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Most bands reach a point where they have nothing left creative wise in the bank, Judas Priest, Metallica, Slayer, ACDC, Guns and Roses, Iron Maiden, Rolling Stones etc etc and end up trading on past glories, although most of the bands mentioned can still draw a huge crowd, for those that don't its time to hang up the boots unless you can accept diminishing returns

I'm not sure I agree with the concept that creativity is finite; I think it can be indefinite if you remain inspired. With all those bands though I suspect it gets to a point where it's more about keeping the show on the road that being creatively inspired. If you have a very definite sound you're pigeon-holed by, it makes it a lot harder to branch out without tanking your popularity. AC/DC may well wish to release the jazz album they've always aspired to, but they may well also lose their stadium status in doing so.

Aside from the money and status involved, I'm sure a ton of these guys are just complete road dogs by this point. It'd be like Brooks leaving prison and being unable to deal with the outside world in Shawshank Redemption, they maybe just struggle to contemplate a different life so won't want to risk it by diversifying the sound. I'm speculating of course, and there's many exceptions to the rule.

The Meat Puppets were one of my most listened to bands last year, but just 2 r 3 of their albums. Starting to branch out a bit more now. I'd always mostly avoided their 'grunge' album Too High To Die before now because it wasn't the sound I loved the Puppets for, but having listened to it over the weekend with neutral expectations, it's actually really good! Just a straight up good rock album.

Forbidden Places was also really good. Leaning more into the rock stuff but with a bit of the punk jangle sound from before still present.

Spirited Away

I'd never seen any Studio Ghibli, but when I was visiting home and drinking with some friends, they'd put My Neighbour Totoro on in the background for the kids to watch while the adults talked. I found I kept getting distracted by it and sucked in because I was enjoying it so much. I just realized Netflix has all the Studio Ghibli films (in Canada at least) so I decided to try a few more and started with Spirited Away.

I would say I didn't enjoy it as much as Totoro, but it was still a pretty magical ride. The animation is way more interesting than anything from the Disney animation era, and it did a great job of creating a sense of fantasy and wonder. The No Face guy was a really interesting character too.

I've got Howl's Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke lined up next I think.

We can't be too far off entire movies or series created entirely with AI.

There's already been a few films. Plus Darren Aronofsky has been catching a lot of flack lately for making an AI-generated war series.

Watched the Luc Besson Dracula there. Holy shit, I cannot believe how bad it was. Aside from heavily ripping off the Coppola one, it was just such a bizarrely bad film. The dialogue was execrable, bad acting, direction and storytelling just plain weird. Even the soundtrack was a much weaker ripoff of the Coppola one. And that dancing/perfume scene...

I can understand selling your collection off. At what age do you need to think about the hassle of leaving a few thousand CDs, LPs, tapes,  tshirts,  magazines, fanzines, guitars etc for your kid(s) to gave to deal with when you've kicked the bucket.

If you raised them right they'll gladly inherit it 

Both are prime possibilities , I find it very sad though, a lifetime's ...a life,  just transformed to currency and gone.

It's tough to get rid of stuff like that too, so must be a fair old reason. Somewhat relevant to the thread but I have a Dimebag Washburn guitar that I got like 20yrs ago that is prob worth a few grand now. I literally never play the thing so it's bringing me no value and going to waste, and I know there's a big market for them out there, but I just can't bring myself to sell it.

I wonder why the big sell of such a monstrous and carefully curated collection. My pure speculated instinct is there's a woman behind that somewhere. But who knows, maybe it's something much more innocent like drug addiction.

I think he has already said he wouldn't rule out doing a solo album...

Megadeth albums technically all are solo albums with hired guns, so I'm not sure how an actual solo album would be any different unless he had a complete change of style planned.

There's an interesting discussion question: what would a Dave Mustaine solo album look like if he tried something else?

Seems obvious Hetfield would try some sort of country songwriter thing, but it's harder with Mustaine to see anything other than metal or some sort of hard rock. Not that I wouldn't listen to the Mustaine jazz Odyssey of course...

Tell me you at least sew band patches onto your tea cosy...

I mean, just fucking read this leatherface. Do you really want to yoke yourself to this cringe-fest brown-nosing fiction machine!?
https://bsky.app/profile/msentropy.bsky.social/post/3mdswqrcn722k

"And then the whole plane clapped"

This is turning into that plane scene in Almost Famous where they all reveal their deepest secrets because they think they're about to die

It's an ugly guitar, but the price right now is pretty cheap for someone who's a superfan to own one of his actual guitars. I wonder how much it will jump up to by the end of the auction though...

Biden and Obama don't get a pass from me, but under MAGA things are evidently worse. By how you employ the term "trump deranged" it's pretty clear you're fully tapped into the MAGA propaganda stream though.

Every time I visit back home I'm astonished at how tapped into it people are. Still parroting the same stuff from years ago about how he'll run the country like a business and he's good for immigration. I think Ireland is just so heavily anti-immigration at the minute that they just see Trump as being against immigration and do the 2+2=5 sum immediately. It's no wonder MAGA (and Reform) have such an easy time manipulating people.

Lunchtime listening today

The Beatles - Abbey Road
Blue Öyster Cult - Secret Treaties

I went through an Abbey Road phase recently. Think I'd have to rank it as my favourite Beatles album. Something is a song I could listen to on repeat over and over again.