AtomicMess

Melanie: BPD Girl Anthems Marina: Polysci Major Music Charli: "Why are there toilets in the coke room?" Taylor: Horse Girls Lana: Sad Music for Sad Girls who sit on the balcony and smoke vape Kim: ADHD Brain Go BRRRRR

Fully agree with this take.

Sky wishes she had the power and aura of Courtney Love.

I forget Dbree doesn't work for some people. I'm permanently in VPN mode so I don't think about it.

Dropping all pretense, I hope I don't *actually* come off as coming for anyone, anywhere, ever, with any of my opinions or shade. This shit's all subjective. Art decorates space and music decorates time and I'm just here for the meme.

Why do all of these sound like T Swift/Meghan Trainor demo rejects?

No meme - I wonder if it's intentional??? Lowkey sabotage? Idk.

I could, but I had to elevate the conversation with high brow shade.

You probably have! Here's an article that might explain why you don't remember it though. Here's another one too!

It really is. I've spent way more hours than I care to admit on it - the sorting, renaming, organizing into albums, making sure I've got the best quality versions/edits that exist... I've gotten lazy recently and I just dump all the leaks and unreleased into a single 'album' and let it be. I've said it before, but the sheer volume of material of hers that is out there (that we know of) is wild. Quantity isn't an indicator of quality, at all, so just because she's made a lot doesn't de facto mean it's all good, but....for unreleased and scrapped content, I'm still taken a bit aback by how polished a lot of it is. It's made harder to get ahold of and organize imo because of the range she's displayed from silly throwaway low IQ pop, to highly emotional and personal songs, and she's done it across a variety of different genres and styles/production to boot - Trying to organize it all cohesively is just a chore.

Same. I'm calling a lawyer. Can we class action her into releasing the album? Cite unrelenting psychological distress and gaslighting?

I never do - it just appears as simlish to me.

Me holding both of these opinions at the same time is the true cognitive dissonance conversation modern psychology is failing to capture.

We've got to keep the literacy rate up and purity test for those who couldn't get past "Green Eggs and Ham".

Same.

Bree Runway. Now there's a feature. <3

I think it's a difference in where it's coming from. Internal reference or external reference/reference by proxy. Is it about those topics because you have personally dealt with them and suffered through/from them in a palpable, tangible way that builds into the larger discourse? (Internal/Firsthand - you're putting your experience OUT into the conversation) Or is it about those topics because you belong to a group or class of people that experience these things, and you are pulling down and distilling the conversation even if you haven't suffered to the same degree (external/proxy - pulling the conversation down into your own language because you have proximity). I think Marina is a little column A/B depending on the topic, and that's where the fallout is, for me. When it's a "this happens when you're an X, and I'm an X, therefore I can frame and speak on it", versus "this has happened to me, it's my experience, and I'm putting this out there for others" - there's just a difference in how genuine it comes off. For me.

I don't know if I can see this take. I don't see Melanie giving into woke culture anywhere (although Portals is barf so we can handshake there) - I just see her as being emotionally stunted and immature and point blank stupid. She can fall into a hole. Marina - I'll say that I think it's very possible that an artist can be moved by a perspective or movement (ex: Me Too), and really want to dive into that space and lend their voice to something, but it comes out as disingenuous or "fake" because they haven't been touched by the depth of the topic the same way, or their current lifestyle insulates them from certain nuances that really make the "heart" of the movement hit home. I think that's what may have happened here? I don't know if it's really "give in to woke culture", so much as 'Hey, I'm a female artist and these topics have affected me as well. I'm engaged enough with the topic to want to pour my thoughts and emotions on the subject into my next body of work and lend my voice and support." Like I don't feel like there were fans or people pointing a gun to her head and saying "GIVE ME A FEMINIST ALBUM NOW" and her going "OKAY OKAY HERE'S MANS WORLD AND PTP OMG OMG PLEASE LET ME SLEEP BESTIES " I just think she needed to put out a last album, the topics were of enough interest and importance to her, it was all relevant conversation in pop culture at that moment, and she has enough skill as an artist to coherently pull it together- she could, so she did. The flub is just that it feels slightly out of touch, but not in a fake woke try hard way, but in a "girl you haven't eaten this dog food in a minute though" way - there's not as much "soul" in the material. At least for me. I'm probably being a bit inconsistent in this opinion if compared to any prior statements I've made on Marina and ADIAML, but I flex and bend over time, so...

I think it's frustration and desperation, though desperation might not be the right word. Maybe desire? Determination? She's *so close* to a breakthrough. She's *so close* to setting some records. She's *so close* to moving into the center lane and off the shoulder in her career. She's been working at this for over a decade now, and just *now* we've had a spark hit with the 'Unholy' feature. I can understand the push to turn that into a fire. Now, *none* of us fans, stans, and h8rs know what's going through an artists mind - short of an explicit "Hi, I'm X, and this is EXACTLY what I think and why I think it" statement - but if I had to guess, I just think there's a level of tiredness, mixed with a desire to "make it", over everything she's done thus far. She's had how many cancelled projects now? She's had how many PR flubs and Twitter oopsies? (that seem to have come from frustration at criticism?) If it was me, I'd be putting myself on a lil autopilot here and there just to get by and keep grinding. She signed her career to someone who is subsequently a poison pill (Puke), and is constantly getting beat over the head for it. She's got those shame bells ringing all the time. She's got fans clamoring for music and leaks and snips and scraps of projects. She's got pressure there on both the supply side/demand side to handle. To veer into the political - she's a visible (if she wasn't before, she sure is now after 'Unholy') transwoman, with her story and her transition being very publicized and talked about from an early age. There's a lot of pressure and focus on that aspect of her - that minority stress isn't ever going to go away. Next part I'm putting behind a spoiler/TW just because it's a sensitive topic (physical appearance/body critiques) What mainstream, have hit the radio, in the public eye trans artists are there? None to come to *my* mind, save Petras. And when Queer artists do hit the mainstream, or get close to it, there's always this risk of them being a novelty factor, just a flash-in-the-pan moment in pop culture, where they're everywhere for a beat, and then it's diminishing returns and then a fade out to being the LGBTQ+ locals favorite. Nobody wants that life, I wouldn't think? But how do you avoid that? There's pressure there, too. Like I said - she's been at this for a decade. She's had how many cancelled projects and flopped rollouts during that time? She's signed to/with someone who historically (like it or not) has been a hitmaker, but the hits are...where? She's not getting any younger. There's a degree of stress on urgency there. There's a degree of stress unique to her by being an international (from Germany, remember) transwoman, on top of music industry stress as a baseline. Label wants this, label wants that, etc. etc. I can see were, reasonably, someone would start to wear thin from frustration from the industry, frustration from choices that were made, frustration from getting recognition (Unholy) and then it going nowhere, or not going anywhere as fast as anticipated or promised, and I can see where that would start to reflect back into our quality of work. And I say frustration specifically as a root note for all of it, because of her basically saying "w/e yolo listen to Problematique leaks I'm fucked and not allowed to release shit anyway". That sounds very "frustrated and giving in" to me. It's like - do you double down and commit to the grind, even if it means you have to sacrifice some parts of yourself, if there's a chance you come out ahead in the end? Or do you just throw up your hands and change course/level expectations and go a different route/approach? Not an easy decision when you have so many factors at play, and your work and public image is going to suffer no matter which route you take. Not trying to defend anything, or promote anything - just my thoughts on where the perceived quality drop could be coming from and what could be feeding into it.

I like the dress. I don't like the shoes. The black detailing around the lacing is giving IMVU logo-font. I don't know what I would have swapped them out with, but just not that/those. The hair and makeup are a straight up hate crime. It doesn't highlight her features in any positive way. Whomever styled this + the MUA need to take a COVID test because the TASTE is missing. They wasted the dress and let her down.

Based on past precedents, she'll most likely miss the point and her AI brain will switch to TERF mode.

I'm sorRY WHAT???

No no, the blonde was good. It was just a bad wig.

Yikes. There's a few layers to unpack here.......