Positions go Down in Battle and Question the Stardust – Music of February 2021

I never liked how February is such a short month, it always feels like there’s so much I want to do and don’t get done, like at the start of the month, I put up a story post about the planned articles I had for this month and only two of them are still in the drafts. Would have finished them all but I had some personal matters that I had to address and I don’t like to write when my anxiety is at its peak.

They will get done soon though, these two I’m looking forward to writing. I also don’t like how short February is, because if there’s something coming up in the later months, it means it comes faster when February goes by quickly. But, this post I’m just going to focus on what the music is.

Ariana Grande – Positions

Why am I not surprised that the music video takes place in the White House? Ariana visualizes everything that a woman wants to see, where we are in equal power as men and she does it being a stylish female president. We’re already a step in the right direction as I was happy to learn my Southern neighbors in the US now has a female vice president.

The song itself takes time to grow on the listener and I’m glad that she’s been able to put out some new music in a time like this as it’s something I think we all need to distract ourselves.

Lordi – Down With The Devil

Throwing in some Lordi since this is the month that I first saw them live and of course they played this song. It is part of the first half of the album which features classic Lordi: catchy with the riffs that I know Lordi for.

When I first listened to this album, this was the song that caught my ears first so it’s no wonder I was happy to hear it live. If you’re looking at listening to Lordi, but you want to hear something more recent from them, then go with this one, or the Sexorcism album and you won’t regret it.

Junichi Masuda & Go Ichinose – Dialga/Palkia Battle Theme

There are literally so many different versions of this and I was trying to find the original, but then I gave up and went with this version. Why is it here? Simple, you saw my post from yesterday right? We’re finally getting remasters of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl and I can’t describe to you how excited I am, hence the music!

I told myself I was going to grind as hell at my Omega Ruby game after starting over and catch every legendary post-game (I would certainly have to also trade to get some of them in order to catch ones like Giratina), but for some reason I was not looking forward to the grinding itself. I wanted to make sure my team was strong enough before even catching Groudon, Rayquaza, AND Deoxys without fail. The pressure of that caused me to get sidetracked by my PC games and my debate/dreams about whether I wanted to get a Switch or not because I knew that if the rumors of these remasters were true, getting a Switch would be inevitable. That brief period made me think my time as Pokemon Trainer was up and I was just going to focus on my older games, but once again, I didn’t feel the same excitement sitting down to play them as I used to and I could never figure out why.

Ultimately I made the decision to not bother once again and focus on my Switch once I bought it, as this also seemed to be happening with my other 3DS games as well.

Now I find myself broadening my horizons once again and maybe this time I WILL grind to get the cool shit I want in Pokemon games.

This theme of course brings back all sorts of memories, like the first time I caught Palkia in my Pearl game, then I caught him again AND Dialga in Platinum post-game. I didn’t even have False Swipe and I still succeeded with a little bit of luck since I had used my Master Ball on Giratina. Do I regret not pursuing catching them in the later games, yeah a lot, I preferred to just transfer but even that has become a pain.

The other memory this track brings back is when I first unlocked the Spear Pillar stage in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it is also available in SSB Ultimate too and it’s been my favorite stage to fight on ever since. I can’t wait to hear this theme again when the remasters are released later this year.

Iced Earth – A Question of Heaven

My friend and I were talking about how we felt about Jon’s involvement in all the riots last month and while we both agreed that he deserved to lose his bandmates and record deal, we couldn’t deny that Iced Earth still makes some great music and this is one of their earlier pieces with a progressive approach.

I may still listen to them on occasion, but some part of me inside realizes that it will not be the same if I interact with the community. There will always be some right-wings in there who condone the whole thing and the only thing I can do is avoid them. I think this song serves as a reminder that I should really listen to some of the band’s older stuff before Stu joined in.

Closing this off with Delain. I was pretty sad when I heard that they were practically splitting with only Martijn remaining to do everything himself. I wrote how I felt about them and Iced Earth breaking up and there wasn’t much to say about Delain because it’s more of a personal matter that is none of my business for the departures of Charlotte, Timo, Otto and Joey.

I respect their choices nonetheless. The first Delain album I bought was The Human Contradiction and this was one of the songs I loved the most. I wrote my own version called Stained Glass, referring specifically to Notre Dame’s rose window and elements involving lust since I started to have a thing for the character of Claude Frollo at that time. What? He’s an intriguing character!

I’m not sure if I’ve heard this one live since I’ve only seen Delain twice but I love how the music video eventually turns into a beautiful journey through space.

And that was February, I’m probably not going to do a story post about what you can expect from me in March because I’m already behind, but I will start to work on that stuff hopefully this week. I just have some personal things going on and it would be nice to be able to write this without brain fog.

👽Emily