2018 was a wild year for everyone involved. At the beginning of the year, I decided to listen to 300 albums that I never listened to before, both new and old. Within the list of 300 albums are quite a few albums from 2018. Because I set out in the beginning of the year to listen to a variety of music, I wasn’t sure how it’d affect my 2018 list and what I sought out. Interestingly enough, there’s some surprising variety. Continue reading Top 10 Albums of 2018
After seeing the EP posted on reddit, and being downright addicted to a genre of music that I hadn’t visited in years, I decided to reach out to Andrew from No Alarms to talk to him about how the band came to be, some of his inspiration, songwriting approach, and more. He’s an absolute gentleman and I want to take this time to thank him for getting back to me. Continue reading Interview with No Alarms
I initially saw The Messenger at Pax East 2018. Intrigued by the script font, the blue background and of course, the incredibly fun looking platforming, I added it to my Steam Wishlist on a whim and continued on with my pop culture adventure. A few months later, I get a notification that one of the games on my wishlist released, and on yet another whim, bought it. I knew essentially nothing about the game aside from the platforming aspect. I didn’t know I was in for an adventure that would take a hold of my life ransom for a full week with practically no pause. Continue reading The Messenger – The most surprising Metroidvania of the year
Hearing Dance with the Dead for the first time was like a breath of fresh air. I had been submerging myself in the synthwave genre and listened to artists like Carpenter Brut, Perturbator, Gost, Wavshaper and Com Truise. But, as a musician that loves metal , I always wanted some heavier guitars featuring some of that electronic music goodness. Hearing B Sides Volume 1 was glorious, and once the band announced teasers for the new album, I knew I was going to fall in love. August 14th, the album dropped, and it’s been in heavy rotation ever since. Continue reading Dance With The Dead – Loved To Death
It’s odd to say that I didn’t have music around my whole life. I had only really started listening to music around the age of 13 when I picked up my guitar. My friend Jason, of the same age, started showing me all the bands he loved and grew up with. He showed me Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Maroon 5, and this band call the Foo Fighters. The band name intrigued me. What on earth was a “Foo Fighter”? Then Jason shows me this video of a long-haired Jesus man walking up to a mic and singing the opening lines to a song that would change it all for me “Keep you in the dark , you know they all pretend…” More than a decade from that day, 3 albums, 1 EP later, and I got to see what a “Foo Fighter” really was.
Continue reading Foo Fighters Concert Review – MSG July 17, 2018
The Bit Trip Runner series has always been charming, bright, and an action packed adventure following Commander Video through a musical journey. At PAX East 2018, the third game in the main series was announced with a release date of May 22, 2018. The game released with great success and improved upon every concept of Runner 2, as if that was even possible. Continue reading Runner 3 – Interview
Two days ago, Nintendo announced the details about Nintendo Online, their online service for the Nintendo Switch. After having gone over the details of it, I’d have to say that not only is Nintendo Online lackluster, it’s a slap in the face of every consumer that bought the switch that wants to use their online functionality. Continue reading Nintendo announced Nintendo Online — and it’s a travesty
The Metroidvania genre is a very unique, but growing genre. It’s name is a combination of the popular Nintendo franchise Metroid and Konami’s Castlevania series, specifically Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It is strongly dependent on a few concepts that we’ll list below before we dive into what my favorites are. Continue reading My Favorite Metroidvanias
Vinyl’s comeback has been huge. A new generation of people are falling in love with the crackle, ritual and physical experience of holding and reading a record while listening to music. Out of that entire culture is a very niche, but every growing subculture, of people that enjoy video game music on vinyl. According to Blip Blop, a website dedicated to Video Game Vinyl (VGM vinyl), 2016 had around 90 releases on vinyl, while 2017 has nearly 130. Not only is that a huge jump from the previous year, but that’s essentially one VGM Vinyl release every 3 days. So what’s the big deal? Why do people care? Let’s take a look at the various reasons why people buy VGM Vinyl, and vinyl as a whole. Continue reading Why Video Game Vinyl?
The WhatsItTech team was fortunate enough to go to PAX East 2018 this year. During our trip, I was able to lock down a few interviews with some brilliant people. One of them was Darren Korb, composer of the Supergiant Games Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre. Below you will find the written transcription of our interview. Continue reading Darren Korb PAX East Interview
If anyone hasn’t done so already, check out the review of the ‘ debut album In The Arms of the Sun by Vox Vocis. That album completely blew me away and made me jealous because if I could somehow go back in time, that would be the album I made. When I caught wind of the news that the band was recording their second album, I was extremely excited. I am happy to say that the band did not disappoint. This will be a breakdown of the entire album track by track . Continue reading Vox Vocis – Star Meissa Album Review
Facebook at the beginning of last year was closing on 2 billion users. There’s around 7 and a half billion people. That means almost 30% of the entire world has a Facebook account. Yet Facebook is expected to lose 2 million users that are under the age of 24 this year according to eMarketer. Why is that the case? Isn’t Facebook the platform for the young kids and not their old parents? It seems that is becoming further and further from the truth. Continue reading Facebook Sucks – It Used To Be About You