Loveable Listening #1

#OnceForMoneyOnceForTaste

Love listening to podcasts and music. Do it everyday. So why not recommend some of what I have been enjoying recently?

Dr. Gameshow

Each episode the hosts, Jo Firestone and Manolo Morano, have a in-studio guest compete with callers in games submitted by listeners. It sounds like a complicated setup but its easy to understand once you start listening. Its one of the oddest and funniest podcasts I have listened to and always puts me in a great mood. Last December it was canceled by the podcast network it was a part of, Earwolf, but was recently brought back under the management of a new network, Maximum Fun. The only downside is that many older episodes are behind a paywall due to their old network's policy to incentivize subscriptions by restricting access to most content older than six months.

Still this is an amazing show that is family-freindly so anyone can listen and enjoy. Plus if you follow the show on Facebook you can learn when they're recording new episodes and get the chance to call in and participate. You should be able to find the show on every podcast platform including Spotify or visit the show's homepage and listen there.

Off Book: The Improvised Musical

Speaking of improve my other favorite comedy is Off Book. In every episode Jessica McKenna & Zack Reno bring in a guest to improvise a musical and it is such a fun show. Some episodes are stronger than others but I feel like none are duds. They also experiment with the format now and then which is always interesting.

Off Book is part of the Earwolf network which means that ,like Dr. Gameshow, many of the past recordings are currently behind a paywall which sucks but that should not dissuade you from checking it out. There are some great episodes currently available like Episode 75, which is an amazing Christmas episode that I relistened to recently. Its on Spotify, their website, and on several other places that I don't/can't link to like iTunes.

Glass Animals - How to Be a Human Being

Could this cover scream "Indie Band!" any harder?

Glass Animals is a band I have known about but only listened to a bit of their work before. Recently one of their songs that I liked on Spotify, Season 2 Episode 3, kept coming up so I decided to check out the album it was from: How to Be a Human Being. It was a good listen and I have been replaying some songs like Life Itself, Pork Soda, and The Other Side of Paradise.

I also listened to ZABA, their first album, and while appreciate its experimentation it was hit and miss at times with some tracks failing to be memorable. How to Be a Human Being is more consistent and has a sound that is more appealing to me. If you are a fan of indie/alternative music this album is definitely worth a try.

Kaen/ Love Dramatic feat. Ihara Rikka/ 99.9

Mob Psycho 100=If One Punch Man was more than a one note joke

My final recommendation is the triple threat that is the openings of all this season's best anime. First is Kaen, which is the opening to Dororo (2019), a series about a man cursed at birth who recovers the body parts that he was born without by slaying the demons his father made a deal with. Its a dark story that injects a nice dose of levity through its character interactions that makes it an overall fun adventure show. Its opening starts by eluding to the melancholy of the entire scenario before becoming more fast paced and bombastic, which signifies our main characters refusal to accept the hand they have been dealt. 

Love Dramtic feat. Ihara Rikka is theme of the season best comedy Kaguya-sama: Love is War, a romantic comedy centered on two high schoolers who harbor feelings for one another but refuse to admit their attraction, instead they try to trick the other into confessing first. The first two episodes are rough around the edges though by episode 3 it finds its footing and maintains an consistently funny rhythm. This OP is pure funk which is cheesy but hard not to fall in love with, much like the series itself. 

Last but certainly not least is 99.9, the theme of the best show of the season Mob Psycho II. Its amazing and I cannot recommend it enough. Smartly written, beautifully animated, and full of heart, this series has everything. Its OP touches upon the recurring theme of Mob needing to accept himself  in order to be a more emotionally healthy person.

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Cleverly Absurd

On January 25th, 2019 the final episodes of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Having recently watched the finale I can safely say that it is sad to see such a uniquely hilarious and strange show. Recalling the semester when the show first came out I remember hearing other film majors calling the show "enjoyably bad" or "kinda terrible", which was odd to me. Many were treating the show as a guilty pleasure or a fluke and it seems like a disservice to the creative team.

Created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, the same team behind 30 Rock, Kimmy Schmidt is an absurdist comedy it is unapologetic in his eccentricities. Its fast pace prevents you from lingering on one odd occurrence or joke before heading to the next event in that episode's plot. Choosing not to ease a viewer into the experience can understandably be a con to some but it is one of my favorite aspects of the show. Such little exposition or scenes that lingers allows for greater immersion in the narrative and setting since the audience is in a similar position as our protagonist Kimmy, being into a strange new setting that they must adapt and find their own footing.

Kimmy is also a surprisingly complex character. While she may seem happy-go-lucky and naive on the surface the series does not stray away from exploring the deeper traumas she has. A reoccurring issue Kimmy has is an inversion to physical intimacy due to her years of being abused by her kidnapper, but where this character differs from many victims of traumatic circumstances is that she does not dominated by that past experience. She is determined to persevere and establish her own identity, rejecting being classified as a victim by the world at large. In many ways she is one of the most positive portrayals of a trauma survivor I have seen as she accepts her past strife but has no intention of letting it define who she is.

The various oddities in the world were used to further the commentary and comedy, pushing real-world scenarios ti an extreme that demonstrate the ridiculous nature of real-world entities and events. Kimmy Schmidt takes shots at every prominent viewpoint or perspective, from conservative to liberal and from the sports industry to Broadway.  While it is unafraid to tackle and mock issues and social groups it does not do so maliciously, always balancing showcasing one extreme by soon targeting the opposite end of the spectrum.

Season 3's ongoing plot thread about the gentrification of New York's boroughs is a great example of this. On one hand you have Lillian (Carol Kane), who sees the changing of her neighborhood as an attack of its culture with the upscaling of the block leading to a stripping of its personality and driving out of its current residents. Then Artie (Peter Riegert) is introduced as a counterpoint to her cause, a rich philanthropist who sees gentrification as a way to help the less fortunate and prevent children from having the poor upbringing he had. Their relationship manages to have great comedic moments while commenting on real issues effecting New Yorkers like food deserts and rising housing prices.

If you do not find the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt funny then that is fine because comedy is highly subjective, but dismissing the show as being simply sill or stupid is writing off the depth and nuance that exists in the series. With the whole series being available on Netflix I would encourage everyone to hive the show a shoot and see if its clever absurdity entertains you as much as it does me.