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Kingo Ligma posted:How many actual members of Jane's addiction are actually left in the band now? From memory Eric Avery quit three seconds after they reformed, Perry Farrell got injured during the first song, and didn't Navarro say something about quitting as well? This tour it is everyone but Dave because he is out with long COVID. I saw them at Riot Fest in like 2015 or something and was really excited. They were god awful and none of the songs were recognizable. Like they were playing Mountain Song and it took me 4 minutes to realize they were playing it because I knew the lyrics.
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Nov 13, 2022 14:29
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| # ? May 20, 2024 09:08 |
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I'm sorry Jane's Addiction sucks and also the Pumpkins are old and tired now. I listed to Oceania again the other day and that album completely rips, probably their best post first breakup album.
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Nov 13, 2022 14:35
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Baron von Eevl posted:I'm sorry Jane's Addiction sucks and also the Pumpkins are old and tired now. I agree, Oceania is wonderful. I find musical and thematic parallels between Quasar and I Am One, but I'm not smart enough to really elaborate in them. Both about god, both album starters, and I'd say the drumming is killer (though badly mixed), but whether it's Mike Byrne or Jimmy, it pretty much always was.
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Nov 13, 2022 14:53
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Whoever said Billy was struggling to sing last night was on the money, Billy's got laryngitis and tonight's show (and the rest of the tour?) is canceled.
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Nov 13, 2022 22:11
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Baron von Eevl posted:Whoever said Billy was struggling to sing last night was on the money, Billy's got laryngitis and tonight's show (and the rest of the tour?) is canceled. I know it said 'we'll see you next year', but I actually took that to mean 'the next time we're specifically in Portland'.
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Nov 13, 2022 22:17
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I thought so too but I don't know what the recovery time is like for laryngitis.
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Nov 13, 2022 23:38
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Baron von Eevl posted:I thought so too but I don't know what the recovery time is like for laryngitis. Depends on what is causing it and whatnot. Billy has been doing a lot more of everything lately than he has in years coupled with all the travel and climate changes which makes you much more susceptible. They only had 4 more shows and a week left of the tour so no doubt the doctor told him that he needed to stop at least for that amount of time. They can make up the west coast shows sometime next year no harm, no foul. I know when I have had it in the past my recovery was anywhere between 7 and 21 days. Depends on a variety of factors on how long the recovery is. I know if you have a viral or bacterial issue it can take forever to recover if you ever do.
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Nov 14, 2022 04:45
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Another thing is that he might have to learn new singing techniques to better preserve his voice of he's done any damage to it.
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Nov 14, 2022 05:25
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It's possible but I don't think he'd have made it to singing professionally at 55 if he didn't already have that down.
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Nov 14, 2022 13:29
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Billy: *clears throat, and softly speaks* "And, in the eyes of the jackal, I say... 'kaboom'."
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Nov 14, 2022 13:33
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I was at the show on Friday so here is my report. Poppy: I listened to quite a bit of Poppy before the show and looked into her history and let's just say I don't get kids today. Some of the songs I heard I quite liked but couldn't give a poo poo about her online persona or whatever. Her set on Friday was very rock orientated (makes sense for the show) but I was hoping she would have played some of her weirder more experimental stuff (sadly no Flux). I Disagree is a banger and I was pleasantly surprised by her live show. Also having an extremely over produced vocals and such probably benefitted her the most because.... Janes Addiction: gently caress Perry sounds terrible. You kind of sense something wrong during the songs but when he spoke between the songs (and man did he speak a lot between the songs) you could really hear it in his voice. Dude was cracking bad hippie dad jokes between songs that sadly didn't have the same kind of "oh dad" charm to them. Overall the songs were okay but didn't feel like I needed to see them play. Smashing Pumpkins: Oh boy was Billy hurting. The light show as great and thankfully they kept the new stuff down to a minimum (although still played the loving awful Cyr). One of the best and most annoying things was We Only Come out at Night. On the one hand I could see where they were going with it and they gave the song a bit of a early western twang, but I just wished the would have fully committed to doing the song in a different style. It was getting there and it would have sounded so awesome if they just fully did the song as western song. Billy's vocals really became noticeable when he and James did an acoustic version of Tonight Tonight. James asked Billy how he was feeling before the song and Billy replied that he was dying. He sure sounded like he was when he sang Tonight Tonight. I even looked at my wife and said that it sounded like he was sick. For the rest of the songs the vocals were turned down and got overpowered by everything else so it wasn't as prevalent. There was no encore which made sense. I got the feeling by the end Billy just wanted to get off stage as quickly as possible which makes sense. Still good on him for sticking it out.
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Nov 14, 2022 19:11
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Atum's out, at least on youtube music. Anyone have any thoughts? I haven't listened to it yet.
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Nov 15, 2022 19:19
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I gave it a listen this morning, and obviously need to give it a few more before really deciding how I feel. Also, it was two albums ago and since that album I listened to the new Dream Undending and now on a Seefeel record while at work. My first listen memory is hazy at best. I was suprised that "Beguiled" is not on this record but I probably just expected it because it was a recently released single. This is still very much current Pumpkins. Nothing is really suprising here in terms of sound and it's not like he included some old school wall of sound melt your face track as a deep cut. Billy's vocals are sitting in the front seat, with some robotnik new wavey guitar riffs and Chamberlain keeping it simple and non-threatening behind the kit. I honestly don't hate the synth stuff on this record and was pleasantly surprised with how goofy "Hooray!" sounded. The only other track that grabbed my attention was "Beyond the Vale." All these songs are short, (longest at 4:40). Nothing really has room to spread or grow, but I suppose that's just what they're doing in 2022.
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Nov 15, 2022 19:43
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So far, I listened to a few tracks while driving, and once again, nothing stands out. Billy used to write songs that sounded vastly different from each other, and that really hasn't been the case since everything after Oceania. And as much as I enjoy that album, it still sounds like new Billy wrestling (heh) with old Billy. New Billy won out, I guess. I'm really trying not to think back to the earlier work with 'hormonal, teenager I-love-the-music-I'm-experiencing-now' eyes and ears, but.... c'mon, the new and old SP are practically different bands altogether. Rupert Buttermilk fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Nov 15, 2022 |
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Nov 15, 2022 19:53
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Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. So far I'm finding it to be less obnoxious than Cyr was but I'm not vibing with this (6 songs in so far). Like... if this didn't have the SP name attached to it, I wouldn't feel so negatively about it. Is that weird? This isn't particularly bad on its own-- it feels like a modern take on Depeche Mode or something, which I don't hate. But in context of the band at large, and knowing what SP used to be, it's such a disappointment to me. We'll always have the first five albums (and the B-sides that came with those) at least. Good on Billy for doing what he wants to do, and gently caress the critics, but I can't help but see this as a "I'll listen to it once and move on" album. At least it's not a "I was so excited for this and ended up canceling my preorder for the album" situation like it was with Cyr, which I couldn't stand even when I was listening to it.
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Nov 15, 2022 20:45
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I want to listen to it, but it seems like the only way to do so is through streaming services? I don’t listen to music that way so guess I’m waiting till the full album drops. Seems like a dumb way to do it, but I’m old and don’t want to change.
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Nov 15, 2022 21:07
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Final verdict: it's pretty bland but it's fine I guess. The only track I find myself going back to is Hooray! because it's so loving weird. I feel like I'm listening to Billy's take on J-pop and I'm... kinda here for it? Like no, I don't think I'd want a whole album of this, but it's certainly creative.
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Nov 15, 2022 21:10
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Framboise posted:Final verdict: it's pretty bland but it's fine I guess. Yea, this is roughly my opinion. The weirdest thing to me about it is that its not only a Smashing Pumpkins album, but is billed as a sequel to MCIS and Machina when it sounds absolutely nothing like either of those albums. If it'd been a Billy solo album then sure, whatever, but it doesn't sound like the rest of the band was even in the same zipcode when this was recorded?
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Nov 16, 2022 00:22
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BeastOfExmoor posted:Yea, this is roughly my opinion. The weirdest thing to me about it is that its not only a Smashing Pumpkins album, but is billed as a sequel to MCIS and Machina when it sounds absolutely nothing like either of those albums. If it'd been a Billy solo album then sure, whatever, but it doesn't sound like the rest of the band was even in the same zipcode when this was recorded? Billy is hoping it's a financial sequel
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Nov 16, 2022 00:29
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Billy also said Monuments was a sequel to Siamese Dream so I'd take anything he says about an album being a follow-up or sequel to, our even just "I'm making a record like..." with the biggest loving grain of salt imaginable. A goddamn planet of pure salt.
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Nov 16, 2022 00:34
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Yeah this is as relevant to Mellon Collie or Machina as a chicken nugget is to a luxurious steak dinner.
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Nov 16, 2022 01:03
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It honestly sounds like music by committee, but with WPC as the chairman.
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Nov 16, 2022 01:08
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It sounds like something a very old guy would make to try and be relevant. At least he's not putting out Kokomo or whatever. I listened to a few tracks today, honestly I like the production of it, I think the sounds and reverbs are used well. The vocals are a bit too high, but honestly not that much. The drums are weirdly compressed and dull, which is not really what I'd expect from SP or Jimmy. I wonder if it's all triggered MIDI sounds or something.
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Nov 16, 2022 01:12
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I have listened and it isn’t awful. The utter lack of guitar overdubs and general layering in general is very apparent. Also you can tell there is a ton of electronic sequencing throughout the entire thing which is really distracting at times. The production really feels like a cut and paste job in Ableton or Pro Tools. I doubt anyone was in the room with another person at all during the recording of this. Which makes it all sound like demos instead of finished tracks. Honestly I think several of the songs would rip done live together in a studio like the old days. I haven’t heard any of the new stuff live so I wonder if they fare better there. Also about a minute into Hooray! I realized Billy was making a Mexican Polka song.
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Nov 16, 2022 01:51
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I was getting Jpop vibes from it myself. Like Billy heard a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu track and was all "hah I can do that". Either way, album isn't something I'll be coming back to much, if at all, but I went into it expecting *wet fart sounds* and came out of it more pleasantly surprised than that. It's not bad, it's just not what I want. And that's fine.
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Nov 16, 2022 02:17
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Baron von Eevl posted:Billy also said Monuments was a sequel to Siamese Dream so I'd take anything he says about an album being a follow-up or sequel to, our even just "I'm making a record like..." with the biggest loving grain of salt imaginable. A goddamn planet of pure salt. "Hey remember our most popular albums that are universally beloved by fans everywhere? Well our new album is just like that. We swear. Please buy our new album"
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Nov 16, 2022 02:54
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After listening to a few songs from ATUM one more time, I loaded up Machina again. I haven't listened to the album in a couple years, I kinda burnt myself out on SP and after Cyr I was fine just kinda moving on for a bit. Oh my god it's so good. Nothing Billy has wrote since then comes close to how much The Everlasting Gaze loving rips or how absolutely heartwrenching Stand Inside Your Love does, and I forgot just how great they were. Aside from the musical choices, the lack of life in the percussion, the lack of guitar in general, and Billy's voice being front and center where it absolutely does not belong, the biggest thing that separates pre-breakup SP from modern SP is the loving lyrics. Billy's always been a flowery lyricist, but at least the lyrics to most songs pre-breakup made some kinda sense that I could attach to some part of my feelings. Something I can attune myself with, lyrics that mean something to me. But everything I've heard from Oceania on is just a bunch of poetic nonsense that means absolutely loving nothing to me, and while Billy coyly insists that the songs have meanings but won't tell, I don't really believe it. There's poetry, and then there's trying to decipher this arcane meaninglessness into something that I can connect with, and that's the part that disappoints me the most. The music could still sound incredible, but I just don't feel anything from it like I did from the raw, gutwrenching lyrics and emotions that he poured into his earlier work. ATUM is fine, I swear my opinion of it is just north of neutral despite my fussing. The album is fine-- it's Billy I'm more annoyed with. Don't call this a successor or spiritual sequel to your best work, it's such a weird self-own, dude. Just do your weird flowery poo poo and ride that vibe all you like-- be the you you love best! I genuinely respect that-- but it's time to stop overpromising and under-delivering. Framboise fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Nov 16, 2022 |
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Nov 16, 2022 03:07
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Oddly enough, one of my favourite songs he's ever written was done so very recently. This almost feels like an Adore b-side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PdZXNET88A Speaking of Adore, everything post breakup makes whatever feelings I initially had over that album dissipate into nothing but pure love (though I've loved it for a while now). Like, the follow-up to MCIS certainly was weird and unexpected, and I really miss that originality. In short, the new SP doesn't seem like it's interested in making another To Shiela.
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Nov 16, 2022 04:48
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If you ever get the chance to listen to the mono version of Adore on vinyl I highly recommend it. It makes that record so much better somehow. I will say that Pumpkins stuff has aged pretty well. Like Zeitgeist I wasn’t too thrilled with when it came out but giving it another listen awhile back it was better than I remembered. I think a big issue since they reunion is that they have to have less and less money for production in these records. You can tell a huge difference between the production budget in Zeitgeist and Atum just as you could with the pre-break up records and Zeitgeist. It’s a shame really because the Pumpkins were a decent live band the records were insane compared to what they could pull off live. They were one of those bands that really did take full advantage of what could be done in a studio in a time where not too many bands did so.
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Nov 16, 2022 05:41
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Atum has Christmas Album energy.
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Nov 16, 2022 11:18
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https://www.reddit.com/r/SmashingPumpkins/comments/ywgvhx/cash_car_star_if_it_was_on_atum/ I won't lie I laughed real hard at this.
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Nov 16, 2022 15:00
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Honestly doesn't sound that different than the Adore-era version.
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Nov 16, 2022 15:05
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOKXfvBGzHY *gestures wildly because this is everything that a lot of us feel* Really good insight as to how the mix and production of the songs, but not the songs themselves, are likely the problems. Edit: see? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frhYavAGi_M This sounds a lot better! Still has Jimmy playing a bit too mechanically, but you could argue that with its synthwave/new wave vibe, that that's fine, and with that perspective, you'd be right. But the vocals here are fixed and the song sounds absolutely fine. Edit 2 The New Batch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-RRUIQv0Ls Here's all of Zeitgeist with the vocals lowered a bit. Referenced in that other video I posted. Maaaaaan, I thought 'United States' was good before, but... wow. Rupert Buttermilk fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Nov 16, 2022 |
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Nov 16, 2022 15:18
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Zeitgeist has a handful of good songs but a lot of very weak filler and the overall writing vibe was pretty weak; a lot of obtuse open string drop-c# riffing and maybe in an odd time signature. I think the album would have benefited a lot from a couple quieter songs, some acoustic guitars maybe. Put Rose March, The Crux, and Sunkissed on there and I think it would help the loud songs fell less samey and the while experience less tedious.
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Nov 16, 2022 23:40
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St0--qAA7yg
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Nov 17, 2022 07:13
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Billy why the gently caress did you decide the backup singing sounds good. It does not sound good. It sounds very bad. TBF it all sounds bad. I'm going back to pretending he hasn't done anything since 2000.
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Nov 18, 2022 19:09
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Framboise posted:Final verdict: it's pretty bland but it's fine I guess. The only track I find myself going back to is Hooray! because it's so loving weird. I feel like I'm listening to Billy's take on J-pop and I'm... kinda here for it? Like no, I don't think I'd want a whole album of this, but it's certainly creative. I want to revise my opinion. I loving hate Hooray! now because I haven't listened to it in days but it's been stuck in my head since then.
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Nov 19, 2022 14:12
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So far opinions on what Hooray is supposed to sound like vary from K-pop, to electro-calliope music, to "lovely Vampire Weekend," just stunning.
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Nov 19, 2022 15:16
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After briefly checking out ATUM - Act I (Jesus Christ, Billy) and so far my opinion is there's a couple tracks like Steps in Time and Beyond the Vale I could *almost* see myself wanting to listen a bunch, but they just lack. Nothing even super specific, just in general, they lack. Most of the album bounced off me, right now. I went in expecting a Mellon Collie sequel and it's not. I'll try listening to it properly later when I don't have that preface in my head. Also I gotta say from CYR that Confessions of a Dopamine Addict is a banger. Like I'd use it for a spooky intro of a big evil in a movie. Hooray! is great, because it sounds like something Devin Townsend wrote honestly.
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Nov 19, 2022 21:38
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| # ? May 20, 2024 09:08 |
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It's got that thing all the albums since James came back where it's just some songs I guess, maybe they all sound like boring New Order or maybe they all sound like boring Depeche Mode, but there's still somehow no cohesion. There's no ups, no downs, nothing tying them together or separating them. I gave them a bit of a pass with Shiny because they rushed it, Rick Rubin was involved, and maybe they still needed to find their feet. Nah, there's no feet. There's no need to say anything, no idea, no passion. Here's a song. Here's another song. This song is a weird one. Ok here's another plain one. Ok it's over now, please drive safe everyone.
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Nov 19, 2022 22:07
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