Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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#MusicMonday: “Shores of California” – Dresden Dolls

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Three years ago, Amanda Palmer was one of the first people to engage with me on Twitter – and, I’m not just talking famous people. People in general.

I don’t always love Amanda’s solo ukele-based efforts as much as the songs from her revelatory punk-cabaret two-piece Dresden Dolls, but I continue to follow her becasue she is one of the most honest and open full-time rock stars on the internet. She contends 24/7 with the trials and concerns I encounter only in rehearsal (four days of our seven, last week).

On Friday, Amanda was tweeting about recording a new record with a new band, and in the stream of messages this one stuck out…

… and not just because it involved one of my top five tunes by Amanda…

It stuck out because, as with many things Amanda shares, it expressed something I have felt about music but haven’t ever really articulated.

Historically, Arcati Crisis learns songs at a rate of about four a year. Since Gina and I each write on our own, that means we’re learning just two of my tunes – yet, I write anywhere from six to twenty songs in a year.

As a result, my perspective on song-picking for AC is that every one of my choices must be lead-single quality. I don’t like subtle picks. Every new song of mine that we choose has to be awesome enough to obliterate the memory of all prior songs.

A few years ago, Gina picked “Unengaged” from my available songs. It’s a song I love. It’s complex, but catchy. It’s challenging to play and sing, but not impossible. It seemed like a good pick.

It lasted about two rehearsals. The problem wasn’t the complexity … it was the emotion. “Unengaged” is about the period where I had decided I was going to propose to E but hadn’t yet gone through with it. It’s a hard type of energy to connect with – happy, but uncertain if that’s the right thing to be – and because of the delicacy of the vocal, I need to nail the emotion behind it to get it right.

I realized quickly that it was destined to be a “live unfavorite.” I already loved what Gina was doing with it, but I knew it would fall to the bottom of my list as we chose setlists because I wouldn’t always want to summon the emotions to sing it. And, with only two songs to choose each year, what would be the point of picking something if I didn’t want to play it?

(I did the same thing a year later with “Tattooed,” at which point Gina and I agreed that songs specifically about E are generally not the best choice as Arcati Crisis songs, exactly for the reason that they can become live unfavorites for me as some new emotion between E and I supersedes the older one in the song.)

That’s not to say that I don’t sometimes select emotionally hard-to-deliver songs for AC. “Love Me Not,” “Dumbest Thing I Could Do,” and “End With Me” can all be hard to get emotionally right and incredibly draining when I do. I was ready to fall on the ground after delivering a searing “End With Me” at our holiday revue, and had to spend the next thirty minutes avoiding conversation with other guest. Yet, those songs simply aren’t personal the way songs about E are. I get to play a character.

When they were together, the Dresden Dolls learned songs at a much faster rate than 4 per year, so Amanda could afford to bring a song to the band that might not become a live staple. It was still worth hearing the band version, and worth recording. Fans still love it. It spawned a hilarious music video. It’s just hard for her to play.

This week Gina and I are picking our next pair of songs to learn, having already learned a pair in January. That means we’ll have hit our 4-song quota by April. Will this be the year we learn an entire album’s worth of new music in twelve months? If it is, I wonder if I will eventually tap a live unfavorite as one of my choices.

#MusicMonday: Madonna – Give Me All Your Luvin’

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The other night I drunk-dialed Madonna.

Sortof.

I was drunk (a rarity!) and riding SEPTA (never gets old!), and I decided it was time to lose my virginity in the mobile song downloads realm, because I really needed to hear the new Madonna single on repeat that very minute. So I bought it right there on my phone.

I’ll concede, it was very liberating.

I recall the anticipation of every Madonna album from Like a Prayer to present day. That’s 10 studio albums of anticipation over a span of more than 20 years. In each instance, I can almost viscerally recall my first listen to her lead singles. Some have been the best cut on the album (“Like a Prayer,” “Hung Up”), while others were something subtler meant to keep the full LP a surprise (“Erotica,” “Frozen”).

I am having trouble placing MDNA‘s lead single “Give Me All Your Luvin’” in the wider Parthenon of Madonna. The first time I heard it, I thought, “YES! This is a Madonna single for the new millennium. Sign me up!” However, in my tipsy relisten on Friday evening the song’s myriad faults became obvious – because the faults and the highlights are one and the same.

Good. The live-in a room cheerleader chants calling back to “Mickey” and melodic nods to an era of “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “Leader of the Pack”

Bad. Madonna’s singing. It isn’t the weirdly hollowed-out death rattle that plagued Hard Candy, but it’s unsupported and not very in tune. Female singers who haven’t abused their voices find amazing resonance in their 40s and 50s, yet here Madonna seems to have regressed to the teeny-voiced delivery of Like a Virgin with none of the charm of her young vibrato. Why is she phoning it in?

Good. The live-sampled drums that kick off the song and the relentless handclap beat driven by simple guitar and drum hooks – leading to an awesome heavy-stomp bridge, totally unlike any that come to mind outside of Ray of Light.

Bad. Neither the bass or the guitar are a real bass or guitar – both are clearly synth. Why? Though Gaga has been scoring hits on synth pastiche, female-fronted crossover hits in the past few years have not been shy about tangible moments of rock (Gaga included!). The choruses and bridge have an especially cheap plastic sound. I get that is part of the conceit of the song, but that doesn’t made it any good. Is Madonna so terrified of a retread of American Life that she can’t allow an electric guitar to stick out on a song?

Good. Fun, relevent guest-performers drop verses that do not feel entirely shoe-horned into the song. I don’t feel like it warrants a “no-rap” edit.

Bad. Minaj and MIA are wasted entirely here. Minaj partially because Madonna doesn’t have the time for her to drop a totally insane verse, but also because she is a great singer and could have piled on manic harmony anywhere here. MIA is more of a cipher – her allure is in production as much as what she spits, so why not let that sneak into the flavor the bridge more?

Good. The lyrics. They don’t try too hard, keeping the song relateable for a young radio audience, even when delivered by one of the most famous women in the world.

Bad. After a cute reference to “Lucky Star” (if you didn’t know how much Madge references her songs within her songs you haven’t been paying much attention) the second verse is non-existent. “We can drink some wine, burgundy is fine, let’s drink the bottle every drop.” These are placeholder lyrics that should have been supplanted by anything more relevant to the song. Also, maybe I’m over-analyzing here, but I don’t like the casual drunkenness here. Madonna has certainly had her moments of singing about getting messed up, but this tossed off reference bugs.

.

All of these issues? Fixable. Especially when you are Madonna. Yet, the same issues felled Hard Candy, the worst album of her career by a country mile after a major highlight on Confessions on a Dancefloor – at once adventurous and a return-to-form.

Am I excited for MDNA? I’m not sure. After an incomparable run from Ray of Light to Confessions (yes, I LOVE American Life) I feel as though Madge is second-guessing herself in an attempt to stay hip and relevant. Yet, her special power has always been effortless trend-setting (even if the lack of effort is completely contrived).

What happens when Madonna lets us see the strain, the strings and gears behind what should be an effortless hit? We get “Give Me All Your Luvin'” – catchy, enjoyable, but forgettable.

Let’s hope I won’t feel the same way about the LP as a whole.

Fantastic Four – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Updated May 8, 2025! The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide and trade-reading order on collecting Fantastic Four comic books via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperback graphic novels. A part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated May 2025 with titles scheduled for release through December 2025.


Fantastic Four (1961) #600

The Fantastic Four are known as “Marvel’s First Family,” not only because they are the most enduring family of the Marvel Universe but because their debut marks the start of the superheroic Silver Age at Marvel! [Read more…] about Fantastic Four – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Marvel Universe Events, Collecting Guide & Reading Order

Updated Apr 16, 2025. A comprehensive guide to line-wide Marvel Events – including story overviews, characters, issue lists, and how they can be read via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperbacks. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated April 2025 with titles scheduled for release through June 2025.

Marvel Events HandbookSecret Wars. Inferno. Age of Apocalypse. Civil War. Secret Invasion. Avengers vs. X-Men. When it comes to epic-sized comic book events, Marvel Comics is the all-time champion.

These line-wide Marvel Events are overarching stories that can involve dozens of Marvel heroes – if not all of them, all at once! Events occur as either or both of  direct crossovers between ongoing titles and special limited-series.

That can make them hard to keep track of, especially at the current rate of one or more events each year. It’s also hard to track down every issue or graphic novel. It’s easy to miss issues or buy the same comic in overlapping collections.

That’s why I created this page – it includes summaries, issue lists, and collection info for every major Marvel event, ever.

Click the links below to leap down the page to the corresponding section. I have omitted most line-specific crossovers with only one or two cross-line spinoffs, such as X-Men’s Mutant Massacre and Fall of the Hulks. [Read more…] about Marvel Universe Events, Collecting Guide & Reading Order

#MusicMonday: “Trip To Your Heart” – Britney Spears

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This is a little embarrassing. Let me try to explain.

I’ve been really into synthesizer pop lately, because Studio Krisis has come into possession of a new synth and it’s not a language I speak fluently.

I am also working my way through roughly 1,700 songs from 2011 that I acquired in December.

Okay, enough excuses: this post is really about a Britney Spears song. I think it is awesome.

There, I’ve said it.

Two weeks ago E and I were lounging in our hotel room in Las Vegas between adventures when this came on my iPod. I looked up from my book. “This is really good,” I said. E nodded behind her book. When the song began to wind down I reached beside me and clicked back to the beginning without looking at the title or artist.

After two listens I picked up my iPod, curious to know who the singer was. It had a sort of UK pop sound to it, but also reminded me of the electric lounge of The Bird and The Bee or even The Cardigans.

Imagine my surprise to discover the singer: Britney Spears.

Let’s be clear here – I love pop music, but I do not like Britney Spears. In fact, 2011’s Femme Fatale is the only LP of hers I even own (mostly because we dance to a couple of the songs in Zumba).

This is mostly because she generally does not sing very well on record, and if you don’t sing well and you don’t write your own songs I don’t really get the point of you existing as an artist. At that point your face is just an ad campaign for someone else’s beats.

“Trip To Your Heart” disproves that theory, to a degree. She sounds lovely on it in a higher register I didn’t even know she had. Sure, she probably has a super-computer’s worth of digital processing tuning her up. She always has that, yet many of her other vocals still sound like hell.

Britney or not, if you like dreamy synth-pop with a good beat, this song is for you.