I’m a huge fan of junk food movie tie-in. Actually, a more accurate word to describe me would be “sucker.” Whether it’s a promo in a restaurant chain or a special edition candy bar, I just can’t get enough of them. So I’m sure you can understand my excitement for the Doritos bag that played the entire soundtrack for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. There was no way I could let the opportunity to own one slip away.
Getting my hands on one of these bags was a chore in itself. Doritos was extremely forthcoming about the date they would go on sale, as well as the specific Amazon page they’d be available on. I spent all day constantly refreshing Amazon to only be let down hour after hour. Finally, at around 8 that night, the Doritos finally went live…on a completely different section of Amazon than promised, which I only knew about because of a heads up from a friend.
But I digress. And complain a little more than I should since I did eventually order one.
A couple weeks later, a box showed up and I couldn’t be more excited to tear into it. After cutting through two layers of cardboard, I was greeted by a beautifully printed vision of a familiar cassette player inlay on a faux-wood veneer.
Perfectly modeled on the tape deck of the Milano.
The box is really something to admire. There’s nothing special about it in particular, other than providing a nice display for the bag of Doritos and storage for the accessories.
I carefully opened the lid to be greeted by the bag…
The bag is almost as pretty as the box.
Almost as pretty.
…only to be disappointed. I quickly noticed that half of the bag was off-printed, creating an obnoxious shadow effect on most of the words. Though this is a fairly common occurrence on most bags of chips, it was extremely disheartening to see in this instance. Given the small print run of these bags, one would think Doritos would have a little extra quality assurance to make sure everything came out perfectly. But that’s not the case.
Oh, well. That’s life, I guess. I bought it because it plays music so let’s test that out.
All of those buttons printed under the cassette tape work. Power, Play, Stop, Next, Reverse. The bag works exactly like a Walkman. It’s pretty neat, but I am slightly concerned about the flimsiness of the bag itself. So far I’ve been handling it extremely delicately as everything feels so fragile that I’m afraid I may break it. This isn’t something that would be easy to replace.
I’m not alone in my worry, here; Doritos clearly realized most people won’t consistently listen to the soundtrack through a bag of tortilla chips so they included a mini USB port on the bag, and a cable in the box. You can plug the bag into your computer and download the entire soundtrack in MP3 format and listen to it on any compatible device. The USB port will also recharge the player, in case people do consistently listen to the soundtrack through a bag of tortilla chips.
In addition to the USB cable, the bag came with a set of headphones. Not cheap ear buds like most music players would have but a pair of over-the-head, foam-covered headphones that were popular in the 80s. I plugged them in and followed the directions on the box.
It lights up!
Super bright, too!
As soon as I pressed the “Power” button, the bag flashed to life. Literally. There’s a light in it that glows when the power is on. Which makes sense. I mean, how else are you supposed to know that it’s on if you unplug the headphones?
The quality of the music is crystal clear. I don’t know the specs of the player itself but whatever it is, it seems to handle high quality MP3s really well. There’s even no loss in quality from the headphones. At least none that I noticed. It sounded as good as music from my iPod (though I do have a 2nd gen iPod so that may not be saying much).
At $29.99 retail, these Doritos are a bit of an investment. However, when you realize that you’re paying for the full soundtrack as well as a marketing gimmick that’s sure to spark some conversations, the cost is still kind of hard to swallow. This is clearly an item for die-hard Guardians of the Galaxy fans, a subset that probably never existed before 2014. But either way, I’m ecstatic to add it to my collection, even if I don’t have any place to display it.
Five Albums To Flesh Out Your Halloween Music Playlist
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Fall may be a magical time, but when it comes to setting up Halloween music playlists, you may find the lack-o-options frustrating. Sure, “Thriller” helps even the most uncoordinated shake their booty, and of course “Monster Mash” is a classic, but these tired songs don’t always cut it when you’re trying to envoke the feeling of the holiday to liven up your shindig.
Rather than throw a spoopy cd on repeat, here are a couple of off beat albums to flesh out your playlist that no one will bat an eye at.
NIGHTMARE REVISITED
Of course we couldn’t kick off this list without some iteration of everyone’s favorite hybrid holiday movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. While every Halloween playlist is sure to have at least one instance of Danny Elfman warbling about his conflict of interests from the cult favorite The Nightmare Before Christmas, there are a surprising amount of people who still haven’t revisited the nightmare. Nightmare Revisited is exactly what it sounds like – a group of popular bands and artists collaborating to cover the entirety of the Tim Burton phenomenon. But this collection isn’t limited to hits like “This is Halloween” or “Sally’s Song.” The album also covers the instrumental tracks, which will give you over an hour of ambiance. What’s this?
NATIVE CONSTRUCT
The collaborative group of Berklee students blend the modern metal genre with a wide spectrum of compositional influences and come up with a uniquely textured sound that lends itself perfectly to any playlist. With Native Construct’s extended-range guitars, theatrical vocals, and full complement of symphonic instrumentation, their 2011 album Quiet World can be thrown into the Halloween music mix on random or go the entire distance as a stand alone.
THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN
Not feeling the more modern metal? Go for something more “traditional.” Older albums from The Dillinger Escape Plan offer just enough of the creepy vibe without the haunting idea that your guests would turn up their noses at the screaming vocals. The album Miss Machine in particular sounds as if it was pulled straight from the soundtrack of any popular horror flick.
MR. BUNGLE
Perhaps a random addition to mix into a Halloween-centric playlist, but party goers aren’t going to be picking apart your musical tastes. And if they are, they really shouldn’t be invited. Mr. Bungle’s album California adds a random and moderately terrifying ambiance to what is otherwise background noise for bad decisions. Eat all the candy!
THE DARKNESS
Halloween doesn’t have to be all dark and dismal, and adding glam rock band The Darkness to any playlist will prove to be quite the misnomer. Their album To Hell and Back offers lighthearted songs that all your partygoers know by heart with just enough 80s to inspire a fun atmosphere and sing-a-long moments.
Honorable mention goes out to Jason Segel’s hit, Dracula’s Lament, because obviously.
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Last month, metal band Veil of Maya grabbed a new singer and fictional female inspiration for their recent album, Matriarch.
Arguably among top ten best metal albums of 2015, no one member in Veil of Maya’s roster is overshadowed in this new direction. This time around, the entire band’s talent is showcased more evenly than in previous albums. Graduating from six string baritones to sevenS and upping the ante with recently acquired vocalist Lukas Magyar, Veil of Maya’s Matriarch delivers a little little less flash while still holding on to the thrashy-ness that fans have grown to love.
Though Magyar’s high screams, low growls, and clear vibrato are brought to the table on a glorious china plate encased in a catchy melody sandwich, the introduction of the first clean vocals since the band’s inception isn’t the most notable change from previous vocalist Brandon Butler, who left the band during Matriarch’s inception due to “creative differences.”
While Veil of Maya has always included little easter eggs in their track titles, such as the Game of Thrones headnod “Winter Is Coming Soon” from their 2012 album Eclipse, Martiarch goes further by being their first album to follow a female inspired theme. Guitarist Marc Okubo fit the album’s concept around strong female characters from different fictional genres.
“All the tracks are named after powerful female characters that I found interesting,” he explains. “I always make code names for whatever songs I’m writing, and this time they all stuck to a theme.”
Fans will recognize some of their favorite characters as title tracks scattered throughout the album, from Final Fantasy VII‘s “Aeris,” to the mother of dragons, “Daenerys” from Game of Thrones, and even a few lesser known fandoms, such as “Lucy”and her split personality “Nyu” from Elfen Lied. As a huge fan of Brian K. Vaughan, Okubo’s “Three-Fifty” pays homage to Y: The Last Man‘s Agent 355, and he is currently reading the immensely popular Saga. Cue me on the edge of my seat waiting to hear Okubo riff some justice to the character Alana.
Although Okubo wrote the album to fit into his theme, new vocalist Lukas Magyar penned the lyrics separately and has only within recent months acquired the Internet to catch up on shows like Attack on Titan, with Matriarch‘s single named after the female protagonist, “Mikasa.” Watch the official video from Sumerian Records below, and be prepared for the tasty chorus to get stuck in your head for weeks. Sorry not sorry.
Matriarch also features less of the band’s old signatures, choosing instead to limit the vocals and blast beats to more appropriate timing. When used more sparingly, this enables the songwriting to effectively place pieces to create a better dynamic, rather than barrage the ears with consistent noodling. Though this is outside of the box for Veil of Maya, the execution is effortless as usual and there’s no doubt the album is a sleeper. There’s a song for every fandom, and obviously “Daenerys” is the best, because I’m 100% biased.
Veil of Maya’s Matriarch can be purchased here and tickets for the Summer Slaughter tour are on sale now at TicketFly. If you attend the Dallas date, don’t be surprised by the small, dark-haired gal bopping around. Just wave.
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THREE DAYS until the latest convention to hit the anime, manga and music scene, begins its second anniversary! Well, sort of. Last year AM2 took place simultaneously as AnimeExpo, but that doesn’t matter. Why? BECAUSE AM2 IS ONLY THREE DAYS AWAY! The new, and free to attend, convention starts this Friday at the Anaheim Convention center, where AM2 will be bigger and better then ever! (more…)
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“I was raised on film. My musical experience is all via film, it’s not from classical music.”
A highlight from Video Games Live.
When I was in fifth grade my class — along with about 8,000 of my closest school buds — were trucked into the splendor of Downtown El Paso, Texas’s Abraham Chavez Theatre for the local symphony’s annual Young People’s Concerts.
They pulled out all the stops to get us younglings to appreciate the parts of the symphony, including having Beethoven emerge from a “Time Machine” that looked suspiciously like a cleverly bejeweled Westing House refrigerator box to conduct his Ninth Symphony and tell us about his life. He would have the audience answer questions en masse with the recurring inside joke “Please zay eet louder, I am becoming hard uf hearing.” (FYI, if you are parent and don’t get that joke, you need to brush up some simple music history).
To make an already long story short: they did an excellent job by revealing in a fun and visual way one of Beethoven’s most beautiful pieces that is now a favorite of mine….and I was BORED, BORED, SO FREAKIN’ BOOORED!
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So as I was stuck in a car for seven and a half hours this past weekend on the way to my older sisters wedding, and I couldn’t help but think “Good lord, I wish I had some good music to listen to“. My aunt and uncle drove my mom and I so I had no control over the radio, and while my uncle’s taste in music wasn’t terrible, there is only so many times I can put up with listening to “the crocodile rock”.
So here are my top ten albums that I could listen to over and over again, from beginning to finish, and never grow tired of them. These aren’t the best albums ever or the most talented, but simply the albums that over the years I have come to see as a perfect listening experience for myself. Feel free to disagree or feel free to agree. I won’t give you any wordy write ups about each album, but instead I’ll just put a lyric or two from each album beneath it’s album cover.
“I go out to work on Monday morning
Tuesday I go off to honeymoon
I’ll be back again before it’s time for sunny-down,
I’ll be lazing on a Sunday afternoon”
HIT THE JUMP FOR THE REST IF YA FEEL LIKE IT!!
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