure of a pop single, and instead aim at something a lot less polished. In fact, it’s possible that if this album had been a polished release, and not something released for free on Soundcloud, it may completely lose its sensibility as something coming from a personal place. It sounds like it was made in Cyrus’ basement. On “Tiger Dreams”, Cyrus goes on and on in a dreary voice about dreaming about tigers, about people wanting to be her friend to garner something, and the overall emptiness she feels when she’s doing anything but dreaming; something that is an immediate conception of her obsession with getting high. What exactly does that all mean? Well, she doesn’t have the answer, either, so don’t even bother searching for such a resolution. This is a shamelessly self-indulgent piece of work consists of an A-list popstar from the Top 40 – crying out about how she’s never satisfied. It’s inevitable that it would receive immediate based on that principle alone – not unlike the beginning stages of a career like Lana Del Rey’s. It’s a stark contrast compared to some of her studio-based tracks that sensationalize – or even sentimentalize – those very same concepts. It’s important for Cyrus to be this raw – this open – awful lyrics and all, because it shades her as somebody who hasn’t found the satisfaction in her own existential crises. She’s financially fit, and she’s getting high, and she’s – and she’s dreaming about surrealism – but, again, what does it all mean for her personally? And why can’t she seem to garner some kind of consistency in the things she both criticizes and praises in her lyrics? Does everything – no matter what that may be – equally sadden her and make her happy? It’s the question. All we know, though, is that she really, really, really loved her deceased dog, blowfish, and cat. But she also doesn’t process the grief-stricken status of losing a loved one – and this isn’t just some kind of “humans only” type of crisis she’s working herself through. Then you have the track called “Karen Don’t Be Sad” – which she speaks toward the title’s third person, but doesn’t really give us any insight – or any kind of paparazzo-created explanation, for who Karen even is. Possibly because Karen isn’t some kind of individual that is real, at all. It could be that she is . Either way, with the subjects of the succeeding tracks, it shows through that its less about who Karen is, and the fact that her and Karen are in desperate need of the same kind of solace in order to confront the darkness in their lives. Her mistreatment, and her empathetic reactions, are confronted with lyrics that refer to them as fools, and basically announce that its best to just follow-through with something else entirely. Not a rebuttal of hate, but of something a bit more reserved and, yes, still progressive. “Karen” doesn’t sound too much unlike “caring” – and that is possibly very intentional. But then again, it’s possibly not. “Space Boots” is a masochistic love song that likens a dude she’s screwing to a “space dude” – and yet, the lyrics animate him with sci-fi imagery while also opening up wounds for something a lot more devastating. He’s never there, she says – or she’s overthinking and feel bored, or feeling alienated by even herself. This list of issues that conflict her are endless, but are never announced as anything but a footnote to what she actually finds peaceful: a space dude. He’s not a bad guy, because she seems him as some kind of unattainable figure of beauty beyond just a simple individual. Again, what does it all mean? “Slab of Butter” is the album’s greatest track – and it doesn’t shy away from its ridiculous pot-influenced descriptions. “I feel like a slab of butter”, Cyrus says. “That is melting in the sun”. This is after talking about getting “ up”, and making herself ignore the influences of depression that come in waves from relationships (or just one) that was simply toxic. It’s also illuminating on the track “BB Talk”, that Cyrus has gotten to a point where some level of toxicity is necessary to find actual comfort. Like, being treated well means that you’re not feeling anything at all – because the feeling of darkness completely trumps any kind of feeling of bliss and comfort. Which begs the question: does Cyrus actually enjoy this? Paralleling the emotional turmoil with literal sex on tracks like “Fweaky” and “Bang Me Box” cause this to be even more emphasized. Those songs are meant to be erotic, but they come off more distressed than anything actually sexy or romantic. The result is a feeling of masochism, rather than anything to be taken blissfully. It’s almost like compensation for something else entirely. So, because of the lack of editing or holding back on Dead Petz, Miley Cyrus has shown thought processes of her that we might have otherwise never known. Her id is on full display, and she doesn’t seem to care. But it’s probably because she feels compensated by the fact that other listeners could hear it, take it as a cry for help, or simply accept the grey areas of love, lust, and that euphoric feeling of forgetting the world’s cruelties for the sake of something more peaceful. It makes that opening line feel all the more euphoric itself. “But I don’t give a , I ain’t no hippie”. So does she love peace or not? Or is that moreso on her own empathy than on her own self? And to think that these weren’t intended on behalf of Cyrus herself is to ignore that consistency through each track. One of the more fascinating, unhinged pop albums in years. It's powerful because of it.

10 Tyler, the Creator is a meme-like artist, whereas he can show earnestness in his feelings, while still remaining just as frank with his bizarre (and often cringing) sense of humor. While his lyrics spew out like there’s some kind of consistency (it helps that his style is completely steady; with his beats being repetitive and familiar, while still feeling hypnagogic), Goblin is a contradictory album that’s as maddening as it is fascinating. Much praise has been given to “Yonkers”, which is a summation of Tyler’s craft, and the very themes of Goblin itself: paradoxical, but all sides of each subject is undeniably honest. 9 “No family is safe, when I sashay”. An intentionally blunt rebuttal to heteronormativity and the fears of the homosexual man, Perfume Genius’ Too Bright starts off with a self-destructing piano ballad before bursting into heavy synth and bass for “Queen” – a song that shifts the entire direction of the album into an abstraction of overt gay lingo. Whether considering himself a “queen” and raising a middle finger to gender norms, or letting himself fall into demonic screams while trying to figure out what it means to love, his messy self-reflection reaches poignancy when he finally ends the album reflecting back to the first track, by allowing himself to remain conflicted on whether or not companionship is the very thing that’s causing his doubts. 8 https://youtu.be/pKMibrA71LQ Swans has always felt like a band singing straight from hell – and with The Seer, they make that analogy a reality with Satanic verses that dare to have you condemn them for their pleas for individualism. “Your life pours into my mouth, my light pours out of my mouth”. A criticism on the world, at large, done so nihilistically it hurts. Throughout the album’s many shifts from spoken word (which borders on beat poetry when read by itself) into psychedelic instrumentation, the album feels like a summarization of every little negative thing we can comment on the current American climate; and a strikingly supportive view on individualism within a world of what they see as pointless. 7 A love letter to music, on the whole, Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City is borderline Biblical in its religious imagery – but it’s also tongue-in-cheek while balancing out sincerity. By the time the album’s best track, “Ya Hey”, comes around – the way in which the band captures the industrialization of cityscapes eventually becomes something more primitive. By emphasizing the shifts in music itself, and appropriately changing up what is expected in delivering the old under the mask of something new, Vampire Weekend’s album becomes an alarming album that is pinnacle 2010s, while drawing attention to the very artform’s endless branches of change. Somehow, camel-riding in Jerusalem feels no different than a bicycle on the city streets. Vampires, indeed. 6 https://youtu.be/pYeNahbUNrw Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz feels like it was made in Miley Cyrus’ basement. Many tracks reprise the same production, while lyrics are reprised again and again on tracks down the road. Everything is triggered by common things: smoking weed and having sex, all told through an off-putting dream logic. With references to emojis, and lines such as “let’s go na-na-nah” representing sex (as if Cyrus just couldn’t find the energy to write any more lyrics), Dead Petz is a hedonistic and annoying album, but so well-defined by its concept that it captures exactly what is necessary; a 92-minute break from a studio-controlled pop artist so that she can share her multi-faceted feelings of emptiness, confusion, depression, loneliness, incompatibility, and a need for expression. 5 Sufjan Stevens has been on the verge of retrospection almost his entire career, and yet his calming, reverb-natural voice has always felt a bit detached. His albums of the past have always had this distant, yet close, oxymoronic feeling (recall Illionis). On Carrie & Lowell, Stevens makes way into the realm of “mommy issues” by, once again, approaching the subject from afar. While trying to steer away from anything that would admit to trauma, he finds himself incapable of avoiding the most violent of imagery to show both his grief and anger through what he’s reminiscing. “Head on the floorboards, drunk as a horsefly, climb on the mattress pad, twist my arm”. 4 https://youtu.be/cDFg7kuX97U If Perfume Genius is insistent on facing outsiders with a maximalist representation of queer identity (and an embracement of male sensitivity), John Grant is less self-aware – with a voice akin to Godsmack, but with lyrical content that intentionally blurs the line between emotionally resonant and downright goofy. On Queen of Denmark, he opens up with two tracks (“TC and Honeybear” and “Marz”) that include references to food (delicious desserts, to be exact), spewing out trivial lyrics to the point of where they feel alien. By the time we reach the last half of the album, his track “Jesus Hates Faggots” (where he compares gays to Froot Loops cereal) delivers the album’s queer overtones into the heights of surrealist. The imagery of this album is like Sweet Movie by way of self-loathing on being a gay man forced to stray into what it means to be “masculine”. 3 Salad Days by Mac Demarco is a surf-wave-cum-stoner-grunge type work that operates on some kind of off-putting relationship with Demarco’s self. There’s glimpses at love, but also glimpse at nihilism. While Demarco has founded an image off the absurd – and could very well be genuine – it shows through in his lyrics that he’s at a tug-of-war with himself while equally being comfortable in it. “Chamber of Reflection” is a terrifying horror-show of self-retrospection, speaking it in third-person by a way of expressing a fear of loneliness; something that is applicable to a millennial mindset, especially in terms of the contemporary, under-the-radar, Instagram-driven musician that isn’t pushing for universality. 2 Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is equally in a hellish landscape – only West’s hip-hop repetition and asinine lyrics create a genuine representation of a man stuck within both his fame and his origins, while creating a pop character of his own that is representative of a multitude of constructs that dare to tread into the shameless. His vulgarity isn’t necessarily off-putting, but instead quite tragic. By the time the track “Blame Game” comes around, its like a cry for help – and whether its stemming from a real place, or not, is best left up to the unknown; a fantasy, have you will - and one that is euphoric and tragic. 1 Ultraviolence is peak Lana Del Rey, even though she has consistently proven that she can stay on the same wavelength throughout her other albums. The criticism for her cycling the same themes is valid, but its also exactly what causes such a reaction to her work that is overly positive. The woman is a storyteller, paying homage when due, and then remaining self-aware to her pop image while crossing into different genres – sometimes within the same track. Ultraviolence beautifully blends her pop sensibilities with progressive rock and jazz – creating a baroque atmosphere that peaks into hellish territory; both a cautionary tale and masochistic love story.