Sounds Stuck in My Brain: March 7, 2024 Edition

Can’t Get Enough of Your Love – Barry White

(YouTube)

If you’re of a certain age, you may remember a time when you couldn’t get away from Barry White’s music, which wasn’t entirely a bad thing, mind you. During my teen years in the 90s and early 00s, DJs were determined to get their listeners grooving and loving in between bouts of Spice Girls and the many boy bands that infested the airwaves. White’s music has a reputation of being baby-making fuel, but occasionally, you’ll find something genuinely heartfelt in these songs.

Baby, it didn’t take all of my life to find you
But you can believe it’s gonna take the rest of my life to keep you

Those lines do something unreal to me, something that speaks to a part of myself that wants to believe in romance and love everlasting and other crap you find in trashy paperback romances. I think my lifelong affliction with cynicism burned away that sentiment like acid, so I don’t know what these lines are touching. It’s a good touch, though. I won’t sue the Barry White estate.

Seventh Son – Long John Baldry

(YouTube)

My generation (older millennial, if the “teen years during the 90s-00s” bit didn’t give me away) knows about Long John Baldry primarily through his voice acting, especially as Dr. Robotnik in The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s a shame, because before venturing into voice acting, Baldry had carved out an incredible career as a singer, particularly in the burgeoning British blues boom (say that fast). If he wasn’t rubbing elbows with greats, he was helping mold new ones like Rod Stewart and Elton John. He probably did more for British music and than people realize.

The Johnny Rivers version is more familiar here in the States, but Baldry’s rendition has a smoky, raspy quality that I love in a man’s voice. Oh, don’t come at me with “but he was gay”. Gay or not, this man had a voice that makes me want to purr. It’s all about the sound, and I wish Baldry was better known for his because he deserves to be remembered for more than cartoons and late-2000s meme fodder.

If we’re going to do him justice, let’s use the lyrics he actually sang instead of copy and pasting the same ones found all over the internet.

Now, I can talk these words
That sound so sweet
Making love with me, your heart
Will skip a beat

It’s not a mondegreen and it’s not lustful, wishful thinking. I know what I heard.

Two on the Vine – Ep. 2: FPS Rogues, S.T.E.A.M., Darkest Dungeon (February 1, 2015)

(YouTube)

I have sleep anxiety. The idea of committing to sleep restriction therapy terrifies me, so I’m always searching for that magic bullet that’s going to send me off to the land of nod. Magnesium  with vitamin B6 and CBD gummies help, but if I need an extra boost, I turn to the steady, low rumble of a male voice. I did have some success with these podcasts—which are far safer than Vinny’s current videos—so keep that in mind, fellow sleep seekers.

Personal highlights for me:

  • Vinny jokingly quits the podcast right off the bat. Who would replace him? Markiplier? Who would replace KY? Pewdiepie? This is a combination best left to the imagination, but with the improvements made in AI, fans might (regrettably) make this a “reality”.
  • Snowpocalypse of 2015. Seven inches of snow in Vinny’s New York, three feet in KY’s Boston.
    • Vinny: “It wasn’t anything substantial by any means.”
      • I imagine New Yorkers punching and kicking the snow out of their way, if not yelling it into melting submission. Am I correct in this assumption? In the South, we salt the roads and hope idiots stay home to consume the milk and bread they purchased in bulk.
    • KY, as a preschool teacher, got two snow days in a row. Awesome.

KY: I remember people in Chat being like, “Oh, my god, is, is Vinny okay? Like, has anyone heard from him?”

Vinny: [Chuckles.]

KY: Like, like… ah…

Vinny: Bless their souls.

KY: Uh, like, somehow the dar– the, the blizzard targeted you specifically? Like, it broke your windows and took you away, and, and there was no other record of anyone else being injured in the blizzard.

  • Puzzle and point-and-click games.
    • KY was playing the remastered edition of Grim Fandango. That must have been a treat to watch live. At least we have VODs.
  • Speaking of remasters, Final Fantasy VII is going to get one. As someone who’s continuously out of the game loop, which one was this?
    • The scourge of QTEs (quick time events).

Vinny: I wanna see FF7 Remaster where Sephiroth is doing his thing—spoiler alert! He’s doing the thing with the giant sword, and it—there’s a QTE, like, from Cloud, like you have to, like, alternately tap X and, and Square, a-and you cry. Like, you just cry harder.

KY: You have to press the right input to get Sephiroth to say, “You are a puppet.”

Vinny: [Laughing.] Yeah, right. [Normal.] It’s, like, you know, “Feelings of despair increase in Cloud by 10.” Just by, like, mashing the right buttons at the right time.

KY: And then you can, uh, if you go to the right scenes, you can have a relationship with Barret. Uh…

Vinny: Oh, my lord.

  • Vinny has the early version of a new Real-Time Corruptor from Ircluzar/Redscientist Media, one that enables him to corrupt a game “without my hand ever leaving the controller.”
  • Greenlight Guess!
    • Vinny makes an intro for the segment, which he instantly regrets.
    • “Shitposter: The Masquerade. High school student by day, internet terrorist by night.”
    • “Frozen Ana: Give Birth a Baby.” “[Laugh-sigh of disgust.] That’s it?” “That’s it.”
    • “In this game, you must navigate your way through the halls of a hospital to breastfeed a baby.”
    • “A refreshing take on World War II. In Stalin for Time…”
    • “Become friends with all of the bosses! At least 5 dogs. You can date a skeleton. Hmm… Now there are 6 dogs…?”
      • This marks the very first time Vinny heard of Undertale, the third bane of his existence.
        • The second bane is Twitch ban bait.
        • The first is Chat.
  • The first listener mail segment!
    • With just the single letter.
    • Vinny explains a reference to Downtown no Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!! If anyone laughs, they get beat on the ass with a stick. Fairly tame by Japanese game show standards. Clips exist on YouTube.