38 years ago this month, the four original members of KISS did the unthinkable and released four separate solo albums on the same day. Now, Dystopian Dance Party is following in their footsteps, and doing something even less thinkable: we’re reading all four KISS members’ autobiographies and recording our thoughts on them in a series of “Book Club” podcasts. First up is–who else–Gene Simmons, and his 2001 memoir Kiss and Make-Up
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This week marks the 25th anniversary of the North American release of our favorite video game console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System; so here we are again to share our fuzzy, occasionally embarrassing childhood memories about the games we played when we could have been bettering ourselves or going outside. As usual, check below for notes on music played and things referenced. And play some SNES games, fer Chrissakes! I, for one, think I might fire up EarthBound tonight.
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Monday, July 4th marked the 240th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; more importantly, however, it also marked the 30th anniversary of the release of the second and most underrated feature film starring Prince, Under the Cherry Moon
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Well, folks, it’s our first-ever Jheri Curl June podcast–and before you ask, yes, we’re talking about Prince again. This time, though, we’re shedding light on a somewhat less-discussed side of his career: the series of (very) thinly-veiled side projects and ghost productions he released in the early-to-mid-1980s under various pseudonyms, most famously “Jamie Starr.” If you’re even an intermediate-level Prince fan, some of these records are essential listening; so settle in, turn up your headphones, and get ready to take a bite of our purple rock.
But first, a word of warning, as I’m afraid there’s a factual error in this one: I was speaking from memory in the section about Sheila E, and incorrectly stated that “Noon Rendezvous” began life as a Revolution outtake. It was actually co-written by Prince and Sheila for the Glamorous Life album; the Revolution just happened to cover it in concert. Oops! Anyway, I left that bit in because I still like the song, so just enjoy the music and try to ignore the fact that I’m blatantly lying to you. Finally, if you like this kind of content (with less inaccuracies), check out my new side hustle: dance / music / sex / romance, a chronological exploration of every (known) song in the Prince oeuvre, which I expect to be updating a couple times a week until it actually kills me.
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With every passing week, 2016 feels more and more like a never-ending, real-life Grammy Awards tribute montage. We couldn’t even go the six days between recording and posting the podcast without losing another pop music icon: this time, Marshall Jones of the Ohio Players, word of whose death regrettably reached us only after we had finished editing. Clearly, this is a trying time to be a music fan. And, as I’ve found myself saying more than a few times in the past several months, the sheer volume of notable musicians’ deaths starts to feel overwhelming to a small site like ours. I’m not a full-time obituary writer, so even many worthy artists who passed away have inevitably gone unmemorialized.
That’s why, in the spirit of the real Memorial Day holiday, we’re taking the time to commemorate those the music world has lost since last May. Unfortunately, this will almost certainly be a recurring feature: the cruel realities of the human lifespan, combined with the generational ebb and flow of American popular music, means that things are only going to get worse in the coming years. And sadly, even this tribute isn’t truly exhaustive–even aside from the aforementioned omission of Marshall Jones, we’re only really talking about musicians of whom we have some miniscule level of knowledge, so plenty of important people are still going unmourned (at least by us). But we did our best, and we at least tried to do everyone justice. Here’s hoping we get a break, at least for a couple more weeks.
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As some of our geekier listeners may already know (oh, who am I kidding, all of our listeners are “geekier”), 2016 marks the 30th anniversary of Nintendo‘s Legend of Zelda series. We wanted to mark the occasion with a podcast, which we did in mid-April–but then Prince died, and the original podcast we recorded went back on the shelf. We’re posting it now for the most inauspicious of reasons: Nintendo has announced that the next Zelda game will be the focus of their presentation at the Electronic Entertainment Expo next month, so a lot of the stuff we say in the last ten minutes or so will be out of date soon (in fact, some of it already is–at one point I say that the game is “almost definitely” coming by the end of the year, when in fact we now know that it’s been pushed back to 2017).
All that aside, however, I’m glad we took the time to talk about the Zelda games. As I say at the beginning of the podcast, this is one of the few video game series that I will consistently drop everything to play; depending on what we see at E3, it may even be the series that convinces me to buy Nintendo’s next console. A lot has changed, in video games and in life, since 1986; but for us, at least, The Legend of Zelda has maintained its luster. So join us as we share our (sometimes hazy) memories of the series–and check below the jump for notes to explain what the hell we’re talking about.
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If it wasn’t official before, it is now: 2016 is a terrible year for musical icons. Callie and I were blindsided by the news of Prince‘s untimely death last Thursday; it hit us even harder than the news of David Bowie‘s passing back in January (and that, as you might recall, hit us pretty damn hard). It’s difficult to overstate just how much Prince means to both of us. He’s easily our favorite solo artist in all of pop music; check our frequently used tags on Dystopian Dance Party, and you’ll see that he’s the most talked-about topic by some distance. All of which fails to adequately capture the feelings we have for his body of work, and the sense of loss we feel now that he’s gone.
Unlike with Bowie, we weren’t actually planning on podcasting about Prince this month–but we had to, if only so we could talk through all the emotions we’ve both been feeling for the last week. The podcast we originally recorded earlier in the month, on Nintendo‘s Legend of Zelda series, will be posted eventually, when it all feels a little less meaningless. But for now, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life…
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Earlier this month, Kanye West (basically) released his seventh solo album, The Life of Pablo. And, since Zach won’t get around to writing about it for a while, we thought we’d dedicate this episode of our podcast to sharing our impressions. It’s a bit of a messy, meandering conversation, but then, that’s only fair when it comes to discussing a messy, meandering (but still great) album like Kanye’s. So join us, a couple of those “no-pussy-gettin’ bloggers” Yeezy loves so dearly, as we discuss The Life of Pablo, the meaning of “conscious” hip-hop in 2016, and why Kanye West matters.
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Last week, we decided that our next podcast would be devoted to one of our mutual favorite artists, David Bowie, in celebration of his 69th birthday and the release of his 25th studio album
Early Monday morning, however, we got the sad news that Bowie was no longer with us. That news irrevocably changed the tone of our tribute, which we recorded on Tuesday night. But it isn’t all solemn mourning (though one of us does cry at one point–no spoilers which one). Instead, the following is a personal reflection on the many ways in which pop music–that tawdry, cheap, commercial entertainment–can shape, and even irrevocably change our lives, through the prism of an entertainer who did just that for both us. We hope you enjoy it!
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