God of War Director Cory Barlog has been very busy lately with a long press tour where he conducted many interviews. For instance, earlier this week he revealed that his pitch for a single-shot game had been rejected at Crystal Dynamics and that was one of the main reasons he got back to Sony Santa Monica. Now, speaking with US Gamer, the God of War Director explained why single player games like this one are awesome in his opinion. "Accessibility, pick up and play, fun. Deliver on the promise of the back of the box. That’s why single-player games are awesome. I still feel like I have that experience that I had in school where would be like, ‘I can’t wait to get home. I’m going to get transported into this whole other world.’ The fantastic fantasy movies from the ’80s are still inspirations, like The Neverending Story. People look at me funny when I say it’s an inspiration and are like, ‘But that’s a kid’s movie.’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s an amazing movie!’ It’s an amazing complete world that is painting this fantastic picture of a world we don’t know. Legend, Labyrinth, Ladyhawk—any movie from the ’80s that had an ‘L’ in it. These movies were formative to me. And they still inspire me." While some big single player games have sold less than anticipated (mostly those published by Bethesda), Nintendo and Sony are both still completely focused on this sector and manage to be very successful there. For instance, Guerrilla’s Horizon: Zero Dawn recently broke the 7.6 million units threshold. On the other hand, Microsoft is heavily oriented on service based games (which according to Phil Spencer are capturing a large amount of the gamers’ audience these days) with a few minor exceptions like Super Lucky’s Tale, ReCore and the upcoming Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Do you agree with the God of War Director on his take on single player games? As a reminder, the action/adventure game is due for release on April 20th for PlayStation 4.

Vidyut Jammwal, who has recently wrapped filming for his upcoming film Junglee is now gearing up for Mahesh Manjrekar’s next. The actor was last seen in Commando 2 which did not earn good moolahs at the ticket window. According to reports, Shruti Haasan will be seen opposite Vidyut Jammwal in this film. This untitled Mahesh Manjrekar’s next is a gritty family drama which also stars Naseeruddin Shah, Amol Palekar and Prateik Babbar. Shruti Haasan To Romance Vidyut Jammwal In Mahesh Manjrekar’s Comeback Film? A source close to the development told DNA, “Shruti was approached with the script some time ago. She had loved the basic concept of the film, which is about an NRI who comes back to his country and how things change for him. She had verbally given her nod to the project, but hadn’t signed on the dotted line. She has finally locked her dates for the film now.” The source added, “Shruti might not be doing a lot of action herself, but she’s the catalyst in the story. Her character is the reason behind the whole transformation in Vidyut’s character.” “Their first film together, Yaara, is yet to release, but the producers have seen its rushes and are happy with their chemistry. They feel both of them make a good-looking pair on screen,” the source concluded. This film will go on the floors later this year.

Baaghi 2 Movie Review Rating: 3/5 Stars (Three stars) Star Cast: Tiger Shroff, Disha Patani, Randeep Hooda, Manoj Bajpayee, Prateik Babbar, Deepak Dobriyal. Director: Ahmed Khan. Baaghi 2 Movie Review: This Tiger Shroff Starrer Is Bollywood’s Answer To John Wick What’s Good: Jaw-dropping & mind-blowingly shot action sequences, Tiger Shroff’s BEASTY performance & beautiful cinematography. What’s Bad: A hauling plot which could’ve been edited with so perfection to make this even better, few forced songs & a lot of flimsy things happening in between. Loo Break: Only if the air-conditioning of your cinema is too cool because the movie is entertaining enough to not let you go. Watch or Not?: A treat for action lovers & a must watch for them! User Rating: 61 Votes The story of Baaghi 2 starts with Neha (Disha Patani) getting beaten by two baddies who kidnap her daughter. Ronnie (Tiger Shroff) is this monstrous army officer posted in Kashmir. Through flashback makers reveal how they both were in love with each other and are away from each other since 4 years. Going through their love story in a flashback Tiger arrives in Goa where Neha is in trouble. In a parallel track, makers reveal how there is something wrong happening with this entire kidnapping case. Keeping things under the wraps, makers make you guess what’s actually happening with the plot. Ronnie’s journey of finding Riya explores a lot of outlawed things happening in the system. Tackling both the tracks, the story develops towards the end and mystery reveals. Baaghi 2 Movie Review: This Tiger Shroff Starrer Is Bollywood’s Answer To John Wick Baaghi 2 Movie Review: Script Analysis Based on Adivi Sesh’s original story of Kshanam, a Telugu film, Sajid Nadiadwala has made some changes to the script of Baaghi 2. The best thing about the movie is its action and makers knew this since the word go. Ahmed had Tiger as his ace player and he has utilized the most of him. This surely is one film in which Tiger Shroff has been used to his full throttle. Script has a lot of loopholes and there are times when it’s hard to avoid them but to everything boils down to the masaaledaar action sequences. Out of the whole duration of the film, the movie has 80-20 % of action to story ratio. Slickly choreographed action scenes, Santhana Krishnan & Ravichandran’s splendid cinematography piqued my interest for the film. Baaghi 2 Movie Review: Star Performance This is by far Tiger Shroff’s best performance till date, though to be honest I skipped his last two films. But in this one, he honestly seems to be taking efforts to portray more than just his physique. When it comes to action he obtains more than full marks and is a treat to watch. His moves are choreographed so well they don’t seem less than a physical poetry. Disha Patani is the most beautiful actress in the industry right now, no two thoughts about it but we wish she had a more meaty role in this one. For whatever time she is, she charms with presence but some meaningless traits kill the fun. Randeep Hooda & Prateik Babbar’s presence comes in as the biggest surprise. Randeep brings in the required humour to the script as he plays the role of a quirky drug addict police officer. Manoj Bajpayee’s character is a hurriedly written product but because of his talent, the balance gets maintained. Track of Deepak Dobriyal’s friendship with Tiger was also half-baked and could have been much better. Baaghi 2 Movie Review: Direction, Music Ahmed Khan surprises big time with this one; there might be flaws in the script but direction wise Khan manages to keep the thrill alive. He leaves no stone unturned when it comes to making Tiger perform action stunts. Masses will lap up to this one & it could turn out to be a successful venture for the makers. Yes, Ahmed has taken most of the inspiration from Kshanam when it comes to camera angles but in the end, this one is a beautiful looking film. Julius Packiam upgrades the ‘get ready to fight’ theme and use it smartly behind the scenes. The score elevates the action scenes and is used very well where required. Songs are forced barring a couple of them. Atif Aslam’s O Saathi has been well used and Jacqueline’s Ek Do Teen looks stunning on screen. Nothing memorable about the songs but I, kind of, was waiting for Soniye Dil Nahi throughout the film. Baaghi 2 Movie Review: The Last Word Some movies are just made with the purpose of serving entertainment and Baaghi 2 is one of them. When we as the audience can enjoy something like John Wick (It is an outstanding film & I am not comparing, please consider this before bashing me) we should not have a problem with this one. Three stars!

Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety simply refuses to stop its glorious run on the big screen. With its 5th week coming to an end, the film has managed to break one record after another at the box office, an amazing feat for a small budget movie. Maintaining a steady pace, the film collected 54 lacs on its 5th Thursday, as the audience keeps showering the light hearted comedy with love. The film currently stands at a grand total of 106.77 crores, making it this year’s second highest grosser after Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat as well as this year’s most profitable film with a 344.87% ROI (Return On Investment). Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety Continues To Hold Its Fort At The Box Office With Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety, Luv Ranjan has once again targeted the youth. The ‘bromance vs romance’ angle has appealed to, well, most of the youngsters. Bollywood analyst Girish said, as Financial Express quotes, “Definitely, the youth factor has worked for the film. In spite of average numbers, some songs worked marvels for the film and for the theatre audience this was a turner. And of course, the bromance angle in the film worked in favour for SKTKS. The climax was accepted by the audience and it sold like hot cakes. Hence it’s more than just one factor which weaved the success of the film.,” Besides, the audience bore spectacle to an Alok Nath completely different from his usual ‘Sanskaari’ image, as he is seen swearing and drinking alcohol. The ‘Sanskaari’ Alok Nath was at his best breaking the too good to be true image. This film will serve as a path breaker, just like Hindi Medium and Bareilly Ki Barfi. These films prove that one doesn’t need a huge budget or a star cast to make a successful film.

Baaghi 2 has taken the biggest opening of 2018 and that too by a huge margin. With as good as 25.10 crore coming in, the film has made Padmaavat collections look much smaller in comparison. As for the other biggies that have released in 2018, they have been left behind by a major distance: Baaghi 2 – 25.10 crore Padmaavat – 19 crore PadMan – 10.26 crore Raid – 10.04 crore Box Office: Baaghi 2 Takes Biggest Opening Of 2018, Comfortably Goes Past Padmaavat, PadMan & Raid This isn’t where one stops looking at the records as there is a lot more. Even if one looks at the first day numbers of all the Bollywood biggies that had released a year back, i.e. in 2017, Baaghi 2 is playing with the big boys: Tiger Zinda Hai – 34.10 crore Golmaal Again – 30.14 crore Baaghi 2 – 25.10 crore Tubelight – 21.15 crore Raees – 20.42 crore So effectively, the film has practically taken the third biggest opening ever in last 15 months and that says a lot considering the fact that all other films in the list have superstars like Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn in the list. What has to be seen now is where does Baaghi 2 weekend land up now. Let’s take a look at the first three day numbers of the aforementioned biggies with which the Sajid Nadiadwala, Fox Star, and Ahmed Khan film would be competing with Tiger Zinda Hai – 114.93 crore Golmaal Again – 87.60 crore Padmaavat – 78 crore Even if Baaghi 2 manages to actually go past the 70 crore mark over the weekend, it would be no mean feat and would place the film well into a potential Superhit category. Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources.

After winning our hearts with her acting, Anushka Sharma is leaving no stone unturned to impress us with her production house too. Her production house Clean Slate Films have come out with films like NH 10, Phillauri and Pari. All of them have been successful and liked by the audience. All the three films were in different genres. Anushka Sharma To Soon Announce Three New Films Under Clean Slate Films Now, according to a report in DNA, the Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi actress will soon announce three new films under her production. A source revealed, “Anushka is hand-picking and curating content that is clutter breaking. Karnesh and she will roll out three new films soon and all of them will be of different genres. If you look at what her production house has been doing, you will notice that they have experimented with and redefined diverse genres through their movies.” Another source said, “She is also empowering young and ambitious actors, directors, and technicians through her production house by backing their talent and standing by their vision. The next set of movies from her banner will live up to her philosophy.”

RGU Back open after Explosion... We literally had a server blow up and we lost all data, to say sorry , we have a promo giving u 100gb upload and more. Bot servers will be coming online soon and uploading all the old content

Donation Required! Hello All, As you all already know this site runs only because of you guys! It's the members content and the donations that help keep it up & running. With that being said it's been several months since we have received a single donation and it makes its very hard for me to keep the site going. With monthly bills piling up i request all members to kindly help out whatever possible! Thank You HKR

We discourage users to upload HDTV encodes for TV content because they are usually worse quality than Amazon/Netflix/iTunes WEB-DL. We won't be banning it outright because many shows don't get anything else than HDTV encode and it would cause problems with scripted uploads. However, we will be deleting HDTV encodes when WEB-DL/WEBRip/Blu-ray encodes season packs are uploaded. This rule can be applied retroactively. The only exception will be HDTV encodes that are proven to be of better quality than WEB-DL. On another note, we would like to advise WEB-DL uploaders to not bother with 720p for animated content such as cartoons, it's waste of time and effort as 1080p WEB-DL from Amazon or iTunes are already very small in size.

We are constantly improving the page. Therefore, we have some security measures to be fixed and the page will preliminarily go down an hour the night to Monday. The IRC will spin as usual, and we are available there as usual. There is a new competition in the forum with great prices. We hope for many contributions! Click here to come to the competition. https://superbits.org/forum/21/topic...ertavling-2018 We are now starting freeleech until Tuesday. And you are invited to invite those you trust: https://superbits.org/signup/178327b...5294f6a71a7a3a By the way, some of the news we have is: * We have added a new category for Finnish TV. We have also updated the opportunity to tag releases with Finnish text / numbers. * Each user is now able to choose between five different flags in their profile. These flags will appear on your profile page for other users. * We have now given the users who want to be completely anonymous the ability to hide their icons next to the username. * We have added 4K as well, so you can choose not to include P2P among the week's movies on the homepage. * Added a button on the torrent page to deselect all categories. * There are now two new things to buy in the bonus shop, + 100GB and one week freeleech. * Added so you can see users who have the largest amount distributed and uploaded under the top list. * We have received our autodl irssi script submitted in autodl's guit repo. So it should just be updating trackers. Superbits will be ready for new installations. We also wrote a guide for you: Click here to get to the Guide https://superbits.org/forum/55/topic...si-i-rutorrent

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A Florida federal court has denied Cloudflare's request to vacate a recent order which opened the door to widespread site blocking efforts. The order, obtained by the RIAA, applies to the defunct website MP3Skull but could have broader consequences. Representing various major record labels, the RIAA filed a lawsuit against pirate site MP3Skull three years ago. With millions of visitors per month the MP3 download site had been one of the prime sources of pirated music for a long time. In 2016, the record labels won their case against the MP3 download portal but the site initially ignored the court order and continued to operate. This prompted the RIAA to go after third-party services including Cloudflare, demanding that they block associated domain names. Cloudflare objected and argued that the DMCA shielded the company from the broad blocking requirements. However, the court ruled that the DMCA doesn’t apply in this case, opening the door to widespread anti-piracy filtering. The court stressed that, before issuing an injunction against Cloudflare, it still had to be determined whether the CDN provider is “in active concert or participation” with the pirate site. However, this has yet to happen. Since MP3Skull has ceased its operations the RIAA has shown little interest in pursuing the matter any further. While there is no longer an immediate site blocking threat, it makes it easier for rightsholders to request similar blocking requests in the future. Cloudflare, therefore, asked the court to throw the order out, arguing that since MP3Skull is no longer available the issue is moot. This week, US District Court Judge Marcia Cooke denied that request. Denied https://torrentfreak.com/images/clouddenied.png This is, of course, music to the ears of the RIAA and its members. The RIAA wants to keep the door open for similar blocking requests in the future. This potential liability for pirates sites is the main reason why the CDN provider asked the court to vacate the order, the RIAA said previously. While the order remains in place, Judge Cooke suggests that both parties are working on some kind of compromise or clarification and gave two weeks to draft this into a new proposal. “The parties may draft and submit a joint proposed order addressing the issues raised at the hearing on or before April 10, 2018,” Judge Cooke writes. Source: Torrentfreak.com

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Google Translation: Update of donation opportunities We have updated the donation funds on the page. You have a couple of altcoins to choose from. Some of the funds are more anonymous than others, of course you choose the coins that you think fit best. We do not worry about security and will never do it either. You choose what funds you want to use. It may appear more altcoins over time. Bitcoin is again available as an alternative. From us to all of you Happy Easter

The Kodi team is troubled as its name gets constantly associated with piracy. Core developers are threating to quit unless necessary actions are taken to fight the current predicament. XBMC Foundation, who owns the Kodi brand, has decided to take down individuals who are using the brand to supply pirated content. Time and time again, the Kodi brand has been dragged into talks of piracy. Although a legal TV player software itself, Kodi allows users to download add-ons which can help to pirate content. This, coupled with uninformed action taken by millions of users, and we have the media player left up to its neck in piracy related news and consequently, bad PR. Kodi states how some of their users end up downloading certain plugins as a recommendation from their friend. Now when these plugins allow the users access to premium content, such as latest movies and TV shows, the users think that Kodi is providing it. On top of these, the add-ons don’t always function as they are advertised, which leads the dissatisfied customers to bombard Kodi’s forum with complaints. And then there is the case with “fully loaded Kodi powered” boxes, which are primarily devices that carry the Kodi software and comes preloaded with illegally downloaded movies and TV shows. These are advertising Kodi as the providers of pirated materials. And also, when these boxes fail to operate, it is Kodi who suffers from buyer backlash. Now Kodi is aware that some of its users who download the software onto their systems themselves do understand that they are not providing all the pirated / copyright infringed content. However, given the vast user base of over 30 million users, where are practically countless individuals who associate Kodi with piracy. Following this current course of development, core Kodi developers are threatening to quit if the software name is still associated with copyright complaints. In response, The XBMC Foundation, who owns the “Kodi” trademark has decided to use its legal entitlement and chase down people using their brand without permission. XBMC Foundation President and Kodi Product Manager Nathan Betzen has officially stated that they are going to take down all individuals or bodies who are illicitly using the Kodi name to propagate piracy or buggy software. The team has also started enrolling supporters to help them in their cause. Overall, it will be interesting to see how things turn out for the Kodi team. Surely it is an uphill battle from now on, and at the same time, a unique one, so we can’t take reference from the past to predict the outcome.

Two men behind defunct pirate streaming site Swefilmer have had their sentences increased by the Court of Appeal in Sweden. The main operator was originally sentenced to three years in prison but is now required to serve a four-year sentence and pay additional damages. The second man has had his conditional sentence augmented with a fine. With The Pirate Bay the most famous pirate site in Swedish history still in full swing, a lesser known streaming platform started to gain traction more than half a decade ago. From humble beginnings, Swefilmer eventually grew to become Sweden’s most popular movie and TV show streaming site. At one stage it was credited alongside another streaming portal for serving up to 25% of all online video streaming in Sweden. But in 2015, everything came crashing down. An operator of the site in his early twenties was raided by local police and arrested. An older Turkish man, who was accused of receiving donations from users and setting up Swefilmer’s deals with advertisers, was later arrested in Germany. Their activities between November 2013 and June 2015 landed them an appearance before the Varberg District Court last January, where they were accused of making more than $1.5m in advertising revenue from copyright infringement. The prosecutor described the site as being like “organized crime”. The then 26-year-old was described as the main player behind the site, with the then 23-year-old playing a much smaller role. The latter received an estimated $4,000 of the proceeds, the former was said to have pocketed more than $1.5m. As expected, things didn’t go well. The older man, who was described as leading a luxury lifestyle, was convicted of 1,044 breaches of copyright law and serious money laundering offenses. He was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to forfeit 14,000,000 SEK (US$1.68m). Due to his minimal role, the younger man was given probation and ordered to complete 120 hours of community service. Speaking with TorrentFreak at the time, the 23-year-old said he was relieved at the relatively light sentence but noted it may not be over yet. Indeed, as is often the case with these complex copyright prosecutions, the matter found itself at the Court of Appeal of Western Sweden. On Wednesday its decision was handed down and it’s bad news for both men. “The Court of Appeal, like the District Court, judges the men for breach of copyright law,” the Court said in a statement. “They are judged to have made more than 1,400 copyrighted films available through the Swefilmer streaming service, without obtaining permission from copyright holders. One of the men is also convicted of gross money laundering because he received revenues from the criminal activity.” In respect of the now 27-year-old, the Court decided to hand down a much more severe sentence, extending the term of imprisonment from three to four years. There was some better news in respect of the amount he has to forfeit to the state, however. The District Court set this amount at 14,000,000 SEK (US$1.68m) but the Court of Appeal reduced it to ‘just’ 4,000,000 SEK (US$482,280). The younger man’s conditional sentence was upheld but community service was replaced with a fine of 10,000 SEK (US$1,200). Also, along with his accomplice, he must now pay significant damages to a Norwegian plaintiff in the case. “Both men will jointly pay damages of NOK 2.2 million (US$283,000) together with interest to Nordisk Film A / S for copyright infringement in one of the films posted on the website,” the Court writes in its decision. But even now, the matter may not be closed. Ansgar Firsching, the older man’s lawyer, told SVT that the case could go all the way to the Supreme Court. “I have informed my client about the content of the judgment and it is highly likely that he will turn to the Supreme Court,” Firsching said. It appears that the 27-year-old will argue that at the time of the alleged offenses, merely linking to copyrighted content was not a criminal offense but whether this approach will succeed is seriously up for debate. While linking was previously considered by some to sit in a legal gray area, the District Court drew heavily on the GS Media ruling handed down by the European Court of Justice in September 2016. In that case, the EU Court found that those who post links to content they do not know is infringing in a non-commercial environment usually don’t commit infringement. The Swefilmer case doesn’t immediately appear to fit either of those parameters. Source: Torrentfreak.com

Kylie Minogue has been struck down with a throat infection, forcing her to cancel a performance in Sydney. The popstar was to perform an intimate show at the Beresford in Surry Hills, for a few hundred invited guests on Thursday as part of radio station Nova's Red Room series, to promote her upcoming album Golden. But Minogue, who has been on a whirlwind promotional trail around the world has been ordered to rest by her doctor but promised to reschedule the gig in her home country. "Hey #NovasRedRoom fans. I'm so sorry to have to let you know that I can't make the Red Room show this week. I have a throat infection and have been advised by my Doctor to rest," Minogue said on Twitter, "I have tried my best to get better in time but alas, Mother Nature needs some time to get me better. I'm so sorry . I'll reschedule as soon as I can and I promise we'll make up for it. Xx". A statement from Minogue's labels, Liberator Music/BMG, said Minogue was "devastated to disappoint her fans". The singer has hit the promo trail hard in the weeks leading up to the release of her 14th studio album on April 6. In the past week alone, Minogue has been sharing snaps and videos from Paris and Berlin, and before that she also performed in Barcelona, Manchester and London, according to her Instagram account. It's Minogue's first original album since Kiss Me Once came out in 2014, and one which she said is inspired by her split from ex-fiance Joshua Sasse. The singer is expected to return to Australia for a tour in support of Golden "I hope to tour late next year and of course I'll come home," Minogue told AAP in December.

I’M TALKING Bear Witness (Bloodlines) Four stars Fact: if Dua Lipa or Katy Perry released a song as good as I’m Talking’s Holy Word in 2018 it would rightly be hailed as a pop masterpiece. Also a fact: when I’m Talking released Holy Word back in July 1986 it reached No. 9 but the song, like the band, remains cruelly overlooked in the history of Australian music. Like all of I’m Talking’s music, it was born from guitarist Robert Goodge’s love of Nile Rodgers and Chic’s funky disco, Donna Summer, 808 drum machines, Giorgio Moroder, heavy bass, the New York new wave club scene that gave the world Madonna and the addictive rush an unashamed pop song can provide. I’m Talking only released one studio album, Bear Witness, and 32 years (and now two reissues) later the songs and production still sound both of their time but also timeless. It was the 80s and the era of vinyl so there were only eight tracks on Bear Witness, which means all thriller no filler and heavy sax. This reissue raids (and digitally remasters) the I’m Talking archives to tell the whole short but sharp story. The deep-dive disco funk grooves of Do You Wanna Be hold up in an era where people are still trying to get the sound Nile Rodgers gave to Daft Punk. How Can It Be was their final single, missing the charts but not the hearts — a stunning ballad that reminds you that Kate Ceberano was then barely legal but had years of under-age jazz shows under her wings (one of the bonus tracks is a crystal ball cover of Cry Me a River). Their early singles now join the album — their trademark cover of Rose Royce’s Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, breakthrough hit Trust Me (a seriously impressive first impression) and the brassy, Michael Jackson-influenced Lead the Way. Zan Abeyratne, who sang Holy Word, gets time to shine on brittle ballad It’s Over and Disaster is that apocalyptic disco Frankie Goes To Hollywood were dealing in at the time. Stay With Me could have slipped on to any early Madonna album, Love Means Everything could be a Chic track, which goes to prove how good Ceberano’s voice was even in the early days. The deep-dive disco funk grooves of Do You Wanna Be hold up in an era where people are still trying to get the sound Nile Rodgers gave to Daft Punk. How Can It Be was their final single, missing the charts but not the hearts — a stunning ballad that reminds you that Kate Ceberano was then barely legal but had years of under-age jazz shows under her wings (one of the bonus tracks is a crystal ball cover of Cry Me a River). Their early singles now join the album — their trademark cover of Rose Royce’s Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, breakthrough hit Trust Me (a seriously impressive first impression) and the brassy, Michael Jackson-influenced Lead the Way. Zan Abeyratne, who sang Holy Word, gets time to shine on brittle ballad It’s Over and Disaster is that apocalyptic disco Frankie Goes To Hollywood were dealing in at the time. Stay With Me could have slipped on to any early Madonna album, Love Means Everything could be a Chic track, which goes to prove how good Ceberano’s voice was even in the early days. FLOWERTRUCK Mostly Sunny (Spunk) 4.5 stars Where has this band been all your life? Sydney. There’s a nuggety, admirable desperation to their daggy jangle-pop, like Men In Hats and Devo dressing up as The Cure. Enough For Now is a soft synth launch, Falling Asleep is a lost ’80s fast-pop gem from a John Hughes film, All My Girlfriends Are Zeppelins shows off Charles Rushforth’s voice, “Nothing new to my name, melancholy’s to blame.” It’s one to imitate in the shower. Buy two copies to be safe. /MIKEY CAHILL TRY THIS IF YOU LIKE ... The Go Betweens, Plastic Bertrand DAMI IM I Hear a Song (Sony) 3 stars Let’s politely leave behind the fact that Dami Im slayed at Eurovision and is now seemingly doomed to creative death by consecutive covers albums. While the Carpenters one made her sound old before her time, this one works well. Jazzy gems from everyone from Beyonce (Love On Top) to Nina Simone (Feeling Good) to Norah Jones (Come Away With Me) to Bonnie Raitt (I Can’t Make You Love Me). Two originals suggest Dami is more down with bebop than dance pop now. /CA TRY THIS IF YOU LIKE ... Blossom Dearie, Lena Horne, Billie Holiday JACK WHITE Boarding House Reach (Third Man/Columbia) 3.5 stars Jack White is an oddball. Did you know he owns a 1938 Action Comics No. 1, where Superman first appears? “I can preserve this comic book, it is cooler than buying some Ferrari,” he quipped. White is a collector of valuables. This helps us get inside the former White Stripe’s head. His third solo album is another collection of songs he sees as more than ephemeral. Similar to Lazaretto, it’s all over the shop. The 42-year-old still has the blues, sure, but he’s able to blitz through 13 songs while barely pausing for breath. Connected By Love shuttles down to earth, White suffering for his (he) art as the song rears up on an organ and grandiose Pink Floyd meets The Band affectations. The female backing vocals give it oomph as White tries to convince himself this time love is the real deal. Why Walk a Dog barks for existential meaning, while Corporation never gets beyond a call-to-arms idea that Beck would add elements to — this gets left out to dry, jauntily. Ice Station Zebra is both heaps of bongo-led fun and another song on this LP crying out for a decent chorus. Over and Over and Over storms backstage and pushes over chairs as White and his outlaws raid Ed Sheeran’s rider. It’s a blues rock typhoon. Ezmeralda Steals the Show begins with a plaintive Everybody Hurts guitar as White comes off as Johnny Depp doing Jack Kerouac. It’s worth making a bid on. Our own CW Stoneking humoured Jack’s request to swallow a dictionary on Abulia and Akrasia (it earns its keep on listen number eight), think Raah Project meets Archer. Then White asks us to Get In the Mind Shaft with him. Once you invest in his maddening world you’ll find a pocket to nestle in, happy. It’s not all super, man, but there’s value./ MC VERDICTAnalogue master dares to dance digitally TRY THIS IF YOU LIKE: Beck, Gomez GEORGE EZRAStaying at Tamara’s (Sony) 3 stars George Ezra, the Brit behind the crossover hit Budapest, has resurfaced with his second album. The first single Don’t Matter Now was a bit Dexy’s Midnight Runners with its big brass and chant-a-long vibe. Staying At Tamara’s offers throwback blues and soul anthems that might have been cut any time since the ’60s. Although modern anxiety encroaches on Pretty Shining People. Staying At Tamara’s is absurdly untrendy but perhaps that’s its secret charm. CYCLONE WEHNER TRY THIS IF YOU LIKE: Hozier, James Bay SOUNDTRACK Love, Simon (Sony) 4 stars Jack Antonoff has curated this soundtrack like John Hughes’ picked tunes for his ’80s teen flicks. As well as his ’80s-lovin’ band Bleachers, Antonoff teams with MO for pop banger Never Fall In Love and has his fingerprints on the gothic electro heartbreak of unearthed Troye Sivan tune Strawberries & Cigarettes and Amy Shark’s turbo-moody Sink In. Khalid and Normani’s Love Lies adds some R & B vibes, while Whitney’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody pretty much shows everyone else up. CAMERON ADAMS TRY THIS IF YOU LIKE: Pretty In Pink — Original Soundtrack

FROM the moment he stepped out on stage at Perth Arena there was little, from the sold-out crowd’s perspective, that Bruno Mars could do wrong. Having already been whipped into a frenzy by support act Dua Lipa, the audience was eager to see the Grammy Award-winner and welcomed him with raucous screams. These screams were quickly rewarded with Mars launching into his current single, Finesse, which coincidently this week gave the Hawaiian born singer-songwriter his ninth Number 1 on the US Billboard Pop Songs airplay chart. Throughout the evening, Mars, with his trademark swagger, served up a smorgasbord of hits from his last three albums belting out crowd favourites from Treasure, Locked Out Of Heaven and 24K Magic to Versace on the Floor, Marry Me, and Calling All My Lovelies. But it wasn’t just that he played those crowd favourites that had the audience at Perth Arena dancing in the aisles. Mars, flanked by his band, the Hooligans, who also served, quite refreshingly, as his back up dancers, worked the crowd and threw in the odd local reference (Calling All My Lovelies featured a fake phone call about taking a trip to Balga) as well as harmonised version of Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi. Even if you were not a huge Bruno Mars fan, you would have found it difficult to ignore the party vibe that seemed to encapsulate the first half of the show. And if you were sitting on either side of the stage you would have found it difficult to ignore the pyrotechnics. Each time the fireworks went off in time with a beat, those sitting by the stage could feel the reverberations from the blasts. Not that it detracted from the spectacle, it was just odd. While most of the show was high energy there were parts where it seemed to lag. An almost five minute piano solo seemed to slow the mood but this was quickly saved with Mars bursting back out on stage with Locked out of Heaven. Mars finished up with mega hit Just the Way you Are and one-song encore of Uptown Funk. And while most were at Perth Arena to see Mars, many were just as excited to hear support act Dua Lipa. The British pop sensation’s meteoric rise over this past year has arguably made her one of the hottest artists on the world stage right now. As soon as the 22-year-old, who this year took home two Brit Awards, one for British Female Solo Artist and the other, British Breakthrough Act, launched onto the stage with her hit, Hotter Than Hell, the half empty Arena quickly filled. While Lipa’s stage show lacked the theatrics of Mars, her raw, edgy soulful performance of singles such as Lost in Your Light, Blow Your Mind, the break-up anthem, IDGAF and the global hit, New Rules showed she is someone to watch over the next few years. Bruno Mars and Dua Lipa will again play Perth Arena on Thursday, March 29.

If Tan Sri P. Ramlee was still alive today, he would be 89 this week. Teuku Zakaria bin Tueku Nyak Puteh, or better known as P. Ramlee, was born on March 22, 1929 in Penang. He died at the age of 44, on May 29 1973. He was the biggest name in the world of Malay entertainment. Even today he has no equal. He was synonymous with the Malay film industry. When he first acted in Chinta, a film directed by B.S. Rajhans in 1948, Malay cinema was but a fledgling one. When he was made the leading man five films later in Bakti (1950) directed by L. Krishnan, Malay cinema was already making its impact. The golden era of Malay cinema began about the time P. Ramlee was offered to direct his first feature film Penarik Beca in 1955. It was also the year that he acted in one of the best films ever made by Malay Film Production (MFP) in Singapore, Hang Tuah, helmed by Indian director, Phani Majumdar. In his career, P. Ramlee acted in 65 films, directed 16 films at MFP and 18 other films at the Merdeka Film Productions in Ulu Kelang. He starred in all the films he directed except one (Panca Delima in 1957). Some of the films are real gems, namely Penarik Beca, Semerah Padi, Musang Berjanggut, Antara Dua Darjat, Ibu Mertuaku, the Bujang Lapok series and the Labu Labi series (all made in Singapore). When he left Singapore for Ulu Kelang, the Malay film industry was already wobbling. His last film for MFP was Tiga Abdul (1964). Legend has it he was betrayed by the same people whom he used to work with and even made famous. He directed Sitora Harimau Jadian, his first film at Ulu Kelang in the same year. MFP folded in 1967. Soon after, the studio at Ulu Kelang also closed down. His last film there was Laksamana Do Re Mi in 1972. None of his films at Ulu Kelang matched those he made in Singapore. Except for the hugely popular Do Re Mi series, most of his works were mediocre. He made a few marginally-successful films, but his heydays were over. P. Ramlee was also a talented singer and musician. Throughout his career, he composed and sang about 400 songs. Many of the songs were written for his films. Up till today, his songs evoke memories of the grand old days of Malay music. P. Ramlee set a new bar of excellence in the local music industry. Working with composers like Zubir Said, Osman Ahmad, Ahmad Jaafar and Ahmad Nawab and lyricists like S. Sudarmaji, Jamil Sulong, Salleh Ghani and Usman Awang, P. Ramlee was able to produce memorable songs that stood the test of time. But P. Ramlee was sadly a victim of circumstances. Unlike his counterparts in the West, the copyright laws were never fully observed here. He was merely a salaried artiste. He had no say in the royalties. While studios were raking millions from his works, he died a poor man. Bapaku P. Ramlee a book written by Nasir P Ramlee – his son with first wife Junaidah – chronicles the final days of the star and his beloved wife Saloma. There is one anecdote in the book that touched me. It happened after P. Ramlee’s death. Nasir was broke and called his stepmother for help. Saloma met him at a coffee shop belonging to Ah Lek, where the late P. Ramlee used to frequent. Saloma pulled out RM40 from her purse and said: “This is all I have Nasir, take half.” Nasir, died at the age of 55 in 2008. Saloma passed away 10 years after P. Ramlee’s demise, on April 25 1983. P. Ramlee certainly didn’t deserve the life he went through in his later years. He was a broken man, saddened and humbled by new realities surrounding him. Malay films have lost its lustre. The Pop Yeah Yeah phenomena had swept the nation destroying every strand of the kind of music that was dear to him. He was even booed on stage when he performed together with the new crop of singers. P. Ramlee wasn’t perfect. But he made great movies and sang wonderful songs. He was an indefatigable crusader against injustice and the corrupt as evident in his films. He was the hero for the underdogs, the downtrodden and the powerless. He gave them their voices. For many years, the Malays – who during the heydays of P. Ramlee movies were mostly peasants and fishermen – found salvation by associating themselves with the heroes in his movies like Penarik Beca, Antara Dua Darjat, Ibu Mertuaku, Labu Labi and Bujang Lapuk. After all, movies and music are powerful tools of indoctrination. His artistry will be remembered forever for P. Ramlee was nothing but the best.

At 19, R&B singer Ravyn Lenae knows how to channel her heartache. The Chicago-born artist's latest EP, Crush, proves that young people know love's perils just as well as the older and wiser. Her music recreates the merry-go-round of falling in love, even when you know it's with the wrong person. "'Sticky' is about reaching a point in a relationship where you both realize you guys shouldn't be dating, but you're doing it anyway just because you like to have that sense of just being able to be honest with the person and comfortable with the person," Lenae says of the project's lead single. "You kind of ignore all of the signs and red flags because you really want to like the person." Lenae associates the colors red and pink with Crush because they represent two sides of love. Red's intensity provides a foil to pink's innocence and vulnerability. For the artist, these two sides of love can be blinding. "I think it's hard to leave a relationship that you shouldn't be in," Lenae says. "It's a self thing, and not really realizing your worth and how much you deserve in love."

We all know that there's some dodgy stuff going on with companies using our personal Facebook data to target marketing to us. But, according to a 2015 study by Stanford University and Cambridge University, they can also now determine personality traits, in a highly creepy way. Apparently, if you're a fan of the Smiths, Bring Me The Horizon or Escape The Fate, you're very likely to be considered neurotic. Tom Waits and Bjork fans are very "open" people and Minecraft "likers" are far less conscientious than those who "like" hiking and cooking. The studies also predicted that if you like Marilyn Manson you're going to be highly disagreeable and Cheryl Cole fans are not open people at all. The scariest part of this all is? That a company called Cambridge Analytics used the data of 50 million Facebook users to develop a program that then used this information, without anybody's consent, to determine a behavioural type. They sold this behaviour/personality template as a marketing tool for targeting voters in political campaigns: most infamously, Trump's 2016 campaign. Cambridge Analytics verified their behavioural theories using previous studies made by the reputable Stanford and Cambridge universities, who collected their data consensually via an app called MyPersonality, which surveyed 70,000 users, and their friends. It really makes you wonder how "private" those privacy settings on your Facebook page really are, and if it's maybe time to just delete it all together.

Recently, I found myself flirting with the clerk at a clothing store. Discovering his interest in the outdoors, I remarked that I'd been reading about a great hike outside L.A., one that promised some spectacular vistas, including a waterfall. Without missing a beat, he responded "Oh, I don't go chasing waterfalls." As gentle deflections like this suggest, great pop songs like TLC's "Waterfalls" become ingrained in our casual speech. They provide generational, even intergenerational points of reference. Anyone who has ever had an argument about whether Alanis Morrisette's song "Ironic" is or not knows what I'm talking about. But the means by which such songs achieve enduring mass appeal tend to rely upon the most formulaic musical elements. As you age out of pop's target demographic, it can prove hard to remain a "poptimist." Poptimism is a sensibility that persists in finding artistic merit and emotional depth at the top of the charts. It's easy, maybe obligatory, to be a poptimist when you're 18. But as the decades roll by, and the endless recycling of styles and songs becomes ever more blatant to you, pop fandom can come to seem like the longest of long cons: built on irrepressible youthful élan, but delivering ever more of the same. This is what makes Meshell Ndegeocello's new album Ventriloquism such a happy surprise. It revisits the 1985—1995 decade when Generation X was at its zenith, and songs like "Don't Disturb This Groove" ruled the airwaves. Delving into the hit parade of her youth (and my own) Ndegeocello joins the likes of George Michael, Annie Lennox and Sinead O'Connor, each of whom surprised fans with concept albums devoted to reinterpreting and redefining the American song book. Wielding an immense sonic palette ranging from waltz to raga, from blues stomp to trap, Ndegeocello nods her hat to the originals before blasting them off into uncharted musical territory. While Ndegeocello has released an album of covers before — a tribute to the music of Nina Simone — it is still arresting to discover that she too, like everyone else, has had Al B. Sure's "Nite and Day" stuck in her ear all these years. Unlike the rest of us, however, Ndegeocello and her ace band have the interpretive chops to do something about it. What she has done, however, has led to some fallout following a swipe she took at Bruno Mars' recent Grammies performance, which she compared to karaoke. It was a real dig, but one that should have surprised no one familiar with the take-no-prisoners approach of her back catalogue, in which she as frequently adopts the stance of moral scold as she does the oil-on-the-waters chanteuse. Songs like "Soul on Ice" and "Dead N**** Boulevard" are scathing takedowns of the delusions of neoliberal multiculturalism — in the black community and beyond. And Ndegeocello was not alone in bemoaning Mars' win. Commentator Seren Sensei pointed out the sordid history of the Grammies snubbing black originators only to later laud their non-black imitators. Across her 11 albums, a principle ambition for Ndegeocello has been to hold the liberationist promise of black music up against its debased reality, and against the music industry in particular. And although she has mellowed somewhat over time, it is clear Ndegeocello can still deliver a full-throated jeremiad. To listen to her version of "Waterfalls," for instance, is to peel away the original's candy coating to reveal the song's bitter pith. Originally a cautionary warning against the highs and lows of chemical addiction, released in the era of crack and the early AIDS crisis, her update lets the song resonate anew amidst today's opiate crisis and digital affluenza. The accompanying video depicts a multiracial band of Generation Z shuffling through a melting polar landscape, like dutiful penguins on the march, or proverbial lemmings over a cliff. Here and elsewhere, the album sounds as much like a mea culpa as a nostalgia trip, as if admitting we Gen Xers didn't fight hard enough to forestall this bitter earth that our children are inheriting. Not every song on Ventriloquism is a downer, but the cover image alone (a direct homage to ACT-UP's iconic Silence=Death HIV/AIDS activist posters) should telegraph her serious intent. Such is apparent in the opening bars of the album, a cover of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam's effervescent "I Wonder If I Take You Home." Over a bouncing bass line, Ndegeocello repeatedly intones the phrase "take me home" with double intent: sexual and salvific. That she loves these originals is clear. But just as clear is her bid to rescue them, through reinvention, from the enormous condescension of posterity. This is the era, after all, when the soul redemption of the rhythm and blues "died," at least according to Nelson George. For Ndegeocello, by contrast, spirit never dies, which is why her music has never been "neo" soul, but more nearly a contribution to what Amiri Baraka called "the changing same." Muting the teenage bounce of Al B. Sure's "Nite and Day," and stripping the come-hither coo from Tina Turner's "Private Dancer," Ndegeocello seems to be leading a one-band mission to redeem an era of music often dismissed as over-produced, deskilled, and empty. MeShell Ndegeocello, in other words, seems determined to achieve the reverse of her (ironic) album title. She is not really ventriloquizing or just paying homage; she is taking these familiar tunes as the basis for revelatory improvisation, in the spirit of John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things." Ndegeocello even queers the mainstream pop landscape by singing straight male lead lyrics without switching their gender. This is not a trip down memory lane. This is passing musical history through a gauntlet of fire. The stakes here have less to do with "cultural appropriation" than with the structural racism of the American music business, which seeks to categorize, commercialize, and then quarantine rebel musicians like Ndegeocello. Like many who go ignored or misunderstood by the Grammys, she is an absolutely unclassifiable musical genius: My iPod picks a different genre — from jazz to soul to alternative — for each of her albums. Astoundingly, it also gets it mostly wrong each time, as she plays continuous changes on the very notion of a black genre. In the essay in which he coined the term "the changing same," Baraka described the angular sociality between popular "rhythm and blues" music and the black musical avant-garde as "the same family looking at different things." In the case of Ndegeocello versus Mars, it is more a case of different families looking at the same thing: the vexed and contested legacy of soul music. Yet her dismissal of Mars' retro crooning was never about anything so simple as who has the "right" to sing the blues. Rather than a brown versus black turf war, it was more a question of the divide between the showman and the shaman. As his Grammy award acceptance made clear, Mars is every inch the entertainer, one who channels the generations of black and brown people who have been obliged to sing and dance for white tourists in exotic entrêpots the world over, from Havana to Nairobi to Honolulu. Ndegeocello, equally cosmopolitan in upbringing, is every inch the uncompromising artist who wants nothing to do with this crowd-pleasing, work a day, tradition. Where Mars perfects the art of recognition, creating new music that sounds like the past note for note, Ndegecello returns to the era's actual songs and makes them sound strange again. The shaman wants to exorcise our demons, and hers. The showman just wants to bring a little razzle dazzle into your otherwise ordinary day. Some artists manage to express both sides of the showman/shaman divide. Prince comes to mind (and incidentally, it is his song, "Sometimes It Snows in April" that Ndegeocello transforms least on the album, as if it were less a question here of reinterpretation than of rapprochement). Yet we shouldn't be surprised to discover that the use of karaoke as an epithet remains the fraught site for some misunderstanding and even hurt feelings. Karaoke is associated with pan-Asian musical globalization, and it thus seems again like a racial gauntlet is being thrown down. In point of fact, Ndegeocello is deeply interested in a range of musical styles from the Middle East, South Asia, and beyond. Her sound is anything but exclusionary. And complicating matters here is the fact that the decade from which she chose to draw her covers from, as pop music scholar Karen Tongson notes, is karaoke's sweet spot. My own go-to karaoke song is "Private Dancer." Others of Ndegeocello picks, such as "Waterfalls" and "Smooth Operator," are reliable go-to choices for the empty orchestra. And who hasn't tried to woo a prospective boo with a drunken karaoke rendition of "Nite and Day" or "Tender Love?" I even quipped to a friend, before hearing it, that Ventriloquism would be Ndegeocello's "karaoke album." Clearly it isn't, but the proximity between rock authenticity and karaoke sincerity can be close enough to cause confusion at times. Like a raucous evening of karaoke, Ndegeocello is getting us into our feelings about a songbook, revealing dangerously personal and intimate meanings. Arguably on this score Mars isn't karaoke at all: He is taking a (relatively) underappreciated musical tradition and blowing it up to the largest scale possible, at the risk of standardization and dilution. The battle won't be resolved anytime soon. But, at least for now, it is pretty clear where Ndegeocello stands. One thing the black music vanguard that Ndegeocello represents is loath to do is directly mimic an earlier style, hoping to pass it off as new to the unwary. She also gave up long ago chasing the waterfall of mass fandom and Grammy ratification. Ventriloquism may be as close to poptimist as she gets, but she remains determined never to make it easy for us.

Hip hop may have emerged from black male communities in New York, but Indigenous music artist DJ Kookum sees strong similarities between that modern art practice and Indigenous traditions. "The four elements of hip hop: the music, MC, graffiti and dancing, right? That connects to our culture," she told Gloria Macarenko, host of Our Vancouver. "Our voice, that's an MC. The drum is the music. Every Indigenous person is an artist, I feel like. And the dancing. Those are the four elements in all Indigenous cultures." DJ Kookum, whose real name is Cheyanna Kootenhayoo, grew up with a single mother. She didn't have any mentors and mostly taught herself, which drove her to mentor other youth, she says. DJ Kookum loves performing, including at Let's Hear It! LIVE, a two-day outdoor music festival, connected with the Juno Awards in Vancouver. "All the stresses and stuff in life just kinda disappear. You're just on stage, in the moment," she said.