Tuesday, 10 June 2014
“Of the Month” June 2014
I know, I know, it’s already the 10th of the month and I’m just NOW doing my “Of the Month” choices. Well, y’know, I’ve been busy with a baby. And Mario Kart. And seeing movies. Y’know. Anyhoo, here we go:
Album of the Month:
Dark Comedy by Open Mike Eagle
This is another one of the reasons why my “Of the Month” choices are so late this month: I was waiting for this album to drop. This is a frikkin’ incredible album, a tour-de-force of Mike’s intellect and wit, with some of the best production and beats behind him of any of his albums. Nerd references abound, and the comedy forms like a doorway of accessibility that leads you down a rabbit hole to some legit darkness in the state of the world. I think maybe I’ll have to write a full article about this album (you know, in all of my spare time) to do it justice. Pretty durned spectacular.
Here’s one of my favorite tracks, featuring comedian Hannibal Buress:
Video Game of the Month:
Mario Kart 8
It’s another Mario Kart. You do know that the Mario Kart series of games is my all-time favorite series of games, just barely beating out classic Mega Man and the Legend of Zelda games, right? Well, this one is no different. It’s got some added items and features, like the whole anti-gravity feature (that reminded me a bit of F-Zero X), and there are some interesting changes like the fact that you can’t “chamber” an item by holding it behind you and then pick up another item. Nope, you can only ever hold one item at a time (unless the item itself is multiple, like triple-shells). Also the coin system from the very first Mario Kart makes a fascinating return! But really the star of this Mario Kart is the gorgeous HD visuals. If you ever get the chance to watch someone else play (or watch a video of gameplay), just look at all the stuff going on in the backgrounds and on the periphery of the action. It’s just stunning.
And speaking of gameplay videos, this Mario Kart lets you upload highlight reels to YouTube. Uh-oh, you’re all in trouble now. Here’s me as Baby Rosalina kicking some ass:
Music Video of the Month:
Tesla by They Might be Giants
A rather gentle and unassuming song from TMBG about Tesla and his many contributions to the world has been taken by designer Paul Sahre (a frequent collaborator TMBG’s) and made not into just one video, but NINE videos. Sahre made 8 remixes of the song, then created a video for each of them plus the original song. They’re all strung together into over 20 minutes of glorious, hypnotic, funny, grainy, black-and-white goodness. Don’t believe me? Silly fools! Just watch for yourself:
Categories: Of the Month.
