End of Year/Decade Music Lists 2019

I'm always a bit hesitant to post about music here. I feel like I just don't quite have the vocabulary to really analyze it or fully express my thoughts on it. Emboldened a little, I guess, by my recent album cover art post though, I thought I'd at least share my end-of-year (and decade) top 10s and playlists. Sure it's May, but hey, what else are any of us doing right now?

Here's to better times.

Top 10 Albums of the 2010s



1. Alvvays - Alvvays (2014)
2. Partner - In Search of Lost Time (2017)
3. Weakened Friends - Common Blah (2018)
4. Florence + The Machine - Ceremonials (2011)
5. LP - Lost on You (2016)



6. Charly Bliss - Guppy (2017)
7. CHVRCHES - Every Open Eye (2016)
8. AURORA - All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend (2016)
9. Cathy Davy - The Nameless (2010)
10. Goldfrapp - Head First (2010)



Not sure what Spotify non-users will be able to do with this, if anything, but here's a playlist I made back in December. Fully expecting every other end-of-decade list to ignore everything I enjoyed over the last 10 years, I put together a 100-track list charting my own, sort of, musical journey through the decade.

Top 10 Albums of 2019



1. Charly Bliss - Young Enough
2. AURORA - A Different Kind Of Human – Step 2
3. Tallies - Tallies
4. Miss June - Bad Luck Party
5. Calva Louise - Rhinoceros



6. Sigrid - Sucker Punch
7. Sir BabyGirl - Crush on Me: BICONIC Edition
8. The Chemical Brothers - No Geography
9. Billie Eilish - When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
10. The Wild Reeds - Cheers

Top 10 Pre-2019 Albums Discovered in 2019



1. Miya Folick - Premonitions (2018)
2. Speedy Ortiz - Twerp Verse (2018)
3. Various Artists - The Very Best of Euphoric Disco Breakdown (2004)
4. No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom (1995)
5. Surfbort - Friendship Music (2018)



6. Night Flowers - Wild Notion (2018)
7. Bikini Kill - The Singles (1998)
8. Selena - Dreaming of You (1995)
9. Estrons - You Say I'm Too Much, I Say You're Not Enough (2018)
10. Kitten - Kitten (2014)



As interesting as Spotify's own end-of-year wrap-up can be, for me it's always wildly divergent from what I've actually spent the year listening to, so for the past couple, I've been making my own playlists. If someone issued an official soundtrack to my 2019 (and they should) this would be the tracklist.

Obscure Cover Art-palooza 2020

I don't know about you guys, but there's something about building a new PC that makes me want everything on it to be tidy and clean and fresh: something that's had me side-eyeing the disaster area that was my music collection on several occasions, wondering if this was the time I finally tackled it: tidied everything up, fixed all the broken tags, and, most crucially, got hold of decent cover art for everything.

Well, having starting right after I built my current PC in 2018, only now have I finally finished doing exactly that. The stumbling block that made the whole process take so long: unsurprisingly the lack of good cover art for a large chunk of the VA compilations I've ripped over the years. With the only art available in many cases being some dark, crooked 200x200px photo someone took of the album in 2005, my only option was to scan, clean up and color correct everything myself. Yikes!

While I'm really happy with the end result, with over 90 compilations to take care of, this was definitely no small task. So, in the hopes of maybe saving some other obsessive, oddball music fans some time, I went ahead and uploaded the fruits of my labors. Let's take a look.

So, these are all imgur galleries that you can click into and download the art from in JPEG form, but for all my PNG aficionados out there, I've also put up a zip file with all of this cover art in PNG format. (Well, I say all of it. There were a small number I forgot to save as PNGs that are in there as JPEGs, so, you know, exercise caution.) You can download that here:

high-res cover scans.zip (403 MB)

Okay, to the galleries!

Hits Series High-res Scans

So, first up we have 23 entries in the Hits series - a longtime rival to the UK's Now That's What I Call Music that, despite numerous confusing relaunches, never quite managed to surpass it. Seriously, deciphering the chronology of this series makes the Wonder Boy lineage look like a walk in the park.

(For the purposes of Google searchability) The cover art here includes (and this is, I think, in chronological order): The Hits Album 7, The Hits Album 10, Snap it Up: Monster Hits 2, Hits 96, New Hits 96, Fresh Hits 96, Huge Hits 1996, Hits 97, New Hits 1997, Fresh Hits 1997, Huge Hits 1997, Big Hits, New Hits 98, Fresh Hits 98, Big Hits 98, Huge Hits 1998, Hits 99, New Hits 99, Fresh Hits 99, Big Hits 99, Huge Hits 99, Huge Hits 2000 and Christmas Hits (2007).

Shine Series High-Res Cover Art

Blissfully more straightforward is Telstar TV's Shine series which ran from 1995 to 1998, featuring the best, and, oh boy, the rest of the Britpop era, as well as branching into some alternative US stuff here and there. Not a bad little set of CDs, and always useful to be reminded that for every Pulp or Elastica there were at least two or three Menswears.

The cover art here includes Shine (1995), Shine Too (1995), Shine 3 (1995), Shine Four (1996), Shine 5 (1996), Shine 6 (1996), Shine 7 (1996), Shine 8 (1997), Shine 9 (1997), Shine: The Best of 97 and Shine 10 (1998)

The Album (Virgin)

The Album - a follow-up series of sorts to Virgin's The Best Album in the World ...Ever! series, which was their Shine equivalent as far as I can tell, this ran from 2001 to 2005. I think these albums encapsulate that start-of-the-00's post-Britpop era in UK rock music quite well: lots of downer-ey, middle-of-the-road dad rock from some real second-rate bands, with only the very occasional exception.

But they do also have the little rays of light that made listening to the radio at the time slightly more bearable (And boy, did I do a lot of that back then: this was prime homework-doing time for me.) from a resurgent Ash; to a revival in garage rock in the US and Europe; to innovative, interesting electronic music; even a little hip hop here and there.

Even so, listening to rock radio was still mostly a test of endurance back then: one, I guess, I do have some nostalgia for though. I don't know what's wrong with me. :D

DeviantArt Catch-up 29/02/20

I think it’s the combination of the lame, edgelordy idea here and the sheer amount of effort I’ve put into it over the last 2 (!!) years that make me feel a bit embarrassed to be finally posting this, but hey, if not now, when?



“Uh, what?”, you ask. Well, gentle DA enthusiast, this is collection of graphics from my ancient, original web site. It may have only lasted three years, but during that time it went through, well, probably not as many pointless revisions as any current piece of popular software, but definitely getting there.

Given the amount of work I poured into this generally pointless endeavor, I’ve been trying for a while to smoosh all these designs together into a single image. For posterity’s sake, I guess. Eventually, I came up with the idea of each redesign being like a a poster, that when torn would reveal the next redesign underneath. The logic of that gets a bit wobbly towards the bottom, but overall, I think it turned out okay.

For the adventurous out there, the web site in question is still preserved, fairly comprehensively, on archive.org. I really wouldn’t bother though.

Check out more on deviantart.com/jilik.

Return of the Fluffies

I don't know if its apparent by now, but I was kind of a strange kid. :D Sure, I had other toys, but when it was time to play, that play gravitated not around guns or cars, but instead around the collection of soft toys my brother and I had amassed over the years. This involved attributing names and personalities to a bunch of teddies, and eventually voices, as this activity finally culminated in afternoon-spanning 'TV broadcasts' that were just a tinch inspired by seeing Muppets Tonight on TV.

As much as I wish that there was footage of, what I seem to remember being called Fluffy TV, sadly all I have left is hazy memories of it at this point. The titular Fluffies themselves do still survive though. During a tidy-up of my parents' attic a few years ago, I smuggled them out. And, even though I don't really remember the specifics of each one at this point, I thought it'd be fun to take a look at them anyway.

Let's meet the Fluffies!



Now these guys, I do remember. Here we have Dada Fluffy on the left and Mama Fluffy on the right. So, obviously, they're both the same monkey toy. My brother and I both got one as very young children.



I'm guessing he wasn't old enough to play with his at the time, but I made full use of mine, sleeping on it all the time, and thus transforming it into the dumpy-looking Dada Fluffy: a kind of beaten-down, grumpy patriarch over the whole Fluffy clan, if memory serves.



Mama Fluffy I remember as being a nicer, but also kind of naggy figure. So you know, strong female characters on Fluffy TV.



These two though I don't remember the specifics of at all. The blue bear on the right would have been a slightly more recent addition to the cast than most here. I suspect it came from a gift shop at some point. The little panda on the left though was one of the OG Fluffies though. I remember having him even as a tiny kid.



I can only speculate that his name was some riff on 'panda' given his shirt here: monogrammed by me, I'm sure. You know, the more I look at him in that shirt though, the more he looks kind of like a movie mafioso here. If was doing a gritty Zack Snyder reboot, he'd definitely be some kind of mob boss this time.



Just look at that cold-ass motherfucker.

Clearoutageddon VII: Clutterpocalypse

Oh my goodness! Even by my, uh.. impressive track record, I'm not sure I've ever been this quiet online for this long. Yikes though, between sifting through mountains of paperwork, keeping my garden ticking over, a giant cleanup operation and finally Christmas, I've barley had the energy for coherent thought for a good chunk of the last year. :D Lots of collapsing in front of the TV to watch superhero shows though. (Black Lightning and Titans: highly recommended.)



So, that cleanup: well, it started off simply enough with this little shed. I really wanted to get all the clutter out so I'd have a bit more storage space for tools and stuff. Then, in a highly uncharacteristic display of me taking things a bit too far, that quickly escalated into removing every bit of scrap metal, moldy wood and broken and/or useless junk from my dad's old farm.



About 64 cubic yards of garbage! This is about 20. Some pretty tough work, but it's great to finally be able to move around without constantly stepping over trash. I mean, I going to miss the thrill of possibly contracting tetanus at every step, but still, it's good.

Nintendo Direct: E3 2019 - Not-so-live Impressions

Wow, remember when these things being two weeks late was the norm? 'Cause I barley do. :D So anyway, sometime - aeons ago, I think - E3 2019 happened. By all accounts a bit of a lackluster show this year. Sure we had Keanu and a few interesting reveals here and there, but also a ton of updates to previously released Games as a Service games, a real resurgence of (terrible-looking) mobile games and a near total lack information on Microsoft's streaming service and next console. Well aside from 'it'll have Halo on it'. Man, who could have seen that coming?

So, I was really looking to Nintendo's showing to, well, save E3, I guess. (Oh wow, am I one of those people now? Yikes!) But, with Luigi's Mansion 3, Link's Awakening, Mario Maker 2, Pokémon Sword & Shield, Animal Crossing, Astral Chain, and more already announced, coming soon, and sure to pop up here, what else could they possibly pull out here in service of E3's salvation?

Predictions!!!

- A New Zelda - The case against this is obviously the the presence of both the LA remake and Cadence of Hyrule on the horizon right now, but don't forget that BoTW was announced unexpectedly early too, and they should probably have something to show of the next game at this stage. I think we'll at least get a glimpse of it here.

- No Metroid Prime 4 - I'm sure they really regret announcing MP4 when they did, given what happened. I'll bet we don't see it again until it's a year out from release at most, and they're very confident they can actually hit that date.

- Some Square-Enix Western Announcements - S-E seem pretty on board with the Switch right now; haven't seen too much from the western side of the company yet though. I could definitely see the likes of Life is Strange, Sleeping Dogs, the 360/PS3 era Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Just Cause games, and the S-E Collective stuff hitting the Switch in the not-too-distant future.

- No Bayonetta 3 Either - I saw, I think on Nintendo-Life, a recent statement from Platnium that development was 'proceeding well' or something along those lines. I get the sense from that that we're not due to see anything at least for a while yet.

- The Smash Character is from Dark Souls - So I'm sticking with my prediction that the DLC characters are all going to be third party characters that I'm not going to care about in the slightest. There was a rumor going around that the Dragon Quest character has been delayed, so I'm going with Dark Souls. We've already had the first game remastered on Switch, and an amiibo, and you could easily see this being tied into an announcement of Dark Souls II and III being Switch bound too.

- Fatal Frame - Still no sign of a Fatal Frame announcement for Switch, and I doubt Nintendo are done with it yet, especially given how much RE has bounced back with the last couple of installments. If there's going to be a Switch release, I'd imagine it'll be revealed soon.

- No Project X-Cloud Stuff - Yeah, judging by Microsoft's conference, their streaming stuff isn't quite ready for prime time yet. People have been expecting Xbox streaming to come to the Switch for months now. I think there's a pretty good chance it will, but I don't think it'll be announced here.

- A Ninja Gaiden Remaster/Remake - The 2004 one has never been on a Nintendo console, and I can see a portable version generating some interest, especially with there being a bit of an opening in the Switch library for character action games given Bayo 3's continued absence.

- Hitman 2 - If it's technically possible, I think there's a pretty good chance of this. Doesn't feel like Hitman 2 quite did the same business as the previous game. I can see it going portability as quite an attractive prospect for a lot of people though. It could be a big hit on Switch.

Huh. So yeah, in conclusion I guess E3 this year is pretty much doomed. :D

• 00:02 - Hmm. Always interesting to see the rating on these things. What could possibly be 18 rated coming up?.... Oh! Could just be the two id games. Both do look awesome, but man, I had my hopes up for a second for Bayonetta.

• 00:06 - Focusing prominently on Breath of the Wild here. Liking my chances of getting that first prediction right.

• 00:29 - Oh, come on!! I got very excited until I saw freakin' Marth here. :D Guess this is the new Smash character. Well, certainly looks grimdark enough for a Souls character.

• 00:47 - Hm, someone on horseback? Are there horses in the Souls games? Big expert here. Maybe this is the Dragon Quest guy.

• 01:18 - And there it is. Bleah! Or, idk, maybe he's a really cool character. Looking at him though, I don't really see any way that could possibly be true. :p

• 02:19 - Guessing these guys are probably the main characters from other Dragon Quest games. My Souls knowledge is only matched by my Dragon Quest knowledge.

• 03:01 - Oh, come on, Toriyama. That guy on the left is just Piccolo.
• 03:09 - So, from this, it looks like "The Hero" move set might be largely menu-based. That'd be weird. Also, you can maybe tag in other versions of the character, Pokemon Trainer style. Kind of different, but I just have no knowledge of Dragon Quest, so yeah, this is another pass for me. Feeling pretty good about not buying the Fighter's Pass right about now.

• 03:35 - I thought I was "The Hero". Jeez, make up your minds, Square-Enix.

• 04:45 - Oh snap! Guessing we're about to meet Doug Bowser.

• 05:15 - Okay, this is pretty cute.

• 05:32 - Oh, 'related'. Wow, I thought that said something very different for a second there.

• 06:12 - Okay, Luigi's Mansion 3. Really hoping this is a bit more like 1 than 2, or at least that it has freakin' checkpoints before it's very annoying bosses. (Literally just back playing some Luigi's Mansion 2 today. Thought 'man, why haven't I finished this?'. Got to the boss in Stage C-2. Annihilated by bombs and ghosts. Twenty minutes playing through the stage completely wasted. 'Oh right, that's why.')
• 06:42 - Ah, just like I deduced from that first trailer, this is set in a single location. I just hope the mission structure from 2 is gone and we're back to more open exploration in this.

• 07:31 - I was starting to get worried that all this swinging around meant motion controls, but with the button prompts showing up on screen, could it be QTE-based? Wow, that'd be way worse! :D
• 07:35 - Okay, it looks like the swing is on A every time. Luigi's Mansion not about to go full Shenmue just yet.

• 08:07 - Gooigi is an abomination, and must be stopped.

• 08:33 - Return to the abyss from which you came, Gooigi!

Archive Raiding: Art Scans Batch #5

Oh, we're not done yet; not by a long shot. This time we're starting off with another unused design for the graphic design part of the project: one that I actually already covered here back in 2009, so let's see if I had anything insightful to say:

An earlier design of the book cover I did for graphic design part of the project. It's a flower with each petal depicting a summer scene. I like the flower idea, but the mostly solid blue background is a bit overpowering. While the final design wasn't very original, I think the front cover looks a lot better than this one.

Yeah, so not really. :D I think I was a bit harsh on this though. This is a solid concept; I think it could have made for a more creative piece of work than what I ended up with if I just developed it a bit more. That choice of lettering here though is WILD for the cover of presumably some kind of nature book.

(Plus, and I kind of hate to be gardensplaining here again, but daffodils: famously not associated with summer. And they're all over my final project stuff! I guess though, to be fair, the theme of the project was Summer Memories, not Accurate Summer Memories, so eh.)




And yet more reposts! Fans of my DeviantArt (i.e. literally nobody) will recognize these from a collage I made in 2006 featuring these, the butterfly below, and a random mushroom. Very much appreciate the fave, tinyqueen007.

It's kind of a shame I didn't go on to use any of these designs in the final project work. I think they would have looked great on the batik I made. Well, maybe not the one on the left: it's a bit wonky, though I do appreciate the detail of it being perched on top of a flower here.

This one I think would have looked especially cool. Look at that rad-ass butterfly; it can't even be contained by pencil lines!