My take on the idea of 'god'

To me, the idea of 'god' has been taken far too literally for far too long, as has the definition of 'life'. To me, god is the giver of life, and as god gives life to humanity and to every animal on the planet, according to Abrahamic religions, I believe that the giving of life is far less specific than what we consider it to be.

The idea of 'giving life' is, ultimately, the idea of a usefulness for an item. If living is expending energy, then the idea of life, in the ordinary concept which most people take for granted, I find to be too narrow. Giving of life is about attributing a usefulness to someone or something; a human has a life just as a dog has a life to experience the universe, just as a tree has a life to give oxygen to things which need to breathe.
It is useful for me to point out my own more or less philosophical opinion on the meaning of life.

The meaning of life, to me, is a means to an ends. I feel, as a 'something', that it is impossible for there to be a literal 'nothing', and that 'something' will always be 'somewhere' to make sure there is no 'nothing' anywhere. From this perspective, there is a perception of nothing if there is nothing to perceive anything, and as such, the universe is in a state of being to make sure there is no 'nothing', and every living (by a standard definition of living) thing inhabits this universe to ensure that there is no perception of 'nothing'.

 As I said before, life is, in my context, the usefulness of an item, but more specifically, life is something which is given to anything which has a use. Ultimately, this conforms to the nonspecific idea of what constitutes life; a beginning, a middle, and an end. I own a watch which helps me tell the time. This watch was made sometime, and it was given life when it was created because it was created to serve a purpose. My initial interest of the watch conforms to the development stage of life (if transposed onto that of sentience), where it begins to notice a perceived interest in itself. It then progresses through into its full usefulness, where I own the watch, and the watch will, just like old age, begin to suffer faults, and eventually lose usefulness and die to me. The relationship I have with my watch; that I own the watch, and it is useful to me, is what constitutes giving life, and as my relationship to this watch is giving life to the watch, I conclude in saying that my relationship with my watch is god.
Or, part of god. God is every relationship ever. It isn't one thing, it is everything. Everything in the full universe is, in some way, experiencing god, because it is only in this universe because it has a use or a potential use, and therefore is either living, or has the potential to live to someone or something at some time. Every relationship I form with an item, a person, an animal, or even a tree, is out of my perceived necessity, and in doing so, this relationship is giving life to the item, person, animal, or even the tree. As relationships are formed out of perceived importance, necessity, or purpose, he who is convinced to be without purpose is truly Godless.

My misogynistic views on feminism

During a relatively peaceful conversation with someone I know, my thoughts drifted towards the ever present and often talked about topic of feminism, something which seems to be taking on a life force of its own without the need for activists. Hell, simply saying the word feminism seems to be enough to strike a shudder through the spine of most warm blooded males. It's a dirty word with dirty connotations, and my opinions of feminism, in a contemporary context, are unfortunately tainted in this respect.

My entire negative opinion of contemporary feminism can be deduced to two key points. First of all, I want to put down my own little disclaimer to the entire topic. This disclaimer will be continued with in at least one of the points I make in this article.

First of all, I'm not misogynistic. I think the idea of 'hating women' is ridiculous. If I said I hated black people, I'd be called racist. If I said I hated white people, I'd be called confused. The problem with these statements is that they lack justification. I don't hypothetically hate black people, I just disagree fundamentally with the opinions and personalities of every black person I've ever met. Similarly I don't hypothetically hate white people, I just hate the personalities and opinions of every single white person I've ever met. From this perspective, I don't hate women, and I think the only way terms like 'misogyny' can be qualified is through the use of sexually charged derogatory statements. 

That's a tangent, but what I want to get at is I do believe misogyny is real in certain contexts. I accept that misogyny is real because I also accept that misandry is real, and I consider that equalising both misogyny and misandry is one of the most important things when finding a basis in this ridiculously convoluted arena of philosophy called third wave feminism.

The first point I want to bring up is that third wave feminism is, at the end of the day, detached feminism. One of its primary criticisms is that it lacks a genuine purpose. First wave feminism had the issue of the voting and, ultimately, the considering of females as 'less than citizens' as a result of this. Second wave feminism fought against hegemonic sexism. Third wave feminism has the need to fight against something, but nothing to fight against. Not wanting to stray off the path of being called 'feminism', third wave feminism became the fight for 'me'. It became the 'look at what I am' approach to feminism. I agree fully with the criticism I mentioned against third wave feminism (TWF) because it lacks a genuine attempt at social or political improvement. Instead, what it does is vaguely define itself as feminism, attribute broad, sweeping arguments as its focal point, and then latch onto any number of minor or otherwise detached social injustices and, for a brief period of time, makes that its focal point. Of course, the problem with this is its focal point is then interpreted in different ways: either they are focussing on that and that exclusively, which leads to the belief that it is only a minor subsidiary organisation within the broader range of feminism (which these TWFs will tell you is not what they are), or that it is just a cluttered, almost schizophrenic attempt at a social movement with a lack of real direction. 

As I said previously, TWF has become the fight for 'me'. Many members of feminism, it seems, hold on to key social problems such as rape and the gender pay gap, despite their own inexperience with the issues, and then use them to become social altruists of the issues. I'm in no way saying that only rape victims should be allowed to support anti-rape movements. What I am saying is, like the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the key, vocal figureheads were members of the community who had experienced the injustices of these issues. White males who, despite fully supporting the civil rights movement, never tried to promote it the same way as Martin Luther King. Unfortunately, thanks to the abilities of social media and the internet, opinions are allowed to be expressed far more loudly, and to far more people, than ever before. People who would have, at any time in the history of democracy before now, been sideline supporters and voters for issues they wanted to change, are now willingly being thrusted into positions of social power with their opinions. In a lot of ways, it seems, the ability to hold political opinions on the internet has been diluted by two categories of popularity. Thanks to the push for massive social media giants like Facebook to denonymise the internet, the people with the most 'social power', especially in terms of feminism, become those who are the best looking, and have the most agreeable opinion. 

My third, although initially first, and final issue regarding third wave feminism, is its take on radicalism. It seems that every major social movement is going to have radicals within the movement, but it hasn't been until the third wave of feminism that these radicals within their movement have really been taken with legitimacy in a genuine context. What I find even worse is that, when feminism becomes the topic of discussion in places like universities, where thoughts and ideas should be allowed to be exchanged freely and judged on their own merit, criticism of feminism, with direct reference to the radicalism within the movement, is something that a student just shouldn't do, and is enforced by most feminist-supporters with almost religious zealousy. When any buzzword spitting feminist is presented with the idea of radicals within their beloved social revolution, their response is often 'we shouldn't talk about them, because ignoring them makes them go away.'

Of course, the biggest problem I have with this line of reasoning is that, in a radical group scenario, the group as a whole will take on the mannerisms of the loudest, most obnoxious member in the group. Coupled with the fact that individuals, when presenting within a group, often feel more supported or closer towards some concept of 'invincible' thanks to the group mentality, and a comparison between a group of radicals and a toddler can be made. It can then be asserted that if a toddler is doing something which its parents disagree with, the parent, as a responsible adult, should be disciplining the child and teaching it not to do that. Ignoring a toddler can lead to very dangerous or exposing situations for both parties. 

Superimposing this idea on the relationship between a revolutionary movement (the parents) and the radical group within the movement (the toddler), it can be almost guaranteed that if the group is ignored, it will 'test the waters' a little bit more. Its goal, at the end of the day, is attention, and, as its group mentality allows, it will eventually begin doing more insane things to get attention due to a lack of discipline and perceived lack of acceptance. 

What the third wave feminism movement should be doing, along with promoting its vague ideologies and self-centred approach towards 'empowerment', is actively looking to name and shame radical movements. Ignorance, in this case, is not bliss, and feminism and the world have unfortunately lived under this misguided notion for far too long. 

Psychoanalysis for the dull and boring

I haven't updated this site in what feels to me like a very long time. At least not what I would call 'update' in terms of actually adding new content.
Back in September I thought about putting up a review of Grand Theft Auto V, but I benched that and, nearly three months later, I decided to scrap because there's really just no point.
I'm constantly editing or deleting old posts, and I find the biggest problem with me, and the idea of anything of mine being in public domain, is that my personality and opinions change drastically within only a six to twelve month period.
If I write something now, thinking it's a great thing and I totally agree with it, I can bet in twelve months time I'll look back on it and either laugh at how ridiculously poor the writing style is, or how ridiculously misinformed my opinion was, or how ridiculously amateur the entire post was. I do this constantly: I used to bag out electronic music, now it's one of my favourite genres; I used to love metal, then I went into a state of absolutely loathing it, and now I just don't care for it; I used to be a heartland racist, and now I have the biggest white person guilt complex of anyone living in an established first world nation.

I've been wondering what I'm going to do with this. Considering I'm not famous, no-one actually really genuinely cares about my opinions, and this site is so very barely visited by anyone who isn't me, I suppose I could just post inane ramblings and scribble and leave it at that. The funny thing though is because it's my sort of work space, I do want to take some sort of pride in it. I've debated deleting the entire blog with myself for a few weeks now, thinking over a few of the posts which I had made in the past and have now either deleted, or completely reworded, and just feeling some sort of embarrassment or shame in the writing and opinions.

Because I'm not famous I suppose, again, it doesn't matter. I want to see something through to its end. I don't want to be in a constant state of drifting between things (activities, hobbies, relationships, etc.).
So I guess this is an update to myself, because that's all a blog really is for someone who isn't famous; a personal monologue which can be seen by anyone, but probably won't be.

Update.

The Cyrus Twerk Shit

I'm not a person who ever really wants to comment on pop culture because LOL UNPOPULAR OPINIONS GENERAL, but holy shit, I mean holy shit this Miley Cyrus shit is annoying. You people are all going on about how she's such a bad influence and that it shouldn't be encouraged, and yet everyone, myself included, is talking about her? Three weeks ago she was a nobody that was known for Hannah Montana and yet another washed out Disney star who managed to flash her vagina in front of a camera a few times. Now, she's some new sensation revived. Everyone who is talking about her and not just completely ignoring the situation is a fucking moron. I'm not a moron because I'm not talking about her, I'm talking about YOU, the people who (don't) read this blog, who talk about her.
I go on YouTube, and I see Miley Cys plastered on every conceivable channel. It's stupid. If you don't want her to be famous because you think she's an idiot, then stop legitimising what she is doing.
This means stop talking about her. BUT OH NO, CAN'T STOP TALKING ABOUT HER, POPULAR CULTURE IS ALREADY THIN AND EVENTLESS ENOUGH AS IT IS, IF WE STOP TALKING ABOUT MILEY CYRUS, WE'LL HAVE TO GO BACK TO TALKING ABOUT ZOMBIES AND MEEMEES.



On another note, I fucking hate zombies. I've hated zombies since the start of 2010 now, and I was really jaded of the entire idea even from 2009. The last time I was ever interested was when I saw Zombieland, and that was only to to watch Emma Stone be hot for an hour and a half. Zombies have taken such a huge fucking cultural craze over the last four years and it's fucking stupid. They're not interesting, get over them.
I see books IN FUCKING STORES talking about zombies and how to survive the 'inevitable' outbreak. I see people take up real, reasoned discussion about what they will do when the zombie apocalypse strikes. That's right, WILL do. Not 'would do if', placing the event as a hypothetical, but what they WILL do WHEN, meaning they fully expect to have to kill zombies in their lives, or act as if it is a real, serious possibility. I see people justify why zombies can't be real, and I see people argue against them. The zombie craze is fucking sickening. It's even gotten so bad that, when the media finally caught up, they had to invent new words because the word 'zombie' just didn't have the connotation that it had five years ago. Now they're not zombies; they're 'the undead', or 'walkers', or 'OH SHIT THINGS THAT CAN WALK AT HALF THE SPEED OF SMELL AND GROWL AT YOU UNTIL YOU GIVE UP TH-'
Now they are even trying to justify zombies as a reasonable horror movie plot; giving them the same characteristics as humans minus the cognitive functions. I would much rather just see a horror movie centered around an invasion of children aged 4 and less: it's the exact same principle as 'current' zombies, which can run, jump, and reason geometrical obstacles, and better yet, when one of them gets shot, a million people march to tumblr and start bitching about how the movie is barbaric.

I wish Miley Cyrus was a zombie, then at least we'd have something to look at.

something which just really annoyed me.

I should probably say I'm far more libertarian than most people I know; I like the idea of people being able to do whatever they want as long as it is not negatively (or non-consentingly) affecting another person in any way. I don't like the idea of a power-that-be telling me 'this is bad for you, you shouldn't do this', while at the same time giving welfare cheques to people who are 'too fat to work', and saying that we as individuals should be allowed to express our freedom of choice when it comes to alcohol and tobacco. 
Oh no I just made that cliche comparison, I can almost see this forming into another 'why cannabis prohibition is ironic' post. With that aside, this isn't anywhere near the scope of what really pisses me off at the moment. 

A few minutes ago I was reading up on the US War on Drugs, when I found this gem by the ONDCP: 

drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated... making drugs more available will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe.

 To which I immediately thought 'no, fuck you.'
Seriously. Fuck you. That is one of the weakest arguments for anything I've ever seen. Let's just cut a country's food supply, that way we'll have less fat people! Let's cut a country's electricity supply, that way we'll have less need for machinery! Let's cut a country's [x], that way we'll have less [y which is caused by x]. It's fucking ridiculous to say the least. I hate this argument, and I hate this absolutist bullshit thought process that follows it.

You know what REALLY stops people from being drug addicts? Education. It's a simple idea which has been around for about four thousand years. If  you TEACH the masses that doing x is bad for you and then give valid reasons, then maybe it'll stick. You can't stop everyone from everything. There will always be people who want to do drugs, period. There will always be idiots who either can't help themselves or just don't give enough of a shit. Here's the kicker; that should be their right. A heroin addict, by rights, isn't directly harming anyone but himself when he shoots up his poison. His actions might affect those around him, but the act itself is in no way harming another person other than himself. Should he be told 'you can't do that because you're gonna hurt yourself'? Is he a fucking six year old? The last time I checked, if I shot someone in the face I would have to take full responsibility of that and face the consequences. But when it comes to things which induce an altered consciousness, suddenly we just don't have a mind of our own and, by the government's standards, cannot take responsibility for our actions and so our choices should be decided for us? What sort of stupid fucking authoritarian society do we live in where this is not only happening, but totally okay?
What's more is I don't see where my opinion is wrong in anything. One of the things about becoming an adult in most western societies is that you, not your parents, assume total responsibility for your actions, meaning you can make your own decisions because legally you have come of age where the state recognises you as being able to make informed choices. It stems from the logic of brain development, and somewhere along our history people decided that between 18 and 21 years of age was when you were finally fully capable of evaluating information and situations. Why is it that this holds true in some respects, but then when you talk about illicit drugs suddenly people are just completely unable to make informed decisions?

I'm not an economist, so I'm not even going to touch on the argument on what good could be done from, if nothing else, loosening up this stupid 'war on drugs' that has ravaged the average tax payer for the last thirty or so years. I'm not even a behaviourist, so I'm talking exclusively on a 'freedom of choice' level. Why does the government need to make these decision for me? Why do they think that I should not be allowed full control over my body considering the fact that it's mine? Why do they assume that even the thought of trying drugs will turn me into a raging meth addict? Essentially, the secularist governments of the world (or at least the western world), by having a total ban on 'illicit drugs', are just broadcasting to their people that not only do they not trust (or believe in) the education system they developed and endorse, but that they don't trust the people whom they are supposed to be governing to live their lives however they want and so must nurture and mother them instead of doing their actual job.

Tucker Max needs a medium and film isn't it

I had the opportunity to finally watch I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell last night, and while it was advertised as a comedy I felt it fitting more of an overtly masculine Romantic Comedy/Drama. The film, strongly based around Tucker Max's (oftentimes hilarious) fratirical*, self titled website, centres its plot around Max convincing his soon-to-be-married friend Dan and (described as misanthropic) acquaintance Drew to go to Texas to celebrate Dan's bachelorhood. 

Dissimilarly to Max's third officially published book, Hilarity Ensues, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell not only fails to incite comedy, but it even fails ultimately to evoke shock, or at least not in the same way that his first book did. 

The film, essentially borrowing snippets and ideas from previous Tucker Max stories, is really just one hundred minutes of forgettable performances, weak one liners, and horribly scripted character dialogue. The strongest performance seems to come from the man playing Max, and half of this is simply through the pitiful situations he exposed himself to in the name of acting. While this movie wasn't totally bereft of laughter, it certainly left a lot to be desired, and even more so considering the material it was working with. 

Tucker Max's character is portrayed as a smug, self-centred, obnoxious pig. While this may be very true to his character according to Max's own written accounts of his life, the film doesn't do justice to Max's self-imposed situations. Many of the scenes simply see Tucker Max stumbling in, making a fool of himself while spitting out overly scripted one liners, then the rest of the scene shows the looks of disgust and hatred on the faces of the women he was trying to score with while his friend Dan tries his hardest to fix Max's error and Drew stands in the corner of the scene occasionally legitimizing himself as an actor, and that is by acting like he is acting. 

Of all the characters I have ever seen in any film or show, there are only two which I can say genuinely made me disgusted at their presence whenever they entered a scene. The first is the entire cast of the Jersey Shore (as I believe these people to be not quite human and therefore do not qualify as individual characters by themselves), and the second is Drew from this movie. 

Drew's character is portrayed in such a light that he is hard to be believable; unfortunately, this is just as much the actor's fault as it is the writer's, as not only are his occasional one liners hardly believable as improvised threats, but the delivery of such just completely dismisses any idea that this character could be believable in any respect. His presence goes from being the guy insulting everyone, to the guy at the back not saying anything. The little shred of humanity portrayed in Drew's character sets him out to being a severely autistic person with the mind of an eight year old boy, and his antisocial behaviour so obviously juxtaposes Tucker's extrovert nature. 

Of all the characters, the only one anywhere near believable is Dan, and even this is for the wrong reasons. While his scripts all feel wooden and too rehearsed, there is a slight quality that he as an actor possesses which neither of the other two actors seemed to have. Dan, by rights, is the voice of reason and the connection between Tucker Max and Drew, but this doesn't hold in the scenes depicting him getting drunk at the 'legendary' nightclub in Salem, elbowing a stripper while being more or less sexually molested (seriously), and then being assaulted by three strippers and thrown out of the club by security. 

As I touched on earlier, this film was a comedy, but it didn't live to the expectation that it would actually make me laugh. No doubt some scenes were funny, and on the very rare occasion some of the dialogue was funny, but when the opening scene shows Tucker Max having sex with a deaf girl and then being interrupted by a squad of police officers allegedly responding to an animal abuse incident, all pretense of shock, one of the elements sampled heavily in this film, is completely forgotten. The final few scenes, depicting Tucker drinking alone, picking up a girl, both sharing a drink spiked with laxative, and then following him as he tries to find a bathroom in the hotel he is staying at, are used as a plot element to explain Tucker's 'epiphany' (through lack of a better word) and more or less beg for Dan's forgiveness at his wedding reception. Unfortunately these scenes, while slightly disturbing in nature, are so barely tied to his change of heart that it only really serves as a last alternative to this otherwise cliche plot element, and really only works as the straw to break the camels back in terms of storytelling credibility. In fact, it would be like a story ending with the line 'but then he woke up and it was all a dream.' 

The film grossed less than one third of its budget in the Box Office, and Tucker Max himself blames the advertising campaign. The problem with blaming the advertising is that you are more or less blaming everyone who watches the movie, because like it or not, word-of-mouth is still one of the most effective forms of advertising. His film wasn't well received because it just wasn't likable, and despite popular belief it just takes a few people to talk about something for the popularity (or notoriety) of it to grow. I wasn't quite expecting a great movie to begin with, as most of the reviews and opinion of the film were unpleasant to say the least, but I dismissed these on the premise that being a fan of Tucker Max's work, I would enjoy the film he himself helped make. 

*Fratire is a specific form of satire comedy pertaining to a style of writing popularised by Tucker Max and Maddox. The term is a horrible corruption of the words 'fraternity' and 'satire', coined by a New York Times reporter, and Tucker Max has criticised the name of the genre. I use the term sparingly as a respect to Tucker Max while still utilising it as a means of genre classification and description of his works. 

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour Discography!

Something that has been floating around in my head for a while now, sparked from a single-paragraph review of the album Out of Frequency by the Asteroids Galaxy Tour, is the actual album content and my opinion of the two albums released by this band. While I don't have the exact review posted, the essential message of it was to say that Out of Frequency was more or less similar in quality to their 2009 release Fruit, and that it has just as many good songs as Fruit and a comparable number of bad songs.

The crux of my opinion is that I disagree with this, however I'm not entirely sure which way I want to swing, and I can't really say which one is better. A summary of it would probably be along the lines of such;

Out of Frequency builds on the ideas and compositions released on Fruit, however it doesn't best it. This isn't to say that Fruit is a better album, or that Out of Frequency is an inferior album, but that the two albums work on different levels. 

Ultimately, it would be like comparing the Beatles' 1967 release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to Pink Floyd's 1973 release The Dark Side of the Moon. While both were groundbreaking critical successes and both cited by many (arguably) reputable publications among the best albums ever released, neither have enough similar ties to really be evaluated together, or compared against each other.

The amazing thing about this, then, is that the Asteroids Galaxy Tour have managed to release two great albums which cannot best one and other, something rarely achieved by indie, new, and unrecognised bands. While the overall sound is similar, the structures of the albums are incredibly different, and this is exactly what I want to argue is the reason for this difficulty in comparison.

Out of Frequency, at first glance, draws inspiration from psychedelic rock and pop much more prominently than Fruit, however after I became accustomed to both albums it became clear to me that both possess just as significant ties to this particular genre. Out of Frequency, unlike Fruit, is considerably more album-orientated, without ever stepping into the realm of ever being remotely considered a concept album (in comparison, the same can be said of the Beatles' 1966 album Revolver, and Pink Floyd's 1967 album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn). Some of the songs feed off each other, such as the introductory three song phrase comprising a wordless (while not quite instrumental) opening, a two minute follow up (in a completely different key and tempo), and then a longer, more instrument orientated reprise of the first song, and this section, along with others within the album, add to a feeling of continuity and thematic progression. By comparison, the opening three songs of Fruit are standalone songs, none of which link together musically or thematically. Musical and thematic continuity, however, isn't something that should ever add to the quality of an album, as even some of the best albums scarcely utilised (or even fail entirely to utilise) this tool, which for all intents and purposes can be written off as nothing more than a special effect.

The argument that Out of Frequency has 'just as many good songs and just as many bad songs as Fruit’, while is correct by itself, I feel deserves a larger justification.
Technically, Out of Frequency is a much more fluid album with 'higher highs' (Heart Attack, Out of Frequency, and Suburban Space Invader) and 'lower lows' (Mafia, Theme from 45 Eugenia and Ghost in my Head) than Fruit. That is to say that, while Fruit has some great songs, Out of Frequency has some better songs, and while Fruit has some bad songs, Out of Frequency has worse songs. If song quality were to be graphed based on song quality, the two albums would look something like this.

Next is the idea of feel and mood shift within the albums, which Fruit utilises more prevalently. It jumps from poppy, energetic songs such as Push the Envelope, The Golden Age, and Around the Bend, all three of which can be labelled as celebration anthems, to mellow, relaxed, and spaced out songs such as Crazy and Hero. While Out of Frequency attempts this, it falls short due to the trough in song quality experienced in Theme from 45 Eugenia and its prelude, Arrival of the Empress. Its biggest redeeming factor to this otherwise mood-independent album happens when Ghost in my Head, a relatively monotonous song, ends, and Suburban Space Invader (possibly the best non-single song on the album, and my personal favourite) begins. This then sweeps on to Fantasy Friend Forever, a synth and guitar driven mood lifter, which sort of helps to finish off the album before it's really over. When it Comes to Us, while not necessarily a bad song, isn't fitting as the finishing song on the album, and it could easily have been replaced by either of the two songs before it (Suburban Space Invader or Fantasy Friend Forever) to let the album finish on a more whole note (metaphorically). This argument, however, is a minor discrepancy, and the sound of the synthesizer mocking what could be described as the sound of an alien motor slowing down is just as fitting an ending as any alternative, independent of the actual song that it is appended to.

Fruit, conversely, ends on a worse note exactly because of what I just mentioned, and that was song chronology. The final song, Bad Fever, similar to the final song on Out of Frequency, isn't a necessarily bad song, but lacks the thematic closure (or at least musical structure) to be fluently used as the album's closing song. Empirically, this was one of the strongest points for me not really enjoying this album for a long time (and I have had it in my library for close to two years). Every time I listened to Fruit, I would sort of fade out of actually listening to the music as I did other activities, and then when the album finished, the last (and for the first two or so full listens through, only) thing I would remember of it was that Bad Fever worked as a sort of anticlimax to the perceptual rollercoaster I would eventually notice through the rest of the album, arguably culminating in the two songs Sunshine Coolin' and Hero, the two tracks listed before the final song on the album.

I have scrutinised the introductions of both albums, too, and as I touched on previously, the albums divulge at this point. Fruit begins on a low note with Lady Jesus, which although is a great song, doesn’t develop interest until its chorus. Meanwhile, Out of Frequency begins dramatically with its introductory trio, which helped me enjoy the album thoroughly when I first listened to it, as it grabbed my attention immediately, so that by the end of the third song in the introductory trio I hadn't quite dismissed the album to the back of my attention as I focused on other things. Instead, the album became the forefront of my attention by the beginning of the first song's reprise, which then piqued my interest throughout the album, as while there were some poor (and even horrible songs), the peaks (again, as mentioned previously) kept my attention on the album and my interest in the music for its duration.

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour is by no stretch of the imagination a popular band. In their short four years of studio experience, they have enjoyed modest success, being featured in the Heineken advertisement The Entrance, with their single The Golden Age, and Apple's advertisement The Funnest iPod Ever with their song Around the Bend, both songs released on Fruit. That's what makes this sort of a band so great to listen to: if I talk about them with others, no-one recognises their name, but when I show them one of these two songs they become instantly recognisable, putting them in a strange equilibrium of being both internationally famous, while simultaneously being totally unnoticed.

Amazingly, over the last few months my interest in this band has really skyrocketed. While it really took some time to fully appreciate their sound, the more I listened to them the more I started to like, and eventually I became accustomed to the bad songs, making them more familiar and not as poorly-received as the first few times I had listened to them. In fact, this can be said about their entire first album; the first time I listened to the album, with the exception of their two songs I had already heard through advertising (which actually contributed to me getting this album), only one song really took my interest, and this interest was more or less short lived and barely noteworthy. Although the album has flaws, as I grew to recognise their sound (and listen to more of their music) I found myself strangely drawn to more and more songs from this album, something that even critically acclaimed bands such as the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Who have failed to do. They're a classic example of great potential through originality, and I don't even feel dirty or regretful in comparing them (in spirit more than any other) to bands such as the Beatles and Pink Floyd. I have overwhelming doubt about the Asteroids Galaxy Tour commercial and cultural chances of success, and I don't believe that they will ever raise comparison with, or rival, those ground breaking bands that came about successfully through the musical and countercultural innovations that the 50s, the 60s, and even the 70s had to offer. What I do know, however, is that there's a soft spot in my mind and musical library for anything and everything these guys have done and will do, and, as cliche as it is, while being a very low-key band, they have a very legitimate, very sizable opportunity at commercial success; what's more, is in the world we live in today, anything's possible.