Some friends were raving about the new Franz Ferdinand recently. I hadn’t heard it yet. First impression was a poor man’s Roxy Music. That got me thinking. Why do we often listen to certain artists or records when we know there’s always something better out there? Why mess around with the new Dylan (Bob, not Jakob. Jakob’s perfect) when you know there will never be another Blonde on Blonde. Do we need lesser quality work to put the rest in perspective? Maybe, but Blonde on Blonde would still be Blonde On Blonde if it was the last record he ever made. Could we survive on just the “Abbey Roads”, “London Callings” or “Neverminds” or do we need all the inferior work to appreciate the great stuff?
Lets say your favorite meal is Thanksgiving Dinner. Sure you could survive on that alone, all the nutritional bases would be covered. But over time you’re bound to detest the sight of mashed potatoes, apple pie and cranberry sauce. You’d need a break, you’d go to Subway and get an unremarkable, uninspired sandwich and move on with your life nourished and unfazed. Perhaps Franz Ferdinand and the like are our Subways; they keep us going until Thanksgiving when we can feast on the good stuff. Maybe my friends are from Canada, where they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.
(NOTE: This was my contribution to a feature that ran @NintendoLife about the 25th Anniversary of the NES. I just wanted to archive these memories for myself.) The first video game I ever saw was Kung-Fu for the NES. My older sister’s friend down the street had just gotten the system, so she kindly escorted [...]
What if a deranged Santa Robot decided we all didn’t deserve gifts this year? Mega Man would come and bust ‘em up, that’s what! AceSparks of Sprite Inc. has re-imagined Charles Dicken’s classic, A Christmas Carol into a Mega Man game where the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, Future and Jacob Marley are evil robots [...]
Mario may be the master of Mushroom Kingdom, but that hasn’t stopped programmer Jay Pavlina from dragging other classic NES icons into goomba territory in his new aptly-titled game Super Mario Bros. Crossover. In this undefinabley-awesome act of retro bliss, players get the chance to rampage through all the levels of the original Super Mario [...]
