Hello all, Judge here.

I'm sure you've heard about the recent MySpace93 account hack: How our account information is now out on the internet and we're all vulnerable. (I read that our info was being kept in a plaintext doc. I sure as fuck hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised.)

Anyway, there's no way to change your password or any of your account information at the moment. This means we'll have to weather the storm until Jankenpopp fixes this mess. He's gigging with his band at the moment, so who knows when he'll have time enough to solve this.

Anyway, be aware that your email and MySpace93 password were just doxed. For your own safety, you should change the passwords to the email affiliated with this account to something totally new that you haven't used yet (Or better yet, enable 2 factor authentication if available).

Also, back up any HTML you've written for your page. Since our information is now public, anyone can come in here and delete everything you've done. So make a backup and keep it locally; ready to copy/paste back in at any moment.

This is all I know thus far, but I will make further posts if I find anything else out.
Stay safe out there,
-JBM-

Welcome back to JBM's Tunes! For episode 2, we're looking at Formations by Basidia.
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1444719293_10.jpg "But Judge!" you scream from the rooftops, "This album cover doesn't say Basidia! It seems to be a soundtrack to a game made by a clearly sexy, rich, and successful dude named Jay Tholen! Have you deceived me? I'm not sure I can take another disappointment..."

No need for theatrics, dear strawman reader, for I have not deceived you. Formations is the song and Basidia is the band, but they are not as you would expect them, as they are not real. They are part of a larger alternate universe set in 1999, where everything is familiar, but not quite as we know them here.

Confused? Good! The mystery around this band in particular is part of what makes me enjoy them so much. The straight facts are that Formations was a song made by Jay Tholen for his game, Hypnospace Outlaw. Basidia doesn't exist; they're comprised of a single in-universe character with an extremely interesting backstory (Google Fre3zer for more info). Basidia belongs to one of many fake genres created for the game: Fungus Scene; defined by goopy synths and dreamy, cave-like atmospheres.

Formations is easily my favorite Fungus Scene track in the game; mainly because of its excellent bassline and use of wavy distortion. But more than the actual track, I just love the idea of listening to music that "doesn't exist" in our world or timeline. I really hope that other composers and bands make music in alternate reality genres, where the values behind what group disparate bands together are skewed in new and interesting ways (I mean for fucks sake. In the game, there's another genre called Cool Punk which is solely defined by using samples of sleigh bells and an old Christmas-time soda commercial. I love it when priorities are warped like this!)

Anyway, Jay Tholen did a fantastic job with the soundtrack to Hypnospace Outlaw. With expansions, I think it's up to around 150 songs by now! Check out the game and check out Formations by Basidia in particular.

Cool Punk drools. Fungus Scene rules. See you in the new Millennium.

8/10
-JBM-

(PS, I've got a 9 to 5 job from home during weekdays, so I'll try to get these done before work. Enjoy!)

Welcome to episode 1 of JBM's Tunes. Today's song is Your Life Away by Post Animal.
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0812850961_16.jpg Nice cover art, eh?

Anyway, the band is a psychadelic rock endeavor founded by Joe Keery (Yes, the actor from Stranger Things) around 2015. This song comes from their 2nd full-length LP, and their first since Keery's departure. My opinion: Fine by me. This album hit a lot of excellent and varied beats, with Your Life Away being my favorite.

Your Life Away is the album's intro track, bringing a comfortable, dreamy mood. The track's vocals were the most striking thing about it; not necessarily the melody or performance, but the filter they used. Can anyone identify it for me? It's sounds like if they layered the vocals over themselves, but delayed by the tiniest amount, creating a kind of rough, static-y texture. I'm not sure what it is, but I know I love it.
The song's structure provides a sense of accomplishment to those who stick with it. Despite it's dreamy intro and verses, the chorus feels like the rising action of a film: escalating conflicts and progressing the plot. For the song's outro, Post Animal drops their dreamy, synthy style; opting for an oddly righteous, 70s rock opera-esque, barely-distorted, simple guitar line. It is so bizarre hearing this type of ending in 2020, but they do it so well that I hardly care!

What a ride this track is. Less of a Superman roller coaster and more of a spinning wild mouse: Low to moderate speeds, plenty of elevation shifts, and a feeling of just barely going over the edge.
Check out the rest of Forward Motion Godyssey. It's not a perfect album, but there's a few more great tracks worth checking out (Maybe a future spotlight?).

8/10
-JBM-

(PS, I'll try to get these out earlier in the day for people to read when they first hear the songs on my page.)

I've decided to write small decription / reviews of the music I feature on my page. Hopefully this inspires you to check out these artists and think about music in a more nuanced way (Not like I'm very good at that yet, lol).

Anyway, This is episode 0 of JBM's Tunes: Songs I played before I started this series

SHMU - Diamonds:
SHMU is a one-man-and-some-hired-session-artists project out of Austin, Texas. Headed by multi-instrumentalist, Sam Chown, SHMU finds new and interesting ways to record music, smash it to bits, and put it back together again (Think stained glass windows, but they're songs.)
Diamonds, appearing on their 2015 album "Shhh!!!!", serves as a great introduction to the Sam's style. It has plenty of compellingly distorted guitar and synth riffs, recombined in a oddly pleasing package, yet retains a traditional rock song structure with a two verses, two choruses, a bridge, and an outro.
Diamonds is a high point on the album, only outdone by a couple other, more difficult tracks. Expect to hear some more SHMU on here again.

That Handsome Devil - Rob the Prez-O-Dent
"Four score and seven beers ago..." is the opening line to the groovy and boozy Rob the Prez-O-Dent by That Handsome Devil (THD). They're a retro-inspired funk depression group that does their best to make our bleak future fun! Look up GodForbid: THD's raspy vocalist and frontman. He's so fun to watch.
Anyway, Rob the Prez-O-Dent is a humorous take on modern American malaise; solving 9 to 5 culture in the most direct way possible: Just steal from the guy in charge! Classic bluesy guitar lines mix with blaring klaxons and a downturned church organ to create an atmosphere that's as grody as it is entertaining (Maybe that was the intention; like a commentary on watching real life violence on TV. The rockabilly cousin to Tool's Vicarious.)
Whatever! Enough analysis! That Handsome Devil is fun, funny, and endlessly clever. Hear the fuckin' thing and get back to work!

Wallpaper - Gettin Drip
From the party rock craze of the late 00s came Wallpaper: The greatest autotuned band of all time. Wallpaper really got the pop music of their time. They understand how highly commercialized, rigidly constructive, and uncreative a large portion of it is. So in response, frontman Ricky Reed (Who's real name is Eric Frederic. Look this guy up, he's a suuuuper successful producer now) formed a party funk band that satirizes pop trends while embracing and improving on what makes them fun to so many people.
Take Gettin Drip, off of their first (and best) album, DooDoo Face, for example. It's moral is horrible, advocating liquoring up babes at house parties so you can fuck 'em later on in the night. Hell, it goes so far as to have it's backing vocals be a pitched-up loop of "I- I don't want none baby- No I don't."
That's pretty fucked up, right? Well that's how Wallpaper conveys their arguments: through boldfaced acceptance that's supposed to make you go "Is that what they really said?" The music itself is really funky and well produced with plenty of smooth grooves.
Check 'em out. Despite how they seem at first, they're really worth your time.

Alright! That was a big information dump; I know. Regular episodes going forward will only cover one song at a time. See you tomorrow!

You all know about this game already, right? If not, it couldn't be more up your alley (by virtue of you even being on here).

Here's the premise: It's alternate reality 1999. MerchantSoft Inc. has released a headband that allows you to use your computer and browse the internet while asleep! Their service is called Hypnospace and is just starting to take off with the mainstream.

You are a Hypnospace user who's been chosen to basically be the cyberbully police. You have to look through people's homepages in different themed zones to find instances of bullying, illegal software, black markets, etc.

But really, the job is secondary. Hypnospace Outlaw presents a wonderfully off-kilter representation of the AOL-style walled-garden internet alternatives of the late 90s and early 00s. All the influences we take from on MySpace93 are represented in Hypnospace Outlaw in such an accurate, yet otherworldly fashion (You'll get it the first time you see someone say BWL or talk about CoolPunk music.)

Surprisingly, the game's soundtrack is equally as quality, if not better than the rest of the experience. And this is achieved in a setting where every song belongs to genres that were made up exclusively for this game! So much effort went into this thing; it's unbelievable.

Anyway, check out Hypnospace Outlaw on Steam. It usually goes for about $15 or so, but you're easily getting a 8+ main story and 40+ hour 100% completion.

9/10
-JBM-

I get a feeling of honestly from most of the users on this site. It's refreshing coming from the jaded planes of the Twitter hellscape and the stuffy appearance-keeping of Facebook; Reddit's cringelords and Discord's difficulty.

People on here feel like people, flaws and all. You people are laying it bare for the rest of us to see.

But more than that, I feel a sense of communal effort; effort that you don't see from the userbases of other social media.
I suppose that's expected from a site where you need to learn HTML to get much out of your own page. Maybe it serves as a form of effort-based gatekeeping: Keep away all ye who don't care enough to try.

Furthermore, Myspace93's ironic and parody accounts do a consistently great job of either blending in with their targets or being outrageous enough to carve a new path through their topic. In a way, they show their own bit of genuine character through the successes of their personas.

Point is, this place is fucking cool and I appreciate most of you.
From the emos to the furrys to the living organisms with 300 swappable genders and pronouns: Keep it up.

-JBM-

Let's get this out of the way early

DO NOT INTERACT WITH ME IF:

• Under 18 (Friending is fine, but I won't talk to you)

That's it. You can call me whatever slur you want, just don't be a child.
(Exceptions made if your page is particularly impressive)

YOU SHOULD INTERACT WITH ME IF:

• Our interests align (see About Me section)
• You need writing / copy editing help (I can always use the practice)
• You want me to give feedback on something you made: A page, a song, a poem, a drawing, etc.
• You just need someone to bounce your thoughts off (I'm a very good listener. Make use of me if you please.)
• You know what "Fungus Scene" is

Will add more if I think of it.

-JBM-

This is a running list of my page ideas. Feel free to make them for me and enable my laziness:

1: Have MP3 player autoplay my last played song on Spotify
2: Have the day's #1 YTMND post autoplay on a sidebar
2.5: Have the YTMND post's audio play through the MP3 player (would conflict with Spotify. Choose one.)
3: Web music keyboard. (Someone's got to have made this in HTML already)

-JBM-

Has anyone found a way to integrate a live YTMND feed into their page with HTML?

There's gotta be a way to call whatever the top post of any given moment is and display it as a gif. Extra points to anyone who can get the audio track to play through the MP3 player alongside the animation.

I'm no programmer, so someone else figure this out please. I'll pose as a regional McDonalds manager and write your college application letter of recommendation for you if you do.

-JBM-