"no thoughts, head empty"- Alex Turner, 2018 alt. title: VVIBE WITH ME: a review of tranquility base hotel and casino in leopard print and shorts


vvibing to the Arctic Monkeys' The Ultracheese, I'm a firm believer that if you didn't like Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino you are just not really listening to it and letting it tell its story. It tells you everything you need to know to like it, from the moment Alex sings that he just wanted to be one of The Strokes at the beginning of the album to the moment he sings that he's probably not deep in thought, that's just his face.

The evolution from AM to Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is delightful to see, AM being the top, the maximum fame that Arctic Monkeys has ever had with the catchy songs and the construction of Alex's character during that period; You know,  going from the whole bad boy look of the 50s, the way AM talks about parties and bars and people to TBHC being the opposite of it, talking about the illusion of fame with a debauched tone but at the same time with a touch of loneliness, like a drunk person who makes fun of the situation he is in but knows that in the background there’s a little bit of truth to the jokes. The way it talks about dressing up like a fictional character from a place he calls America seems to me like a perfect response to the life he lived back in the AM era.

AM is a peak album, an album dazzled by a surreal American world and perfect to conquer American youth and TBHC is a deep dive in this tattered illusion, a beautiful album about decadence. In a way I feel like AM has an adolescent energy, perhaps because I listened to it a lot during my teenage years, but also because of the way Alex Turner describes things in such a dramatic way, full of life or death, love or hate, in the lyrics and sounds like someone who's drunk on teenage power. The disappointment of AM is not the same as that of TBHC, the disappointment of the former is singular, it’s a person; while in TBHC it’s the world, it’s the creative scene, it is the industry. I feel like the band but mostly Alex, understood that trying to make another AM was simply ridiculous so even if unconsciously they embraced the idea that the thing after that was decadence and they built an entire reality around it, like what would decadence feel like? How does it sound? How does it look? And to them it looked like the vacation spot on the moon, far away from humanity but still human, being treated like a god and then being forgotten.

The criticism towards society is also so on point in this one, while AM was quite empty in this subject, a thing that pops up every now and then in Arctic Monkeys’ songs, see Teddy Picker for an example, Tranquility Base just goes deep into it, from technology to politics and not in a forceful way, I mean it’s clearly there, but it’s also not just about it and it’s not a political album like the openly critical about the government American Idiot by Green Day. Alex sings very delicately about the way social habits have changed in the era of social media in The Ultracheese, talking about freaking out from a knock at the door when you haven’t been expecting one, and satirizes advertising in Four Out of Five with the idea of selling people things in the verge of an apocalypse.

The way he does not demonize any of these things, but just kind of brings it up, makes me feel like there’s a bright future for the band even after the great success of AM and the popular hate on TBHC. It feels contemporary, I feel that in a personal level Alex is aware he’s aging and he doesn’t try to stop it, he embraces it, he collaborates with new younger artists and he is not the young and wild rockstar anymore, and I am talking about the way I read it, but he feels secure in his age and it shows so much that it feels like to the outside world he is perceived as cooler than he has ever been because Alex writes about this part of probably his career without making us listeners feel like it’s just an old man's complaint.

One other thing I really like in this album is this dark and golden vibe it has, the '70s inspired aesthetic, I think it ties well to the idea of decay and rejection of modernity right now since the '70s were an era of embracing modernity and rejecting tradition, people who didn't agree with the technological advances of the time or failed to open their minds to a new moment in history were left to decay and be forgotten. I think the fastest way to decay is to not accept and embrace modernity like I can see this in my own generation in the way people reject Tik Tok just because it’s new, it’s young and dumb when in reality it being young and dumb is what makes it so amazing. Being open-minded and getting in touch with another generation and at least partially understanding them is a blessing and I think the band understands this so although people hated the album back in 2018, I feel like it’s on the way to becoming a modern classic.

vibing in leopard print shirt from Zara (R$119, 2018), running shorts, that I bought because "make some noise" is written on them and I just really like MCR, from Renner (R$69, 2018), sunglasses (R$40), old ass picture of NYC that is around 11 years old (R$??????)

What did you think of Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino? How are you feeling about the end of the world?

VVIBING IN: Alphets to scandalize my mother


 This was the very start of this blog, 22nd of October? November? I don’t remember exactly but I remember I said a big "fuck this".

I looked at Mark Foster's outfit for the cover of Foster The People's latest album, aka Sacred Hearts Club, and I thought “Mark Foster doesn't think about what he wears with the cheetah print coat”, like I did, always with an all-black outfit and heels, “he is a star, he just wears whatever he wants and no one questions it.” and that was the energy I wanted in my life.

vibing in a leopard print fur coat from c&a (R$ 99, 2016), iron man t-shirt from renner (R$39), running shorts from renner (R$69), ironing board (R$????)


So I started flirting with the idea of testing the limits of ridiculous, unusual, eccentric and all the outfits in this blog are part of this, I see it as a year-long exercise, let’s see how weird I can get till October next year. I haven’t worn most of them out because… well, because of the pandemic, but I am so excited to wear them.

Dressing up has never been more fun than this, and scandalizing my mother has always been fun, so no news on that front, she thinks everything I wear is hideous, she has always been very classic, like Chanel perfumes, she was an executive secretary when she was younger.

Back to the point, I want to make fun of myself at this point, and of my degree, what’s the fun in graduating in Fashion Design if you can’t wear what you want, right?

Give me suggestions on things to test! Color combinations, print combinations, anything, if I have it available to wear I will make an outfit and tag you! Maybe challenge you to wear something different too! Could be fun, what do you think?


A BIT MORE THAN 365 VVIBES AKA THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY

It's around 11pm right now and it just occurred to me that this blog is completed 1 year THIS MONTH!!!!!!! I know I said this was going ...