When I look back over these things in the many years I hope to come, I imagine I’ll find myself mystified at the topics my younger self has chosen to focus on in the past. Picture it: a 70-something year old lonely idiot looking back on blog posts he did when he was in his late-20s because he’s either nostalgically yearning for days gone by or the meds simply haven’t kicked in yet. And what does he find? Some shit about a TV series he found enjoyable at one time.
Well, screw you septuagenarian me, but right now me wants to talk about Stranger Things 2. Or at least make reference to it without delving too much into the plot of the story in case some poor sap stumbles across this in between the time I’ve posted it and the time you (i.e. me) start to read it back.
It can’t really be healthy, effectively watching a nine-hour movie across two days, actively ignoring the “Next episode plays in 5…4…3…” tag and just letting the mighty Netflix gods run their course. But that’s what I did with my weekend. It wasn’t glamorous. It was actually pretty sad. But it was also thoroughly engaging and emotive. I even started to well up with tears at points. I’d like to say it was because the show’s events and actors’ performances moved me, but it could just as well have been the lack of sleep and/or food.
In a non-spoilery way that any stray readers can get through this without being angry at me less than a week after the series became available, but with enough insight to nudge and wink at my future self and awaken those time-addled memories, I found it to be equal parts tubular and bitchin’. Also, the mood and tone of each episode could’ve easily prompted to exact reactions as Winona Ryder’s face made in the viral award acceptance video about a year ago. You remember the one. Someone doctored the footage of it to include an animated pizza one time.
I was more excited about it when I started writing this little weekly piece of crap, but I feel that any more I say on the matter will make old me judge now me, I fear that I’ll lose the overall buzz I had about the show by overanalysing it, and I believe I’ll blurt something out about something that happens quite late in the season, ultimately pissing someone off. In that case it’d probably be best advised to stop writing any more and get back to that cup of tea that’s been sitting there for the last hour.
It’s okay though – as my older self might tell you, he likes it cold.
As the daughter of Serge – one of France’s most influential composers (if not actually France’s most influential composer) – bold musical style and flair is evident in the family. There’s a great originality to this, even though it often sounds like the same bass line all the way through.
I’ve tried to confine it to one genre for the purposes of easy description, but the best I can get it down to is “contemporary maudlin disco”. As an additional accolade, it’s something I was hooked by on first listen and all subsequent listens have struck me with the same sense of awe and wow and that. It hasn’t depreciated over time is, I suppose, what I’m trying to say.
Charlotte Gainsbourg – Deadly Valentine
Jamie Walsh 
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