Album Review: Alice Cooper - Dragontown

Alice Cooper - Dragontown

Release: September 18, 2001

Genre: Rock

Label: Spitfire Records

Length: 50:48

Nick's Rating: 4/5

At times, it's easy enough to spot genius, even for the truly stupid. When you scan over rock music, you're bound to note the favorite genii of the average radio-listener in the Beatles, the Stones, Zep, et cetera; the genii of choice for the hipsters and neo-goths in Joy Division, The Cure, et cetera; metalheads' musical brains in Black Sabbath, Metallica*, et al.; and so many more. Sometimes, though, there are some that you do not expect to fill these positions, and yet, they do it deftly, fitting the throne as though it were built especially for them.

Alice Cooper is not the man you would expect to ever do this. He was smart, yes, but what did he do? Give Marilyn Manson his goonish costumes and make a few okay albums? Write a few hair-metal songs then fade away into Christian conservative golfer obscurity? Crank out shlock in the 70s then turn to shit? However, most people who say this forget a few things:

a) He was discovered by Frank fucking Zappa. Uncle Frank would not go out of his way to getCooper Vincent Furnier (back when 'Alice Cooper' was actually the band) onto his label if he thought the man was mediocre.

b) Marilyn Manson wasn't exactly his idea, and he... is indifferent, I'd say, to him.

c) "A few okay albums" are only the ones that sold, except the aforementioned hair-metal nonsense.

d) The hair metal was mostly just to either a) exploit that genre's typical listeners (you know, the guys who make pot shots at Donald Fagen just for his name) from 1986-7, or b) send a message in a medium that might be listened to from 1989-91 (well, in most cases, he was).

e) Most people are judging him by a maximum of five songs.

There's the rub, of course. Five songs, as many Muse fans hasten to tell me as I cringe at my radio, are not enough to judge an artist. You might be inclined to think of Cooper as only having developed the whole 'stage makeup' thing outside progressive rock and David Bowie. That may be. However, is it necessary to be a progenitor to be a genius? Wasn't now-deceased Voivod guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour a genius? (The fanbase is inclined to believe so, at least) Did he invent technical thrash guitar? (Fuck no!)

It's this sort of genius that boils to the top with Alice Cooper's Dragontown, a fine, and wrongly-overlooked, album of the early 2000s, at a time when music was in severe self-conflict with no sign of an ending in sight. One of the major problems with this was that the then-common nu-metal artists, everyone from Disturbed to Godsmack to Otep and beyond, seemed to take themselves deadly serious. We're talking about Alice fucking Cooper here, though; if a Cooper album were completely serious, somebody's head would probably explode. (Again, Frank Zappa connection.) At the same time, though, Alice is not only less serious than these artists, but he's more serious (no, really), and has a real message (was there a message to Disturbed, et cetera?). On some level, you could say that Alice is overly preachy here, that he spends the album evangelizing on the nature of Hell and how all mankind are sinners. Well, yes, okay... but it's not like he's trying to convert us to Christianity, he's simply indicating the evils of the world. In all, agood message -- yeah, from the guy who wrote "School's Out."

It might be better to start this flea circus show at the very beginning, given its conceptual state. Generated in an era of semi-industrial hard-rock (following more along the Rammstein pattern, with its wry sense of humor), you'd be shocked to find that opening song "Triggerman" is basically just a psychedelic pop song with heavy guitar sounds as opposed to a lascerating 'links zwo drei vier!'-worthy death anthem. Boost this one a few more points with its lyrics from the point of view of Big Brother (with some mechanical effects applied to make the joke really sink in). What sets this apart from one of Alice's standard jokes, though? Black comedy has always been the Coop's modus operandi, situated somewhere between the nightmare and mildly creepy ends of the creepiness meter, but here Alice is intent on slamming it into the nightmare end. The first song is him doing his best to muster paranoia fuel incarnate -- and while he doesn't seem to be a master of that, "Triggerman" is at least a good rock song.

It's from here, though, that things take an interesting turn. A friend of mine called "Deeper" creepy. Said friend of mine had only ever been seen (by me) to be creeped out by one other thing, and that was Giygas. Even the second-most-nightmare-inducing boss I've yet run into, the mermaid boss in Rule of Rose, didn't much phase him. So, that stands as basically an explanation of how nasty this song is, as Alice leads you into an elevator straight to that place where Satan lurks. The fear of being trapped on a one-way street to the abyss, where anything could be lurking in the shadows, rides high throughout, and serves as the perfect introduction to "Dragontown," which is Hell itself, and appropriately dark and creepy.

For the most part though, the rest of the album is trivial, except the song "I Just Wanna Be God," which is a riot throughout, a truly humorous song that averts the creepiness of other parts of the album, but still proves that the Coop and his band are as great as they always have been... even if the band is not the same that came up with "I'm Eighteen" or, uh, anything on Billion Dollar Babies (you can choose your favorite), or even Welcome to My Nightmare. This is a much better band than chart success (yeah, right... the album scraped by at #197 or so without a trace) would have you believe. From here, the rest of the album is rather, again, trivial, but that's not to say you shouldn't listen to it. In terms of theme, the album retains a solid focus throughout and never stops being enjoyable, even if it's kind of preachy... but that's part of the point. The album succeeds on that level. One of the problems with the album, though, is that you might get bored with some songs, and particularly with being buried in social commentary on songs like "Fantasy Man" and "Somewhere in the Jungle" -- the latter of which, by the way, is certainly a haunting song about the Rwanda genocide, but, as would be expected of such a song, not easy to listen to.

The important point about this, though, is that, despite the occasional industrial and nu-metal stylings, this is essentially similar to just what Alice has always been doing, and the fact that it's been so forgotten is just unforgivable, especially since the media at large has a massive hard-on for 'classicism.' I recently purchased Stone Temple Pilots' self-titled album. Never in recent history have I heard so many uses of phrases such as 'Beatlesesque' thrown around. I just find it very odd that a media so obsessed with borrowing sound from classic rock records managed to only point out that this record borrows from a nu-metal sound and that it's a "good" record. The fact is, this record manages to visit the intended themes of the Coop's newest followers in the music industry, Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie, better that they have shown themselves able to. Songs like "Triggerman" and "I Just Wanna Be God" make the album a worthy purchase, while songs like "Deeper" and "Dragontown" show that the Coop is not only aging gracefully, but that he is still a true genius, because of just how many imitators he has generated. The 'nightmare' aspect Manson et al. go for in music, and which, in other media, something such as Eversion might seek, is done far better here than in such media, not to mention, the performance skill is great, considering it is, apparently, a nu-metal album.

By the way, I read somewhere that there's a 'special edition' of this album, but I have never actually been able to get hold of a copy of it.

*More well-read metalheads will tell you that this credit should go to Accept, among other bands, more than Metallica

Cosplay: Utena

I really enjoy cosplay. I'm comfortable in the costumes, having my pictures taken, props, everything. But let it be said that sometimes the process isn't the most smooth of ones. There's lots of stops and starts, as well as quite a bit of experimentation -- even when an outfit's done you're still thinking of ways to improve it. Enter Utena. I've been working on this for about a month now, on and off -- probably about 15 hours of work total?

There's still a lot to be done. But have some process pictures!

This coat forms the bulk of the costume proper. What you're seeing here is all the parts just pinned on, therefore, it's still in need of a bunch of tailoring, as well as figuring out the collar bits. But I'm really happy with what's done so far!

Utena's shoes are of the 'tuxedo' sort. Unfortunately, they don't make ones like hers in a tuxedo style if you're on a budget. Since I needed a comfortable alternative, I did kind of a nifty thing. White converse can be bought at any store for around $20. They're basically the same shape as Utena's shoes, so what did I do? Paint them!

These are just a few odds and ends I've been making out of clay and painting. The Resin is currently cooling outside.

And there you have it! A cosplay in process.

OST Review: Final Fantasy XIII

An OST review from one of our guest bloggers, Azkam.

Final Fantasy XIII OST (Standard English Edition)

Release: January 27, 2010

Length: 4:03:26

Azkam's Rating: 4/5

So What's the Deal?

First of all, I’d like to thank Sydney for bestowing upon me this wonderful 4-disc box of ear-candy. Delicious. The Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack—composed by Masashi Hamauzu—is mystical and epic; in other words, perfect adventure music. The abundance of high strings and military drums, as well as a strong brass section, lend to the imagery of vast landscapes both natural and man-made, and evoke emotions ranging from determination to desolation to hope. Seamlessly blended electronic and ambient elements, piano accents, and atonal/chromatic sections in individual pieces give the music a modern feel.

‘Prelude’ on Disc 1 sets the mood of the soundtrack perfectly, beginning with drums, chilly ambience, and low strings. Low brass is added, and the track builds to a triumphant, sweeping climax. I’d also like to mention track 2 on Disc 2, ‘The Promise’, which is arranged several times throughout the soundtrack. It is a sweet, delicate piece reflecting both sadness and love. I especially like the string/low brass outro.

Character Themes

Lightning has a beautiful theme. The piano and strings flow together wonderfully, weaving in and out of each other to create the image of a hero who pushes onward despite inner turmoil and hopelessness. Parts of this theme are used in Defiers of Fate (?), Blinded by Light, and a couple of other tracks.

Serah’s theme: in short, ‘The Promise’ with vocals.

Snow’s theme reminds me a lot of the Digital Devil Saga OST. Nice guitar sounds, but overall not a very memorable track—personally, I think it could have been more fast-paced.

Sazh’s theme is groovy! Although that was probably a given seeing as the character has a bird living in his ‘fro. The atonal guitar strumming provides an upbeat backdrop for yummy piano solos and some jazzy trumpets. Also, it provides alternating bars of 5/4 and 6/4 time. Craaaaazy.

Hope’s theme is a soothing acoustic guitar piece. Regardless of whether or not you like the kid, give this simple but emotional track a listen. Also used in Sustained by Hate, and This is Your Home.

Vanille has a light, simple piano theme that definitely reflects her optimistic outlook on life. Nice to listen to on a rainy day.

Fang’s theme sounds like it should be overworld music. It reminds me of the Kingdom Hearts orchestral pieces, and while that’s not a bad thing, I feel that it’s a bit too grand for one character.

‘Chocobos of Cocoon’ is an interesting electronic take on the famous theme, and is pleasant enough until the weird auto-tuned vocals come in. Eck. ‘Chocobos of Pulse’ is much better, featuring a syncopated trumpet melody and a great rhythm section.

TL;DR?

Tracks worth checking out:

• Prelude
• Saber’s Edge
• Eternal Love (vocal track)
• Blinded by the Light
• Lightning’s Theme
• Sazh’s Theme
• Hope’s Theme
• Chocobos of Pulse
• Fabula・Nova・Crystallis (my favourite arrangement of ‘The Promise’)

Album Review: The Dresden Dolls - (self-titled)

The Dresden Dolls - The Dresden Dolls
Release: September 26, 2003 (initial released)
April 27, 2004 (Roadrunner Records)
July 13, 2005 (Roadrunner Records Japan)
Genre: Alternative
Label: 8ft. Records (original release), Roadrunner Records (re-issue)

Length: 56:53

Nick's Rating: 3/5

Fuckin' A, I hate so many things that make 'obscure' music popular. As a for-instance, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and games like that, all include 80% your standard fare in terms of guitar rockers, then they include one or two numbers that are slightly obscure that everyone latches on to and plays non-stop. Not that most of them aren't good, but now every pissant teenage Metallica-lover knows Voivod as if they were joined at the hip, and Judas Priest's "Painkiller" is the second-most-played Priest song on last.fm.

Almost as bad, or perhaps even worse, to me, are those people who like to call themselves 'nonconformists' and who all listen to the same shit. If you brought this to their attention, they'd probably call it irony, and be quick to explain to you that they didn't learn the word from Alanis Morrisette like half of America did. I've met a fair few of them, many of whom have given me music suggestions -- probably because I look a mess, wear black shirts, and don't listen to the radio. Of course, they neglect to note that the black shirts are my torso-covering of choice because they tend to have my preferred musical billboard emblazoned on them (Pink Floyd, Rush, Motorhead, you get the picture) and I don't listen to the radio because a) most songs I like are album cuts and often too long for radio play, and b) your average radio DJ tends to jabber like an idiot given so much as five seconds air time. They then proceed to torture us with whatever they feel like, from middle-of-the-road rock-and-roll wannabes to random tapes of mutually ego-stroking interviews. One time, a radio DJ actually aired a mashup of "Enter Sandman" and "Don't Stop Believin'" -- I wish I could make this up. I can't. He played a fucking mashup of fucking "Enter Sandman" and fucking "Don't Stop Believin'." I can't stop swearing and I think I'm going into spasms. I need to stop writing about this.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the so-called nonconformists. Well, one of them (who, incidentally, loves System of a Down and Metallica and Rush on top of his depressive shit) told me to listen to the Dresden Dolls (without even so much as lending me a CD, naturally), so I did. I found their two albums and one EP and found them all to be about average. The fact that they're as popular as they are is utterly staggering. It may just be because Amanda Palmer, lead singer and pianist for the duo, asserts that her middle name is "Fucking" (how hip! how edgy!), they appeared just on time to fill in the void of good music for goth kids left by three years' delay since The Cure's last album, the fact that their next just wasn't enough like either of the two Pornography trilogies (Seventeen Seconds-Faith-Pornography or Pornography-Disintegration-Bloodflowers), and because they were signed to Roadrunner Records for some reason; Roadrunner Records is a metal-centric label that also distributed Within Temptation and has, since adding Amanda Palmer and her drumming sex poppet Brian Viglione (I had to look up the spelling on that one), Megadeth, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Airbourne, Trivium, and DragonForce. They don't seem to care about the music so much as being hip and trendy (which explains the Dresden Dolls being on their label), and their continuous cash grabs (Did you hear about them wanting to digitally re-edit a Palmer DVD to make her look thinner? Whoo! Unfortuate implications ahoy!) make them seem like a particularly unfunny Ed, Edd n Eddy episode, but instead of jawbreakers, their quest is the total domination of rock music.

Well, it's either that that's to blame, or their presence at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony in 2002.

Regardless, the record itself is, well... modestly good, anyway. It's very even, and most of the lyrics are kind of funny, if not outright cute... sometimes, I can't tell if there's irony to be found or not in a place like the bridge of "Coin-Operated Boy," where Amanda, after having espoused the joys of having a coin-operated lover, tells us that it's to hammer in the despair... but it's clearly just a jokey song about how much better a sex toy is than a real man. Is this one of those Gary Cherone moments where she's actually mocking these people? You can call bullshit on this one as many times as you want, IT IS POSSIBLE! Yes, it's fully, FULLY possible that she fucking with us and telling us that people who are that sexual have problems with them and are constantly in despair and-- yeah, okay, you're right, that's a stupid idea. With its origins in cabaret, the music of the duo DOES have quotas to fill in the sexuality department.

Better than that song, though (while "Coin-Operated Boy" is a nice, harmless song, it's basically just a jokey monologue over a sparse backing track), is the lead single (shockingly, this album did have associated singles...) "Girl Anachronism," which resembles a moderately fast rocker, but trades guitar for piano, giving it something approaching an interesting sound. The lyrics aren't greatly interesting (Palmer lamenting that she was born in the wrong time -- what, making that kind of music? No shit?), but they're reasonably amusing, which gives it a few points. Of course, most of the whole album is pretty amusing in a sick, perverted way, which seems to be the only way Palmer knows how to be (cf. the "Evelyn Evelyn" project, wherein she and another perform as, apparently, a pair of conjoined twins in a circus who apparently had been involved in child pornography, or something else kind of stupid like that... which resulted in backlash from everyone ever aimed at everyone else).

A review I read of the album somewhere once began to intimate that this was a musical revolution of sorts, or at least that Palmer and Viglione (please don't make me ever have to spell that again) were originals. I guess, yeah, but they're so overrated as such. On this album, on Yes, Virginia..., on No, Virginia..., they seem to have a consistent problem of not getting the balance right. It's kind of heartbreaking, too; they seem like they could be so good if they'd just strike a freakin' balance between their black humor, their quirkiness, and decent songwriting, which comes and goes a little too quickly for my tastes. It makes perfect sense why hipster 'non-conformists' would latch onto this type of music, but it's just... not done well enough in many cases.

One last thing: next person who mentions that they're "Brechtian punk cabaret" to me is going to cause my head to explode. "Brechtian punk cabaret," Palmer's description of the musical genre, is a fake genre, which she devised to dodge being called "goth." Hilariously, most of the people who bought her record are probably exactly the people who buy every other record that gets called "goth." So much for that plan, miss Palmer. Is that why you wrote "Backstabber?" This reasoning is probably the same that Emilie Autumn used when she came upon "Victoriandustrial" (to keep faux-goth kids who wouldn't understand the music or the pain from buying it) -- and in a cruel twist, you can find that at Hot Topic. No word on the Dolls' material, but then again, it's not like I actually like any of their records enough to even consider buying them.

Note to self, start reviewing more records you properly like.

The Wheel Of Fate Is oh nevermind.

BlazBlue's logo, in which all the letters are trying to desperately get away from each other as quickly as possible.

I'm not really here to fault BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger's recycling of characters from the Guilty Gear series. Arc System works is small and not all that wealthy and making detailed, high-res sprites is pretty costly, so I can understand if at some point they sat around the table, grabbed a general sketch of Potemkin, and thought, "Well, how can we re-use most of this and still make a pretty different character? You see, Guilty Gear 2 didn't work out so great, and..."

Iron Tager--Potemkin after Science!

What I really don't want to forgive BlazBlue for is its horrible, horrible character designs. I cannot stress this enough. They are bad. They manage to be both repulsive and utterly forgettable at the same time. Say what you will about their personalities, the storyline, the actual battle system and the quality of the sprites, but strictly speaking in terms of character designs, I want to headbutt Toshimichi Mori and/or Yuuki Katou, whoever is the most responsible for this mess.

Maybe we should start with how every single character in BlazBlue seems to have been dreamed up by a man who was holding a What's Hot & What's Not chart of stylistic anime trends in his other hand, and following it to the letter. Exhibit A: Ragna the Bloodedge, a name not quite as embarrassing as "Edge Maverick" but still pretty up there.

Ragna the Bloodedge, also featured: his inner .::*Darkness*::.

Ragna is kind of an amalgam of various things that I am tired of seeing in anime: swooshy-spiky hair of a color that doesn't really exist (there's gray, there's platinum blonde and then there's sterling silver) coupled with a twenty-third century samurai getup, with additional belt buckles for good measure. When I saw the animated opening to the game as Ragna displayed his Suiseiseki eyes to music that could well be featured in a Rozen Maiden spin-off, I just wanted to think "No, this isn't serious, the eyes are just a parody by the designers, who are of course self-aware of how wall-punchingly generic this guy is", but no, the opening continues, Ragna gets into a dramatic sword fight with Jin Kisaragi (read: Ky plus Ice), and the drama unfolds. That's Ragna for you: a Sol Badguy tweaked for modern sensibilities.

Noel Vermillion sports the world's shortest tie

A side-effect of trying to cater endlessly to the contemporary anime crowd is the attempt to cram way too many things into one design. I can only imagine that Noel is the result of Mori and Katou making a bet on who could come up with a character who featured as many fetish evokers as possible. Her infuriatingly useless ribbons and Apple-designed handguns are one thing; her detached sleeves, bare back and absolute territory are another. (Even sadder is the story of Litchi, a vaguely oriental chick and also the vehicle for more boobs.) BlazBlue's character designers enjoy the technology to reproduce all their zippers and straps in-game with some degree of fidelity, and this doesn't seem have done any good for their judgment of when a design is way too goddamn busy. Echoing on my post regarding the character designs of Rival Schools, I'd like to put these guys in the PS1 era and see what they did with themselves.

I guess the amateurish quality of the art is not doing them any favors either. Character portraits for BlazBlue: Continuum Shift are at least a step up in this regard, with the fighters in more interesting and dynamic poses.

You know, the Guilty Gear games also had some pretty crazy character designs, but they existed in this magical midnight metal carnival sort of atmosphere that characters like I-No embodied so well. The cast of BlazBlue is given a bland synthpop world in which they can just exist while looking pretty and lending themselves to endless badly-drawn fan art. It's not even elegant, it's just... boring, and you know people will lap it up but that will not make it any less boring.

Thanks to Creative Uncut for images.

Album Review: Emilie Autumn - Opheliac

Emilie Autumn - Opheliac

Release: September 1, 2006

Genre: Alternative

Label: Trisol Music Group, The End Records

Length: 1:25:41

Nick's Rating: 3.5/5

In my initial review of this record, I said that it had a whole of one really good song and was disgustingly overrated. Let it be said, though, that a month or so worth of letting the record 'settle' will do wonders for your opinion of something. To me, it's this fact that doomed so many records to critical laughing stock status (e.g. Good For Your Soul, Technical Ecstacy), while some of the more undeserving records got showered in praise (Chinese Democracy, to name but one). The professional critic has a deadline to keep and must, therefore, make snap judgements about records he has maybe two days to digest before the review has to be posted. In some cases, the 'snap judgement' approach results in a few critics worth reading, such as Robert Christgau, but otherwise, the quality tends to be low at best. Reading All Music Guide reviews becomes a chore when you want to find informed reviews. In the most roundabout way possible, your average AMG review tells you an album exists, and no more.

I don't mean to sing the praises of average Joe/Jane on the Intarwebs, though, at the same time. Snap judgements come from these users as well, f the sort that can typically boil down to "artist = 5/5" -- in which case, I'll take Mark Prindle first, even at his worst. I have this problem at times, too; with my review of Traced In Air, I had to avoid giving it an instant 5/5. When I thought about Pornograffiti, my first thought was "5/5 slam dunk and most important album of the early 90s" -- but it wasn't. These albums are good, but if my favorite album of a generation can't even get a 5/5 (cf. Traced In Air), you have to imagine just how special a record has to be to get that high a rating. However, that's not really the point, since Opheliac gets a 3.5/5 from me. In the end, that means it's pretty solid, but not the genius masterwork that everyone claims it is. The reasons for this are reasonably few but reasonably glaring.

The first problem is simply the sound. On whole, the album is indigestible. The album makes as much sense together as a good album-length piece should, but at the same time, it makes none at all. The sound of fake genre "Victoriandustrial" used to label her music goes together reasonably well, but then, at the same time, most paradoxically (and amusingly, for that matter), it doesn't at all. The harsh sound of the album (an appropriate backing to the lyrics, which read as one long fuck-you to every man who's ever hurt her) seems very out of place with the actual beauty found in these measures. The main problem with the sound, then, comes from trying to be too many things at once. Autumn wants to borrow a sound from classical music as much as she does from the sound Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails assembled in the early 1990s. Classical music is meat to evoke a variety of moods, of settings; all the Reznor sound can depict is rage and discontent. As such, this combination shortchanges the whole idea of having anything beautiful coming out of your speakers.

Next, we have songwriting. I firmly believe, first of all, that any artist who writes a song called "The Art of Suicide" or "Dead Is the New Alive" cannot be taken seriously. I'm sorry, but I'm just not a fan of someone using generic My Chemical Romance-esque titles for songs. It's distressing, considering everyone considers Autumn to be a great songwriter. Despite songs titled so, Autumn actually does manage to write a few good songs. Clearly she's trying to go for the depressive end of proceedings (no surprise; she completed the record so she wouldn't kill herself), which may explain her otherwise inexplicable popularity. Most of the songs, most of the songs, are good, if their sentiments seem a tad generic and repetitive (see above for a statement of the album's subject matter).

In my first take on the album, I stated the album had a sum total of one good song. I must, however, redact this. There are four. However, together they take up less than twenty minutes... on an 86-minute double-CD. Taken together they form just under twenty percent of the record's full length. That's reasonably above average, since the rest of the CD, with few exceptions, has nothing wrong with it other than the over-arching problems, that the song-writing is repetitive as fuck and the music Emilie wants to make is a mindfuck and hard to listen to in large quantities. The songs I'm referring to, of course, are "Liar," which grants an industrial spin to modern pop music and creates a vocal hook using nightmarish descriptions about (maybe) wanting to reclaim someone who wronged her; "I Want My Innocence Back," which is rather a lamentation, but the sheer monotony is charming; "I Know Where You Sleep," an angry rant where she tries to just do that; and "Let the Record Show," a bit of a last hoorah where it's kind of a shock that she doesn't drop clusters of F-bombs. "Gothic Lolita" comes close for being a massive disparagement of those who suffer (though they'd say otherwise) from Lolita Complex, and almost passes for amusing.

The music is reasonably solid. The voice is a good enough forgery of Annie Lennox to be cute. The lyrics are acceptable. In all, this is one of those overrated albums that will be loved and adored and salivated all over by fans of similar neo-goth ladies with boldness about their sexuality, such as Amanda Palmer (The Dresden Dolls) and could, er... probably find a place next to albums by Rasputina or Nick Cave or a bunch of other artists that eventually got pieces copy-pasted into Autumn's railery-infused gestalt. There's a certain level of genius behind an album like this, which manages to be simultaneously deeply original (the closest she has to an imitator, that I can detect, is Hannah Fury, who comes across as just a cute, empty, spacey girl... while Emilie gives off a vibe such that, if you ran into her in the street, and she were holding anything even remotely sharp, you might wanna run away really fast) and not even a little bit so.

As a closing remark, I still hate Emilie's fanbase, for losing their shit about sexy pictures of her in Bizarre (I think it was), and for losing their shit about those within the fandom losing their shit. Considering her blatant sexuality, someone's pretty much missing the point; would this kind of wank appear if the Red Hot Chili Peppers, just as a fer-instance, appeared in a magazine with their cocks out? I wouldn't wank that wank, that's for sure. Fanatics theorize the next album will be metal-oriented and done better than most modern metal artists, which has my hopes galvanized, but there is no fanbase I think I can trust less than that of Emilie Autumn's. Asking Autumn's fanbase what they think the next album will be like is like asking Axl Rose what he thinks of Chinese Democracy; no matter what you get, 99% of it will be hollow ego-stroking.

And yet it floats.

Sol Ciel, from Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia [PS2].

I like floating islands; they're nice and romantic for the most part. If the JRPG is all about high-flying adventure with a rag-tag bunch of loveable cartoons, I can't think of a whole lot of better settings. It's unfortunate, then, that it's so commonly wasted.

Logic tells us that whoever or whatever takes residence on a piece of land that happens to be drifting in the sky has a powerful reason. Either they want to keep everyone else out or desperately want to keep something in. The first option doesn't appeal to me much; "lost tribes" in JRPG's often consist of hermetic, three hundred-year old douchebags in robes who hide the secret to the world's salvation but won't share it with you, because they keep their scepters rammed up their sphincters when they're not using them.

On the other hand, the idea of travelling to some forgotten prison or mausoleum that sits solemn in the upper stratosphere is worthy of pants-creaming. Scenario: You have to retrieve the sacred heirloom of the ancient royal family, who, as undead ghouls, riot within their stately palace-tomb. Another: You have to put down an unfathomable evil, shackled within a God-forsaken fortress and magically lifted to the skies so no foolhardy adventurer would ever try. Imagine the dread.

But for the most part, floating islands seem tacked-on, like afterthoughts. It's like the scenario writer and the concept artist just finished designing all the endless deserts and twinkling crystal castles and sleepy villages, but now they feel the world they've concieved isn't fantasy enough. Okay, make it float!

Eden, from Atelier Iris II: The Azoth of Destiny [PS2].

I guess all these people went to sleep one night, woke up, looked around, and thought "Oh, we're sky people now I guess that's nice".

Maybe I wouldn't be so displeased with this trend if a little originality was injected into the process. Most floating islands float due to a.) a reason that is not immediately obvious but certainly magical, or b.) a reason that is immediately obvious and certainly magical. (Read: giant chunks of crystal sticking out of its underside. I've had it with crystals.)

Perhaps they need to stop being so utopian and start being a little menacing. What about applying the island-turtle concept? The difference would be that, while the unassuming party may not be aware that they've set up camp on a gargantuan sea-monster's back, the denizens of the sky would have to be fully aware that they're riding on a gentle gas giant, wrapped in clouds and thin air. Whoever is willing to live somewhere like that is cool with me.

Thanks to Creative Uncut for pictures.

Ryuusei KIIIIIICK!!

I've always been partial to many of Capcom's in-house artists for many different reasons. A big reason is their healthy emphasis on functionality.

Given how Capcom invented the modern fighter, I imagine that many of their founding character designers must have sat down and looked at this new breed of video game and realized that characters had to be explosively appealing. There's a flimsy vestige of a storyline and a few win/lose quotes, but most if not all 'character development' is going to take place on a two-dimensional battlefield, with fluidly-animated sprites to answer any questions. Not the sillier questions like "Why is he fighting?", which would only spring forth from someone with a well-cemented interest in the game, but more immediate questions like "What does this guy do? Is he awesome?"

Edayan is in the high tier of Capcom artists, and has contributed to the Street Fighter series countless times. He was also responsible for designing the cast of the sadly forgotten tag-team fighter Rival Schools: United By Fate, a game about dueling high school students where every other character profile includes the term "hot-blooded". It looks, plays and inspires like a passionately-drawn shounen manga does.

Batsu Ichimonji, P.E. enthusiast and protagonist of the two-game series, exudes the raw, youthful, organic drive that The King of Fighters' sleeker Kyo Kusanagi, who also started off as a uniformed schoolboy, doesn't really capture. If he calls out the names of his attacks, which are things like "Justice Kick", and suddenly scarlet flames envelop his leg as he dropkicks you into the Moon, you will understand that this is what Batsu does. Even though Rival Schools for the PS1 was a bit of a graphical mess (moreso for some characters than others), his defining features, the way in which every part of his outfit, appearance and personal style cooperate to form a coherent portrait, shine through the limited technology.

Long before Persona 3 capitalized on Westerners' fervent desire to play as a Japanese high school student, Rival Schools included a day-by-day, life-simulation side-game where you got to know the characters better. [It was left out of the NA release.] This was the kind of thing that senior artists like Akiman and CRMK perhaps didn't anticipate when Street Fighter II was still in the works, but instead of promoting looser design, Rival Schools continues to tell the majority of its story with pictures. The exclamation mark-laden dialogue, full of earnest promises and friends cheering friends on, is almost an accessory to the many visual clues that, for example, visiting the characters at the pool or the beach would provide.

Roberto Miura plays soccer. We know that much from his outfit, and it makes sense when he lobs soccer balls at opponents in battle. The fact that he wears his face-covering visor even to the school pool adds another layer of teasing interest to him; are we ever going to see his eyes? Is he like one of those characters from some TV shows that is never shown from the neck up? The fact that Edge, a purple-clad punk who looks like the lovechild of Benimaru Nikaido and Ryuji Yamazaki, lets his unicorn-hair down in the pool says just about as much on him. Why does Gan, whose bulging muscles can barely be contained by an XXL uniform, wear a full bathing suit? What the crap is he afraid of?

When the studio behind Street Fighter II decided to invite a cast of warriors from around the world into the ring, this concept of characters wearing their nationalities, hobbies and personalities on their sleeves must have weighed heavy on the designers' minds. It's a philosophy that was carried on marvelously to Rival Schools, where Justice High School (for full effect, say that out loud and say it intensely) is alive with little everyday scenes. You can imagine spectacular martial arts showdowns taking place over lunch, in the showers, during the last inning of a baseball game. This is the kind of memorable design that I greatly respect most Capcom fighters for; it's coherent, unified and masterfully executed, and it's more than I can say for many contemporary games in the genre. Maybe that makes the characters cartoons--it almost certainly makes the whole game a cartoon--and I personally love that.

Thanks to The Fighters Generation and Creative Uncut for images.

Let's dance, boys.

Bayonetta

Developer: Team Little Angels [Platinum Games]

Publisher: SEGA

Genre: Action

Platform: XBox 360, PlayStation 3

Rating: 5 / 5 [PURE PLATINUM]

Bayonetta is a game of ecstatic excess. Pumping bullets from heel-mounted, lilac handguns at colossal angels with exquisite rococo-style carvings while standing on a rocketing missile, then finishing the battle by invoking the hellhound Gomorrah to drag the enemy down to Hell--piecemeal--is what it's about. While other, extremely well-established franchises are taking a look at their basic mechanics and trimming the fat (to mixed responses), Bayonetta, a new IP from the indomitable imagination of Hideki Kamiya, makes sure to establish a solid base (a fluid, intensely satisfying battle system) and build a cathedral-crystal-palace-coliseum-department store on top.

I don't really know what Kamiya's intentions were with the story, which includes time travel and the world's equilibrium being shattered. Perhaps he was "flinging shit at a wall", as Tim Rogers aptly put it when reviewing Shinji Mikami's brainchild, the venerable God Hand. Back in January, Lisa Foiles argued that the game may be "too serious" to function within the unabashedly campy ambiance that it created, but I disagree. Just like every other aesthetic element in Bayonetta, including Elena Noguerra's sighs-abound rendition of "Fly Me to the Moon" and the uplifting ecclesiastical pieces reserved for boss battles, all the dialogue and exposition can be taken with a grain of salt or with utmost gravitas, if that's your kind of thing.

Bayonetta follows the development of the titular [hehe, tits] protagonist, as sealed memories return and her origin, purpose and the truth about the "Eyes of the World" are unveiled. In all frankness, Bayonetta is the force that the game's universe orbits around. Secondary characters uncover various facets of her; Enzo and Rodin help us put her power into perspective, Jeanne allows her humanity to blossom (and provides obligatory lesbian overtones), and Cerezita is the catalyst for some incredibly sweet moments. Despite being in a leather-bound, underworld-disco suit, sporting a beehive hairdo with spirit tags woven in, and being roughly seven feet tall, Bayonetta is the most convincing mother figure I've seen in a video game since Miranda in Grandia III. (And that's just about the only nice thing I can say about Grandia III.)

Bayonetta is really a fascinating character; I could talk about her as much, or more, than I could talk about her game. Video games have passed down a number of endearing traditions when it comes to sexualizing women; Japan is fond of innocence interrupted (via peeping tom in the hot springs or gratuitous panty-shots), while America has given us serious strippers: women who are, in theory, held to the same standards as men, but lounge around in chainmail brassieres and curvaceous space suits. (I am reminded of God of War, when the Oracle conveys very serious information to Kratos... while topless.) Bayonetta takes a third option, giving you her sexuality on a silver platter. Through her butterfly double-jumping and skyscraper-throwing, Bayonetta reclaims what the Boss [Metal Gear Solid 3] couldn't, and what Gears of War 3's upcoming female character probably won't, either: the notion that women don't have to sacrifice their femininity to be competent.

And this is why, while some girl gamerz were huffing and puffing over Bayonetta's polished ass being plastered all over their favorite video game websites, the game is really the ultimate kiss-and-bitchslap to Eastern and Western nerd culture. Bayonetta's extraneous proportions already place her outside the realm of Standard Sexy. (This hasn't stopped Playboy from a--probably NSFW--misguided attempt at capitalizing on the character.) That doesn't mean she's not intimidating. She will provoke you whether you want her to or not. She cannot be corrupted like a prepubescent anime girl can, nor is she trying too hard, like the rough-and-tumble tomboy who is ultimately bested by the male protagonist.

Bayonetta is not only an incredibly entertaining game, packed with so much love and attention to detail that eventually you start wondering if every single thing is a reference. It's also a playful, cheeky critique of the portrayal of females in video games. Best of all, it doesn't do this by getting on a high horse and preaching to sexually frustrated teenagers; it revels in the conventions established by the fanbase, and gives them exactly what they want--but remains out of reach. Bayonetta is untouchable; her raw power, ability to sidestep logic whenever convenient, and full awareness (and enjoyment) of her sexuality are what make her one of a kind.

Maybe this is more an appreciative article on Bayonetta the character and what she says about video game females. But my point is: get the game. You'll have tons of fun with the rewarding mechanics, which have naturally evolved from Devil May Cry, and you'll almost certainly laugh out loud right after your jaw drops. And I played the PS3 version! I don't think I can possibly deliver any higher praise than that.

(Okay, how's this? Best game I've played this generation.)

On the topic of Platonic Love

While on vacation in Barbados, one of the many things I decided to tackle head on was that dreaded DS game, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 days (I still have no idea what this means and please do not attempt to explain it to me.) Fanbase of Kingdom Hearts aside (also see: throwing it into a deep, dark pit where thirteen year old girls can writhe in their throes of bishonen ecstasy until they grow up and clamber out the sides) I am actually rather fond of the game series. It was a massive mixture of Disney and Square Enix Nostalgia; People who didn't play games picked it up for the princesses (as was the case with my friend Sarah) and people who did play games picked it up because apparently Cloud mugged Vincent and stole his clothes before hitting the road on a massive hitchhiking spree to Athens.

Okay, let's bring a little bit of context into this. Let's get this out there: I missed every generation of consoles before about 2002. My heart had always been in games, yes, but they were primarily this ephemeral thing that my dad brought home with him. RTSs like Red Alert and Empire Earth on the computer, a peek at an SNES here and there; which I honestly don't remember much of as the SNES era began on the date of my birth and ended around the time I was six, and most of this time was spent on the computer instead. I don't have many of the memories that gamers only slightly older than me do, or the ones who had a playstation instead of an N64. My first Final Fantasy was X-2, and I had no idea what was going on but I still had a great time playing it. Therefore, most of my late teens geek life has revolved around obtaining these titles that I've missed, filling in my library, playing them, and generally pretending that I knew what it was like when these things came out.

Therefore, when I first played Kingdom Hearts, I wasn't driven by Disney, nor was I really aware of Final Fantasy. They were both non-entities in my life as I was past the point of actively viewing Disney films (although I had experienced close to all of them. Except Tarzan.) And, well, my PS2 had finally started working and I had a grand total of three games for it. (This probably explains my love for Star Ocean 3 as well -- it was the first game that actually worked on my poor old PS2.)

This was a magical little gem of a game. The protagonists were fourteen years old, at best. There was your goofy looking kid, his literally goofy sidekicks, the mysterious prettyboy/rival, and the token princess chick. It was all about light and darkness and tried to be metaphorical and deep -- and was rather trite, in hindsight, if you take it at face value. There is no metagame to Kingdom Hearts. It was a story about nothing more than innocence. Unlike a lot of media at the time, no aspects of the real 'loss' of innocence were involved other than in the most base of terms. There was good, and there was the evil inside of everyone, and a mysterious force of destiny, and that was it. The ending was the epitome of bittersweet and I think it was the first ending of a game I actually ever cried at. (Also was probably one of the first games I beat once I actually got into 'real' gaming. I am setting aside all gameboy and N64 games, because, well, I always completed Pokemon and in Ocarina of Time I was too scared to do anything so I just threw chickens around for days on end.)

The second game came out in my first year of highschool, probably the waning year of my rabid frothing fangirl-ism. I looked forward to it because it was probably one of my earlier game sequels that I was actually there for, and, well, it came out on a day that I had off, so I just took it to the basement and played the hell out of the damn thing. It was everything I wanted to be; it coincided perfectly with my own adolescent sense of heightened drama and coolness and sparkles and did I mention drama? The characters were sufficiently pretty, the lines were clean and simple, and I really think it's the only thing I have liked from Nomura since he became lead designer. Well, the sketchy things, at least, and the watercolours or more pastel-y illustrations. They fit the mood.

The first game was an expression in innocence with very little parts 'coming of age' story. It's just a kid trying to get home. Oh, and save his friends along the way. Maybe everybody around him seems to be growing up too fast?

In the second game, we see that the protagonist has jumped ahead two/three years in age without ever really 'growing up', so we've got this weird kid who's not really naive, but I hesitate to use the word innocent. He's got a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, and he knows it. There is a world to save, they're the only ones that can do it, and it's silly and cute and wonderful. But still all he really wants to do is go home. Oh, and save the other friend this time. It's more of a coming of age story this time, except it's still really subtle and not-so-much there; the character's really skipped that breaking-into-teenager part of his life and really the plot is more concerned with questions of What is our existence, why are we here, what's our purpose, WHO DOES ORGANIZATION 13 WORK FOR, Is there really a darkness in everyone's hearts that can't be extinguished--

And ultimately, can we ever go home?

Light and Darkness and yadda yadda yadda aside, the game answers all of these questions in a highly cliched manner. They're silly and childish, and they handle a lot of older characters with the traditional Squeenix drama, but therein lies the point. The whole second game is about that sense of childhood that we remember, that nostalgia just out of reach, that we're trying to get to and keep with us and we know that we're older and we can't go back but it was nice anyway. Sora's always looking for his old life back, even though the people around him have changed so much that they're really beyond the point of ever really being the way they were. He breaks down in tears at his friend's feet because it's another sign of things finally being alright again. There's a world to save, there are people to defeat, destinies to uncover -- but he's got that little bit of home back. Axel, in all ways a gigantic bishonen character, longs for things to be back the way they were -- a simpler time, or so he thinks, where all of them can just be friends and nothing can go wrong. But it does. And he knows for a fact that they're older. So he dies a death full of melodrama and teen angst. I still bawled.

And in the end, through faith, they all go home. The golden trio get to their island, the nobodies find peace in death, and maybe everybody really can meet again in the next life.

It's a story about hope.

Now, you know what ruins it for me? The fangirls. I know, I was one of them once, pairing up anything hot that moved. But this condition has lasted long beyond the 14-year-old-girl phase. Some people never get rid of it, I guess. With the introduction of Organization 13, they've got a whole treasure trove of slightly feminine boys to pick from. (I have to say that I have a slight thing for Luxord's facial hair. Mmm, neatly trimmed goatees.)

Because of all this innocence in the game -- that being the entire point -- it just comes off as inherently wrong to me. It's like trying to sexualize a Disney movie. You could try to do it, and it works well in theory, but in practice the whole action seems inherently like wish fulfillment. The game is about Friendship. There was no sex going on behind the scenes here, or at least, it's a non-entity, a seeming missing element that was nonetheless inherent to the plot. If one tries to take it as romantic love, they're getting it all wrong. You could call it friendship, in loosest terms, but I like to see it as the love and devotion shared between the closest of friends, the ones who you would move mountains for and end up in jail with. The hope that they're still alright, the quasi-family status they attain, the vague sense of comfort.

Sexualization makes it all wrong. It's about longing for the past, and the acceptance of things that have changed, but not for the worse. About the love between friends, about hope, and the generalized good and evil and grey area inbetween where kids ask who am I?

The island of Barbados resembles the one from the game in a very loose sense. I laid on my back and let myself be pulled out by the tide; I got cut by coral, I got salt in my eyes, I got burned by the sun, but it was beautifully visceral and I was utterly at peace. Reminded of days lost, days found, lazy days I didn't know what to do with, and active ones that I let fly by. And again, that beautiful bittersweet that comes from an ending where you got what you wanted, but at what cost? It's not a poginant or wonderful game for the DS, but it carries the feeling along with it.

I beat it and got teary eyed.

Game Typography

Shin Megami Tensei:Persona has to be one of my favourite games on the market. Being a graphic design student, I can't help but notice some of the design choices made by game developers to their series. Especially typography. While admiring the various items that came with the game Persona, I got down to thinking: When old games are updated, how do we go from things like the image on the left to the image on the right?

It's easiest to analyze the typographical scemes of games based on the time period they were created in. The first Persona, released in 1996, features an occult, mystical, 'dark' typographic form. Compare this to its modern remake on the PSP, which features a streamlined, techno-inspired  type, carrying on a design asthetic seen in later Persona titles (IE Persona 3 and 4, released in 2006 and 2008, respectively.) Over the course of ten years, we go from a highly decorate form that carries a personality all its own to a streamlined sans-serif font. Original games were fighting to prove themselves as 'different' amongst a sea of titles vying for attention. Now that games have given themselves a solid base, they're leaning towards legibility as opposed to creativity. 

   

Now, although the new texts in many games are far more 'streamlined', the text is working just as hard. Doesn't a streamlined text give its own connotations? You can't just take away the garishness of old texts and leave a blank slate for yourself to look at. Compare this change to another medium, for example, advertising. Think of the change from pre-WWII ads to the helvetica-infused ads of today. It's like Sans-Serif is taking over the universe! 

With the rapid consumption of any sort of information nowadays, legibility is considered far more important than display value. If you're flicking your eyes across a wall of games, you need to be able to read it instantaneously lest it be passed over. Unfortunate, but true.

To end; I like the new persona logo better, but I hate the little 'shin megami tensei' bit all shoved into the corner there. Looks like an ugly afterthought.