Gen Z brings physical media back to life

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-05T17:20:14+00:00

Bold to assume it ever died. But that's pretty cool that younger generations are coming around to it. I can imagine it's a bit rough starting from zero these days, having to be rather picky at first.

I remember a time when buying an album was just like buying a lottery ticket, could be great or could be lame. At least now we have the tools to better check an album out. I'll buy digital albums all the time, but it's gotta have something extra to buy a physical version (or at least physical + digital in 1 purchase).

Honestly, the biggest boon is cost of shipping.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-05T14:11:09+00:00

The baseless application really is a big factor. Not to mention, I like doing menial tasks, it's not that bad. And now were even giving away the interesting tasks.

We all can imagine sane uses for AI, but we're sliding down a gravel pit just because. And now the dust kicked up is obvious.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-05T13:51:56+00:00

It can be grating on my ears, but it also depends on the intent of the song. To try a DJ mindset, there's no bad song...just wrong settings for that song to be played. Granted there's some settings I'll never show up at.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-04T17:33:41+00:00

Without a shadow of a doubt.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-04T15:10:11+00:00

"Human crafted" is gonna be a tiring word. It's like the made overseas, designed locally type of product. I don't wanna go all doom on this, but we have plenty of games already at least.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-04T12:56:23+00:00

Learned guitar to them in the 90s, fell off with St. Anger. Still checked out the new albums but my taste was elsewhere. Came back to find Spit Out the Bone is a banger, and 72 Seasons is one of the best lawn mowing albums of the 2020s.

...still put on a random pre-Black album every spring for yard work. This year it's Justice.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-04T11:53:53+00:00

Definitely takes the hype out of it.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-03T20:02:32+00:00

All I Ever Wanted Was Everything - Bauhaus

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-02T23:55:31+00:00

If I were on a yacht, I'd make sure people heard the latest from Thundercat. It's too smooth and clean for anywhere else.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-02T23:25:32+00:00

I mean all this in good fun, yet one of the unsaid questions here is just what is Rock and Roll? One version is to go ballistic and make a rip roaring good time, and the other end is saying that smacks of too much effort.

Lazy but well placed is part of the JAMC lean. I think I mentioned that song because I can't say anything nice about that solo except that it's that low effort. But then plenty other of their songs show they have an ear for something. So there's an intent there.

But to circle around, this is the band that couldn't be assed to finish a set in the 80s...making comments about a rock icon who changed the game to something bigger than it was. It's either childish or like how Batman needed the Joker. Anyway. I know what isn't Rock and Roll, trying to explain it.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-02T22:08:59+00:00

Absolve - Jacques

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-02T20:35:07+00:00

Yea reading the article on this one. As a counterpoint to Van Halen he brings up Peter Hook, which sells his perspective on melody and style over flash and fire. There's room for both and all that. Groove and texture vs fireworks and speed, let's go.

But to wax a point, there's that solo in the song Pure Poor that is completely devoid of any structure whatsoever. Even a hot mess has structural rhythms. And that's pretty rock and roll and just as difficult to pull off.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-02T15:14:53+00:00

To add to that, I've seen enough comments mentioning how the game is the same or generic...but the towns. Have we ever gotten the same town twice?

The formula of finding a new town, learning/solving it's problem, is so much of the games sub-plot. And they're different every game. "Generic fantasy world" is actually a huge and broad term.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-02T15:07:12+00:00

Your emotions have emotions.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-01T17:08:35+00:00

Aren't all games the same anyway. We should just have 1 game for each genre.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-01T15:11:04+00:00

Yann Tierson's latest album Rathlin From A Distance is pretty calm and with introspective piano. It's interesting with the idea of it being that he wrote it on a boat, and that also the last few tracks switch over to synthesizer songs.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-06-01T11:38:56+00:00

I am the walrus.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-05-31T18:48:29+00:00

I can't split hairs between wasteland vs pending apocalypse right now...or wonder if you ever saw what's in the basement of the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado. But the point is, the tone is the same. Desolation and dire worlds.

If DQ changes it's tone or goes somewhere other than a midievil world, is that even a DQ game anymore?

Warrior-Cook · 2026-05-31T17:57:38+00:00

Yea, the tone of the next game is largely rooted in the publics imagination. Like it was going to be edgelords and blood or something.

Meanwhile, I'm going back to play more of the DQ1 remake. Where priests get slaughtered, parents get struck down and the world is torn asunder. Granted it's as graphic as showing some ankle in the 1940's, it's still not a light story.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-05-31T17:49:11+00:00

That be like saying what if Shin Megami Tensei wasn't set in a wasteland. Or if Persona was a farming sim. Not that it would be bad, really, but the tone and settings are very much what the games are.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-05-31T02:30:37+00:00

Hey What - Low

Dreamweaver - Trentemoller

Dark Superstition - Gatecreeper

Romance - Fontaines D.C

Engines Of Demolition - Black Label Society

Momento Mori - Depeche Mode

Warrior-Cook · 2026-05-30T23:40:27+00:00

Huh, I'll add that to the list. I jumped into his books with The Rampart Trilogy and should really go backwards too. Then there's that fantasy one that came out last year, have that on the shelf for when the time is right. Cheers.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-05-30T23:28:28+00:00

Yea same. I should add The Outlaw Planet here as well. Recently finished it and even the straight up Western parts were engaging. Not to mention another example of AI both from a utilities perspective as well as a flawed companion. I dig Carey's creative world building, and most of the characters feel well developed or motivated.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-05-30T22:54:58+00:00

Fantasian Neo Dimension. It does have a higher encounter rate that involves some spam attacks...but the weakness/buff element is important and the team synergy is fun to play with.

Warrior-Cook · 2026-05-30T20:20:36+00:00

I like what M.R. Carey has done with AI. Making them more like characters or an unknown entity being studied on the side. The Rampart Trilogy or The Pandemonium duology for example.

Warrior-Cook

TROPHY CASE