Frank Kogan

Labor of Gub (Greetings from the lj/Dreamwidth salt mines)

Fri, 11 Mar 2022 21:06:04 GMT

Not cross-posting this to my LiveJournal, obviously.

For those of you wondering if I've been hiding out in a cave these last few days, that answer is No, I've been digging down in the salt mines.

I migrated my old LiveJournal content to Dreamwidth in 2017 (Another Way To Call A Cat A Kitten), while keeping my lj too, and cross-posting from Dreamwidth to lj. I checked after the migration and it looked like the videos embedded in my old lj weren't embedding in the Dreamwidth version. Oh well, got to take care of this sometime (if anyone'll even be reading in the Dreamwidth archives). Then in 2019 I was looking to update a bunch of Dottie West videos that had gone missing on the old lj posts, and in doing this I noticed something really weird: On my Dreamwidth, where the Dottie West videos should have been were other videos, the wrong videos; videos I had indeed uploaded, but recently, elsewhere on Dreamwidth. And I looked around the old Dreamwidth posts and discovered this a lot: wrong videos where correct ones should have been. Anyway, after jumping into fixing these for a few days (putting the correct vids back up on the material Dreamwidth had imported), I decided I had a life to live instead, and I would get to Dreamwidth repair in due time: it didn't look so bad, only a big mess around 2010 to 2012 and I knew I'd been embedding fewer vids earlier. So, I'd come back to it later.

Well, now it's later, for reasons of Russia invading the Ukraine and clamping down on independent media. LiveJournal was bought by Russians in the '00s, and so lj is subject to Russian law, a reason so many of us migrated our LiveJournals in the first place. My fear is that the Russian gov't will simply shut down LiveJournal, and there have been rumors reported on Dreamwidth that, if not killing lj, the Russian gov't would essentially shut the Internet to foreigners, so my journal would still be killed. And the lj is where you can find huge hulks of my thinking and writing esp. 2008-2015 or so. And of course it is therefore preserved on Dreamwidth too but in very weird form, since so much is my commenting on music, embedding what I was commenting on, and so forth.

And the mess is way bigger than I'd supposed: the Dreamwidth software is grinding away still, and putting new stuff in place of old, as well as new old stuff (i.e., stuff I'd just fixed in the archives will show up a day later elsewhere in the archives too), etc. Basically, every embed prior to Feb. 2017 is either a message saying "Invalid Embed" (about a third of them, and this isn't so bad, at least it's not the wrong video), or the text is about a Filipino talent show contestant neighing like a horse, but the video is Javiera Mena, or I'm writing about CL of 2NE1 but here's MC Teteu, or where Cassie had been is now NCT 127's "Fire Truck". Now I suppose, confronted with a post in which Alessandro Leipold, formerly of the IMF, is saying that Europe has become incapacitated in the face of the bond crisis [this was 8 days before Draghi rode to the rescue], and where his talking head is supposed to be we see Badkiz vanquishing lollipop thugs instead, a generous observer might decide that I'm a mad genius. But they're more likely to think I'm an idiot. And anyway Badkiz might be replaced in turn by DJ Guuga celebrating the moment he embraced her. ("Fucking smoke and you for me on all fours.")

So basically I'm going through Dreamwidth and looking for all the wrong videos and replacing them with the right ones – once I've put my own embed into Dreamwidth that should take care of it, and it won't be subject to be replaced. At least, I hope this is true and if it's not then I'm really out of luck.*

And THEN, WHEN I'M DONE WITH THAT, I'll need to go through Dreamwidth 2006 --> 2017 looking to insert the correct code where Dreamwidth says "Invalid Embed," replacing deleted videos and deleted photos from ImageShack and photos that Photobucket keeps threatening to delete when they delete my account, etc.; that's obviously less urgent but still will be much harder to do if/when Russia kills LiveJournal. You see, the way I find what the correct video is supposed to be is by going into the LiveJournal, clicking edit, finding the original embed codes, and figuring out from those codes what the correct video is. (Many of the old videos are no longer functioning on my LiveJournal either, because they used the dreaded Shockwave Flash which no one accepts anymore. So I can't simply go back and look at my lj and see what videos are there. So I have to go into the code.) And yes, I have downloaded my old lj posts, but the downloads are not in the chronological order they were originally posted, and it's much harder to discern the embed code I need by going into the actual thickets of a download's source code than by just hitting edit on a functioning LiveJournal.

This, I concede, is better than being bombarded by artillery, or living in a refugee camp. It's even better than doing my taxes, which is what I should've been doing this week. Which I'll have to do next week.

Badkiz subdue the lollipop thugs

Watch me whip, watch me neigh neigh

*[UPDATE: Denise of Dreamwidth very kindly explained this to me. Basically, for security reasons their importer can't use the embed codes that I'd plugged into LiveJournal, so in essence Dreamwidth's software is matching the number on the LJ-embed tag with the embed tag number on a different, Dreamwidth video and inserting that video. And there's no overall fix that can be applied, so the only solution is to do what I'm doing, which is to replace every single video manually.]

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Tonight The Ballot Let Me Down (Resurrection and Correction)

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 15:30:59 GMT

I talked Ashton Shepherd's "Whiskey Won The Battle" out of obscurity and into Tom Ewing's World Cup Of 2008 competition coming up in March, and have already prepared my spontaneous retort for when the song gets eliminated early on:

"Tonight the ballot let me down!"

The regular question - what REALLY obvious/huge 2008 things are we missing?
— The World Cup Of Opening Tracks (@peoples_pop) February 17, 2021

Just tacked a terrific country, er, album track onto the end of the Suggestions Box; can't say the song was a big thing or groundbreaking ("Whiskey Won The Battle" by Ashton Shepherd, but you can guess what won the war), but the dearth of country here is always embarrassing.
— Frank Kogan (@koganbot) February 17, 2021

I'd pretty much forgotten Ashton till yesterday when I looked up my Nashville Scene country critics ballot for 2008:

Ashton Shepherd sounds like a caricature of country music, a twang as wide as rivers are deep, no heart left unwrenched, no string untugged, the result being uncannily gleeful and exuberant; then at the end, "Whiskey Won The Battle" — as clichéd as the rest — is a gutkick of total conviction. Country song of the year, except maybe for Willie Nelson's "The Bob Song," a cover of some old Big & Rich fanpack folderol about a guy sitting in his tree taking the piss out of everything he sees, or something, Willie turning it into utter beauty.

I've actually already used the ballot-let-me-down gag, not regarding 2008 but 2011: is a play on words on Merle Haggard's "The Bottle Let Me Down," from 1966, which Ashton Shepherd is referencing and riffing on in "Whiskey Won The Battle." "The Bottle Let Me Down" was covered by LeAnn Rimes in 2011, so when I included her in my nonsingles list I used the headline "Tonight The Ballot Let Me Down." Here we are:

Tonight The Ballot Let Me Down (February 11, 2012)

Anyhow, if you read down the commentary for that list, you'll see that the ballot's fine but that my memory let me down. Recall this from last month's philosophical disquisition:

And my favorite of Hyuna's live TV versions of "Just Follow" featuring Zico (as opposed to the EP track which featured Dok2 who wrote it) made my singles list for 2011 (iirc) but is on my Top 5 Nonsingles Of The 2010s 'cause that's where there was room for it (I've not gotten around to posting here about that list but here's the playlist).

As it happens, not only did I not recall correctly, but I'd also forgotten my lengthy spiel on the very subject of why I was putting Hyuna's live-on-television "Just Follow" on my nonsingles list rather than my singles list:

"So, why does your webrip of a live Dia Frampton performance get classified as a single, but your webrip of a live HyunA performance get classified as a nonsingle?" 'Cause Dia Frampton's "Heartless" was on The Voice, which is an American Idol–type talent show, and for those shows the live performances are what everyone cares about. The popular ones tend to have a singles-like impact. Whereas the HyunA performance was just a live TV clip designed to promote her and her album. If that clip had gotten massive YouTube views I'd probably have counted it as a single. (I chose that performance rather than the album version, 'cause (obviously) I think it's better; also, it was significantly different, having Zico rather than DOK2 in the "featuring" spot.) The real question might be why didn't I discount the live "Heartless" in favor of the quickie studio version that was available for download and actually charted in the Hot 100 and made it to something like 27 on iTunes (Wikip and Google aren't giving me a consistent number for the latter)? The answer here again is that it's the live version that everyone cares about, and the live version is significantly better. Over the years I've put six talent-show clips on my singles list, the other five being Jordin Sparks' "I Who Have Nothing,"* Brooke White's "Love Is A Battlefield,"* Adam Lambert's "Mad World," Didi Benami's "Rhiannon," and Didi Benami's "Play With Fire," all from American Idol. I chose the live version for four of those five, "Mad World" being the only exception. I don't draw any conclusion from that about live talent show performances being generally better than the corresponding studio quickies, since I don't even bother with the studio version unless the live version is extraordinary. So if a live version is extraordinary I'll listen to the studio version, but if the studio version is extraordinary I won't even hear it unless the live version is extraordinary too.

*Hmmm. Apparently I didn't list "I Who Have Nothing" at all in 2007, and, though in 2008 I did list "Love Is A Battlefield," I put it on my songs list but not on my singles list, deciding I suppose that it was not a single.

LeAnn Rimes "The Bottle Let Me Down"

Dia Frampton "Heartless"

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ADMIN: A Philosophical Disquisition: What's A Single? incl. links to Chuck's Best Singles Of 2020

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 13:13:56 GMT

Here courtesy me are two new YouTube playlists:

Chuck Eddy's 11 Best Singles Of 2020

Chuck Eddy's Best Singles 2020 Numbers 12 To 33 alphabetical by artist

And Chuck's writeup of same.

And here's a provisional list of my Top 8 Nonsingles for 2020:

Top nonsingles tracks
1. Semi Tee "Reverse"
2. Die Antwoord ft Bukhulubakhe, Gqwa! "Zonke Bonke"
3. AZ "Hustla"
4. AZ "True"
5. Kabza De Small ft. Kelvin Momo & Mhaw Keys "Lala Ngoxolo"
6. Ashley McBryde "Shut Up Sheila"
7. MC Dricka "Empurra Empurra 2"
8. Arre! Arre! "Last Night
— Frank Kogan (@koganbot) January 2, 2021

And here's a revised provisional list of my Top 8 Nonsingles for 2020 as of 1/1/21 that wedges in some baile funk:

Well, not anymore. As of 1/1/21:

1. DJ Guuga "Aquele Momento"
2. AZ "Hustla"
3. MC Daninho & MC Teteu "Batendo O Bundão No Chão Dim Dim Dom"
4. DJ Guuga & MC Pierre "Japão"
5. Arre! Arre! "Last Night"
6. AZ "True"
7. Semi Tee "Reverse"
8. Ashley McBryde "Shut Up Sheila"
— Frank Kogan (@koganbot) January 2, 2021

As you can see, I still distinguish between singles and nonsingles, the latter being album tracks and other tracks that I decide are not singles, and someday I'm going to create a philosophical admin post where I explain what a single is. Okay, here it is: a single is something that acts like a single in some way, say the artist or record company says "here's the new single" or creates an actual video for it as opposed to a mere live video, lyric video, or audio video except those can also be considered "singles" by me if they get enough streams or if the artist etc. has already said "this is my new single" or if it's a talent show performance that a lot of people got excited about; also if an act just creates a knockoff that he/she/they posts somewhere themselves, that IS nonetheless a single because it's singular enough no matter if it only gets a few streams, but if the artist is taking the same basic track and redoing it every week for twenty-one weeks with a different singer or different mix and title (I'm thinking of you, DJ Will DF) those are not singles though one could become a single by getting a lot of streams; but a track is a single if it's a radio hit or streaming hit no matter what the artist or label intended, also is a hit if some big enough communities act like it's a hit or make it a big subject of attention, so Sault's "Wildfires" is a single, as back in the day were Jay-Z's "Takeover" and the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil"** and Led Zeppelin's full-length "Stairway To Heaven" even though there'd been no physical single or official designation as a "single." For what it's worth, I've got Semi Tee's "Scooter" on my Nonsingles list (so far), though Chuck's got it on his singles list.* And my favorite of Hyuna's live TV versions of "Just Follow" featuring Zico (as opposed to the EP track which featured Dok2 who wrote it) made my singles list for 2011 (iirc) but is on my Top 5 Nonsingles Of The 2010s 'cause that's where there was room for it (I've not gotten around to posting here about that list but here's the playlist). Btw Qri, the member of T-ara I never paid attention to, managed to get two solo shots on that list!

*[UPDATE: Chuck tells me that "Scooter" is on neither of Semi Tee's albums and was uploaded as a stand-alone single on Rhapsody/Napster in May of 2020. That does seem definitive, though there’s no vid and not a lot of streams; approx 50,000 on Spotify and fewer on YouTube. But several people have posted videos of themselves dancing to it, PLUS there’s a Chipmunks version, which are both single-y type behavior on the song’s behalf; so I guess I'll move it over to my singles list. I mean, a Chipmunks version would seem to decide the question once and for all in favor of its being a single! (Interestingly, it was uploaded all the way back last January.)]

**[CORRECTION: Damn, I should've checked this. There actually was a physical single for "Sympathy For The Devil," though I can't tell from Wikip if it was ever released in America: the song got no AM airplay or chart action; it was played to death on FM back when FM still had few listeners. I wouldn't be surprised if all the sales went to the album. But anyway, there was no physical single for "Gimme Shelter" and I'd sure count that as a single.]

Oh, and I haven't decided what to do about TikTok which I haven't paid much attention to though if something's a hit there it's surely a single but then you have to figure out which version to link as the "single," but anyway I've got on my 2020 singles list someone's YouTube compilation of a bunch of TikTok kids lipsyncing the same fragment from Life Without Buildings, because linking them all together creates an amazing repetitive track in itself, sorta like Baauer's great "Harlem Shake." (Also, check out the latest version of my Ongoing Singles list for 2020; new additions towards the bottom which I'll eventually distribute upward.)

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