Steel Sponge

Last year, I was inspired to host a handful of personal album track rankings for any respective music artist I chose or was chosen to cover on Discord. That was due to me feeling the need to take part in who was the biggest conversation at the time: Taylor Swift. Folklore was being considered by many to be AOTY for 2020, which prompted for me to start exploring the rest of Taylor’s albums, and come the release of her sister album, Evermore, not too long after. It was at this moment that I went ahead and came of age as part of the Swiftie crowd. So the story goes, I hop on trends when I see more folks engaging in them, but this is what got me into making these music artists album run-throughs, and it was what got me more involved in the music discussion than I ever was. When music discussion on Discord dwindled by 2022, I had to cut my extended plans short for this side-project short, and in the span of one year and three months, I had gone in-depth listening to albums by 22 different music artists (well, three of which were movie soundtrack-based). Even though I may be late to join in on this milestone celebration of annual year-end lists that Claps had arranged since all these years (like I always am), I decided to go forward with the idea of compiling my last two yearly lists to be based on my experience listening and ranking these albums and tracks from these particular 22 music artists, and these particular acts only: So, where do I begin by retroactively discussing these marathons that I’ve done over the course of 2021? For sure, I’ve had some folks agreeing with my takes, but there were a lot of times that they didn’t too. So the first list will be concerning those hot takes of mine. To make things fair, I will be doing a one song per artist rule, and my choices are factored on the reactions themselves that I’ve garnered and on my own viewpoint on the song’s general consensus versus my opinion. With all that said, this is… Steel’s Top 10 Controversial Music Takes of 2021 That’s one-half of these lists out of the way. Expect the last one to come around later next month, and it’ll surely be the one that I’ll be more proud of doing.

Just dropping in for a monthly update. One month in and I've seen a few submissions to date. So far, I've gotten three. There's still no set deadline, but depending on how this pans out after one more month, expect there to be one soon.

Speaking as someone who had already written a LOtHT-themed season for UWS, I'll just sprinkle in some motivation and say that I can already ensure that yours will turn out better than mine did.

It's finally happening now.

Discuss the internet's currently most hated music artist. I only have an opinion on his pop punk output, and I'll just say that I may be one of the few folks who's neutral towards him. He's got some hits and as well as some misses, but even when he's bad, I've honestly heard worse pop punk pastiche than from him.

opinionz: -I'll say first thing that I didn't even know Inhaler's frontman is actually Bono's son until you've mentioned it. "Cheer Up Baby" is a fine song, but I hope that the majority of their music isn't too U2-leaning, only knowing this one particular song. -I like girl in red, so I've come to like "I'll Call You Mine" right away. also obligatory "serotonin" doesn't deserve this slander but I can see why you dislike it post. -I also like "Ride or Die" just fine, but surely there are more interesting indie pop out there compared to this. -Always liked "Chaise Longue" eccentric sense of humor and unique sound and I still do. Wet Leg released their debut album earlier this month, which I need to get into. -Gang of Youths definitely seems the type of band one would enjoy if one has the patience to be invested in their songwriting and gimmick. Most of their previous singles are similar to "angel of 8th ave." length-wise, and I feel like it's the payoff is what counts most of the time, since that's the main reason why I liked "angel of 8th ave." quite a lot. I haven't listened to the newest single nor their newest album that it's from, but I feel like I may like this one too.

I recently listened to a select few of their albums in full before Hawkins' death. "Everlong," "Best of You," "Learn to Fly," "Aurora," "February Stars," "DOA," and "Rope" are the ones that I've liked most from the band.

Welcome to the first official spin-off announcement topic for 2022, and yeah...four months in and I've already shirked production on my remaining backlog, but I'm going to let this topic give me the motivation that I need to push things forward. Naturally, most updates are the same for Lost in Translation, Rebirth of a Storm, and Tiki Land, so they won't be mentioned here, but I will bring my attention to few quirky side-projects, and so I'm going to start off with them before going over the rest of my backlog... Spin-Off Festival 2022: First things first, I'm not involved with anything for this imminent event (or at least not yet), but I am going to be doing something special for the occasion, and you'll understand why later when I say that I'm going to try and make this one count this year 'round. Steel's Music Reviews: For those who haven't seen me hint at this a few times on the Discord server, I'll be making my retirement as a music reviewer pretty soon. I'm giving myself an assortment to send it off with, and here is a look at what the last batch of reviews will look like: -Top 10 Best Alternative Hit Songs of 2019 (Don't think I've forgotten about this one) -Top 10 Best Hit Songs of 1995 -A dual top 10 list to bring some life to Claps' Entertainment 2021 thread, which I won't disclosure until they are published -Another special list that I will keep as a special surprise until after I publish the latter, which is something that I've been meaning to do since the past year. Jjs' Riffing Theater: This is back once again with Family Guy as the current target. While I will very much be participating for it, I've settled on a minimum of three episodes to cover. My first riffing appearance for FG will be for "Screams of Silence." The Writing Sessions: Once again, they are not canceled and I am once again reviving them for my current attempts to self-discipline me into pushing the production of my spin-offs. I don't have a date set for my next one, but I have plans to start another a new session later next month. With all that out of the way, let's go over some of the updates for some of my other spin-offs.... Chemist Bob's Catastrophic Creations Cinema: I announced this a while back that I intend to bring this back from hiatus. A new episode will be posted late this month while next month will be seeing a bit of overhaul. Once the still-current riffing project for Guru Gakuto is up to the 13th episode, this series will take another break until August to finish up the rest of the series. Total Drama Treasure Tour: Like I said before, this is currently on hiatus until my focused spin-offs are completed. Best case scenario, I can be able to resume it during the month of June before I can commit to my long overdue new episode overhaul in early July, which is when the 15th anniversary of the original Total Drama series will take place. Oh Yeah! Collections: While I could've addressed this earlier, I am also, of course, taking a break from my series of one-offs until further notice. At this point though, I have four more of these to write up. Tomorrow/Tomorrow for sure/Eventually.../Uhhhh...: In the meantime, be sure to look out for the Lost in Translation finale, the Rebirth of a Storm finale, and the VERY long overdue premiere of Trinity Leaf Pegasus before the next quarter. I am still focused on these and I will try to get each of these done sooner than later. That wraps up the roundup of updates for my spin-offs/lits this year. If my progress speeds up within the next couple months, I should be able to deliver more interesting news in July.

that thread image tho

Morbius is a vampire who says funny things.

To make the eligibility for production music feel less like a headache for anyone who wants to vote for background music tracks, I'll refer to you guys some articles from the SB wiki on the series' original music composers, so if you need to know what I will count in terms of original production music, see the ones I've listed below: Jeremy Wakefield Nicolas Carr Sage Guyton Barry Anthony Trop

For several years, we've been collectively voting for the best and worst episodes of SpongeBob. This year around, we thought we could do something different, and I've been attached to host a countdown for the top-voted SpongeBob songs by us. -What you can vote for: Music originally composed for the SB series or originally made for the franchise as a whole, so songs from The Best Day Ever Album, the SB movie soundtrack, and the broadway musical, they count. I'll also count SB video game tracks too if you're looking to add some variety to your list before submitting. -What you can't vote for: Music used for the series but isn't originally made for it. Consider songs like "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight," "Ocean Man," and "Sweet Victory." Those will not be counted. We don't know how many submissions we'll receive, and this isn't intended to be such a big project, so this year will be fairly light. This will be a top 20 countdown and you'll just have to send me a top ten (through SBC PMs or Discord DMs, whichever is the best method for you). There's no deadline set for this project at the moment, but submissions shall start now.

As I know everyone is aware, our honorable overlord Plankton has taken over SBC and it pains me to say that I no longer have the funding that keeps me writing my spin-offs for a free-to-use website. This means that some things are going change for my content moving forward. But for one moment, let's push aside the negatives and move on to the positives. After thinking hard about it, I've come to terms with the best new idea that I could ever endorse in my 12 years of being an SBC member... Introducing... SteelNFTs!: SteelNFTs is a new personal feature that I will be implementing in the near future. What is it and how does it work, you all ask? Well, if you know what NFTs are, then you'd already be familiar with the concept of my own brand of these units of data. Starting next months, NFTs of my spin-offs, lits, seahorse radish, and the newly established Crypto Chemist NFT image collection (with over 900000 guaranteed totally unique images to collect) will be readily available for purchase. These NFTs are the only NFTs that can be purchased with my signature form of cryptocurrency: Steelcoins. With permission from Plankton himself, a new feature has been programmed where one newly earned doubloon in your bank can be converted into SC500 through my work-in-progress Doubloons to Steelcoin Converter! And that's not all! The original Steel Sponge Wordpress blog will be retired immediately, as my new personal website will be replaced with a crypto information site by yours truly, with new research and sales information on Steelcoins to be posted every month. www.steelcoineconomyclass.gov will be launched the same month. It's been a honor for me make this announcement to make up for the lack of news that I've had to share. I hope you're all pleased with this announcement, although something feels off all of a sudden. Oh yeah, I just remembered that I hate NFTs and crypto, so it turns out that I won't be committed to this project at all. Oh well...I hope my announcements for the next quarter on April 22nd will salvage it, but that depends on if the mighty ruler himself would allow it.