“ANNNNND Tonight's Main Event is WWE vs Women’s Wrestling!”
On October 7th 2015 at WWE’s NXT Respect, professional wrestling history was made, when rivals Sasha Banks and Bayley squared off in 30 minute Iron man match to determine who would have the honour to be called the NXT Women's Champion. Although the match type was monumental enough the historic bout was immortalized by being placed in the main event of the evening a feat that was near unimaginable five years ago. So why has WWE had this paradigm shift as of late and what does it mean for the landscape of the company moving forward?
To explore the path that women's wrestling has taken over the past ten plus years I thought it best to describe through how I as a -semi- typical male have interpreted and interacted with it over my years of being a fan, soooooooo....
Let's cut to 2003 when a 10 year old little Markist is watching WWE’s Judgement Day. And what does this this young impressionable mind witness... of course, a bikini contest between two former Playboy models competing to see who was the better cover star. Obviously this was not the most stella introduction to the world of women’s wrestling and although there was a genuinely excellent contest between Trish Stratus, Jacqueline, Victoria and Jazz, it was overshadowed by the obviously gratuitous and exploitative match from earlier. At this stage I would say that I did not rate women's wrestling as anything but a novelty a distraction from the ‘real men’s wrestling’.
Inset above: Every child/young adults fantasy...In front of 50,000 screaming fans.
SO why don't we move forward a few more years. In this time I (The Markist, beard and all), have grown into a somewhat more responsible young adult who realises that not all women are just sex objects that there is a lot more to each person as suppose to what genitalia they have. And it seemed as if WWE also agreed and for 2004-2006 women wrestling saw a definite improvement. Most notable here was the feud between Lita and Trish Stratus. One represented the fan favorite who embraced the rock and roll lifestyle of being dangerous and living on the edge the other was the former barbie doll who had worked hard to earned the fan respect, this lead to explosive encounters that set the fans alright. But although it was one of the best things going on it was still only women's wrestling.
So before I start this review proper I must confess something, I am a massive Megadeth fan! Yes I am a recent convert to the church of Dave Mustaine and all that is thrash metal. My process of listening through the album of Peace Sells to Killing is My Business to Rust in Peace was one of the best times in my whole life. Those riffs, those solos, the bass tone and even Dave’s voice grew on me. So to say I was excited when mid way through this personal renaissance I found out that they had a new album coming would be an understatement. So out I went to my local itunes store and bought the single.
However this was in 2013 so instead of jazz infused, technical, raw thrash metal I preordered this instead:
While -controversial view- Super Collider is not a bad song, being well structured, with a nice couple of hooks and decent solos. To me though it is not the Megadeth that I fell in love with, it sounded watered down and safe, which could be said about the whole album as well. It looked as though Shawn Drover and Chris Broderick thought so, since they left left late 2014 to go form Act of Defiance (good idea, terrible name), leaving Megadeth a drummer and guitarist short. But, as any good Megadeth fan knows a few members leaving isn't enough to deter the band, but just adds fuel to the fire and so in a stroke of genius for this new record they have recruited Angras Kiko Loureiro and Lamb of God’s stickman's Chris Adler. Now whilst I have not heard much/if any of Angra before and don't profess to be the biggest Lamb of God fan, I respected Chris Adler’s skill as a drummer and in interviews both he and Kiko seemed genuinely passionate and thrilled to be a part of the band, so I got this weird sensation of hope, I felt as if Megadeth could be rejuvenated! So I put my money where my mouth is and pledged for their forthcoming new album.
So now the ball is in your court Megadeth, hit me.
Whoa, first off, this is a definite improvement, this is definitely a big improvement in my eyes, this is way closer to the megadeth that I know and love.
Starting with a flurry of guitar scraps and disjointed chord stabs and drums the song gives way to a Dave Ellefson signature bassline, fast, clean, and dieseled powered, as almost to signify that this Megadeth are straight talking thrash metal master musicians. The band joins Dave’s bassline with a fast, almost Annihilator sounding riff, that is still distinctly Megadeth and by the way the riff is mightily heavy. Then enter Mustaine's vocals, sounding the best that they have sounded for a long while, the reason being he is not singing. Dave’s vocal strength has always come from the originality in his voice and phrasing and in this song he hints at some of his snarling and pontificating best, even if some of the lyrics are not as savvy a they could be I.E “Guilty of a crime of nonconformity” really, Dave.
The stand out element to me is Chris Adler, to me it is clear that he wants to both push the music to be as heavy and technical as possible while pushing himself and elevating the others. Here I think that he has done a perfect job making it seem like he was born for this role, I could be over the top and say that he is the next Nick Menza incarnate of the band but I wouldn't do that now would I?
Kiko’s guitar work in this sound seemed like a mixed bag for in the rhythm sections he is a perfect compliment to the whole and does add the extra layer of tightness and heaviness to the overall package. But the solos although were frantic and suited the song I felt was run of the mile in terms of simple shredding and have not been one that I could clearly remember.
Overall I have not been able to turn this song off. This is the megadeth that I wanted them to be for the Super Collider album, although the song is not perfect and is not quite as good as their 80′s era, it is still a testament that Megadeth should never be counted out as a musical force designed to piss people off or bring them together. So I would highly recommend this song and I will be waiting excitedly for their new album to drop January 22nd.
We as a society live in a breakneck time. Each year/month/second technology is running away from us, the media is running over us and social media is now running our lives. We are becoming a culture of people who live in the moment of that moment, in short it seems we have a very diminished attention span.
But wait, have you listened to my 2 hour plus podcast yet? Yeah, you know the one where I talk about that show Arthur we watched as kids, yeah that Arthur, this last episode I talk in depth about the secret behind DW’s snowball. (Note this is a fake podcast but one so good I may follow up on this one day).Yeah so obviously i'm being quite silly (excuse my french) here but my bigger point is these long podcasts are becoming more prevalent each day. So in this society of quick exchanges - and by quick I mean quick - for heavens sake they have even made chip and pin redundant for being too slow, now people just chatting in front of a mic or two has become this beacon of hope to those fed up with the quick nature of the world.
The ‘podcast’ with its origins in lecture aids and an educational tool has slowly morphed into a platform of comedy, news, free expression and creativity that has become a category unto itself. It seems that when trying to define what a podcast is, it is more of an exercise in what it isn’t. For instance: Is it a radio show? No, podcasts have no real time constraints and the essence of the radio is that it is broadcast live where podcasts are not. Then are they a type of audiobook ( I hear my delusions shout)? Close but again, no, for audio books tend to be written out, structured and based around an existing narrative and whilst podcasts may have these elements it is not bound by or defined by them. Then I would suggest that the podcast is truly defined by the platform that it is, as a downloadable medium that can be stopped and started at leisure and is able to be created and consumed by anyone with access to it. Perhaps podcasts’ allure comes from its privy nature of being a singular listening experience that in this world of ‘sharing’ makes it seem... unique.
But let's not forget the nerds who have made our lives just a wee bit more podcast friendly. Certainly in the last ten years at least, there have been massive developments in smartphones, tablets, iPods etc that has allowed for anyone to listen to and download any type of content directly to them for their own enjoyment. For instance if you compare how easy it is nowadays to my grandad who I consider to be the original podcast listener (go with me here) due to the fact that I grew up watching him amass a complete wall in his office devoted to rows among rows of cassette tapes of radio shows ranging from: comedies, plays, news features and interviews. Each one of these shows he recorded live from broadcast and would then listen to them religiously out and about on his Sony Walkman (other outdated and inferior personal cassette players are available, I guess) like how many people currently enjoy them, but ten years ago he was the oddity. Now to compare all I have to do is just unlock my Sony Xperia Z phone (this blog is proudly not sponsored by Sony) and download my latest episode of The Weekly Planet (also not associates) on the bus on the way work and listen away to hours of free and near infinite content. We have it easy and not just us the consumers but the producers too have a multitude of ways to record, edit and publish their own podcast for free (even from their own non Sony based phone!). This digital world has created a sphere of convenience and availability to us fans who desperately want to hear about anything and everything under the sun.
My next and final question is: why is the long form, free flowing, often tangential conversation becoming seemingly more and more popular? The answer, well is not quite that easy... but I do have a caffeine induced theory! That in this interconnected world of social media that we inhabit, a world where we like, follow, share and upvote everything that we do makes it seem as if we have more ways to communicate that we ever had. For instance if I wanted I could talk with five different people from five different continents at the same time about various episodes and sub themes of Arthur. However here is where I see the flaw, that these platforms that promote community and communication I believe actually hinders it, for we really can't say what we want to say, that comments are misconstrued and hidden meanings discovered that conversations we have are in reality obstructed and not free. That is why we crave these discussions, we have been longing for people to speak freely, mistakes and all, for it is real it is unfiltered, it is something that we have been lacking and it is something we have been lapping up like the podcast hungry pups we truly are.
I for one am in a weird way proud to see how this little ugly duckling of a medium has slowly wiggled and grown into a new secret phenomena of the modern age. With movies like Harmontown and There’s No Such Thing As A Fish getting the first ever vinyl release of a podcast the future for these podcasts are looking bright and I might be able to make that `Hey Arthur & his secrets, themes of sex, drugs and debauchery’ yet.
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