Review: Still Got Legs by Chameleon Circuit

This album has been about for about a week, and I have had it on repeat for pretty much all of that time. So I decided that I may as well review it so that I may spread the word of it's greatness. This album is by the Band Chameleon Circuit, and it is call Still Got Legs. Chameleon Circuit is a Time Lord Rock band (or Trock for short). That means that it does songs based off of Doctor Who. I got into them because I am a big fan of band member Alex Day's solo work, and he linked to this in his blog. I liked their first album pretty well, so I gave this one a try. And I was blown away. If you want to hear it for yourself for free, you can do so here.

This is an amazing album. There are so many good songs. "Nightmares" and "The Doctor is Dying" are both dark and somber, and rock. "The Sound of Drums" is like the previous two listed songs, turned up to 11. "Mister Pond" is cool, although considering my love of badass Last Centurion Rory there may be a bit of a bias here. "Travelling Man," sounds like a Death Cab for Cutie song, and is happy with a hint of something deeper under the surface. "Regenerate Me" is a lot like the music from their debut self-titled album released about a year and a half ago or so. It is one of the weaker songs on the album, being merely good instead of amazing. "Big Bang Two" is fast and moderately interesting, with a chord change based off of "I Am The Doctor," the song that plays in Series Five & Six whenever something awesome is happening. "Still Not Ginger" is a short, lighthearted song that feels a little bit tacked on to the end of the record to leave on a happy note, but it's a fun song so I'm not complaining. "Eleven" is a rock cover of "I Am The Doctor,"which only worked to make the song even better.

The band has said that they wanted to make not just a good Doctor Who album, but a good album in general. I feel that they have succeeded. "Kiss the Girl" is a lighthearted love song about a guy who has a crush on his best friend. "Teenage Rebel" is vaguely punk-pop; it's a fun song about freedom.

The only two songs on the album that I do not really like are "Everything is Ending" and "Silence and the End of All Things." "Silence" is just a depressing song in my opinion, and just feels wimpy. It may even be longer than the scene from the show it was based upon. "Everything is Ending" I don't like mostly because I hate that woman's voice. If I am not mistaken, she was the girl in the song "Hearts" by Alex Day off of Parrot Stories, but that was only a few lines, and her voice wasn't as shrill then I recall. But, with time, even that song is stating to grow on me.

In short, this is a great album that you should get.

Musing: Transformers sexuality

So at Bot Con a few weeks ago, someone asked if Prime Knockout is gay. I'm not going to discuss the "glitch in his Spark" comment, because the only thing I have to say about it is that that was really homophobic. But the answer to that question, I would say, is no, since sexual orientation is defined by gender, which Knockout doesn't have.

Until otherwise stated, I am going to assume that Cybertronians in the Prime Universe were created the usual way for them in other continuities: by Primus, essentially a god. And you can assume that they reproduce the usual way as well, which is constructing a body in a workshop and giving it a Spark of life, either by way of Vector Sigma or the AllSpark. So they are beings that do not reproduce sexually, and were created by a non-sexual being. The concept of sex is completely alien to them, and they likely did not find out about it until they came to Earth. so Cybertronians definitively do not have sexes, but what about genders?

I would say that they do not have genders either, without sexes, the only way to define gender would be their role in society and how they are treated. And Prime Arcee, the only Autobot that would be considered to be female, doesn't seem to be treated any differently than any one else on the team. At best, gender can only be assigned based upon robot forms that vaguely resemble those of humans, and at worst the distinction is arbitrary.

So, no sexes, and no genders. without these reference points, orientation is completely meaningless. Transformers can still love (although, being a Decepticon, Knockout only really loves himself), but there are no sexual barriers for it.

What needs to be remembered is that Cybertronians existed long before humans did, and have a culture all their own. They do not sleep, do not have sex, and their eating is really refueling, with nothing resembling cuisine. Imagine a culture stripped of all of those things, the later two of which seem to make up 80% of our advertising and economy. They may be some of the most alien aliens in fiction that are still comprehensible.