Pump Up the Volume (1990) dir. by Allan Moyle
a couple of years ago, i managed to snag this for $150, which is still crazy to me, and it's definitely my favorite thing i've ever owned. i feel like i haven't seen many people detailing the contents of it, and since it's such a cool relic, i wanted to share this beauty with everyone.
it comes with the live in denver dvd (left) and a fever you can't sweat out cd (right). the cover art and discs are SO fucking pretty and cool i'm so obsessed with them. i love how it really feeds into that 20s/30s theme they had going on this era.
then it has these 4 photo cards which are all such beautiful photos. the first one especially is one of my all time favorite panic photos. the b&w filter also fits this era so well.
this is a phenakistiscope. you stand in front of a mirror and spin it around while looking through the cracks so it looks like the girl is dancing (instructions are included on the back).
this is a tour program for the live in denver tour. it includes all the tour dates, as well as a guide to their discography. including pictures of the inside would exceed my image limit, so if anyone wants a post detailing this item, i'd be more than happy to post that!
self explanatory but it's a mask reminiscent of the but it's better if you do music video.
there's this SUPER cool poster that i'd love to hang up on my wall but i'm too scared to in case it ruins it. i'm actually so obsessed with this thing.
this is something else i can't include detailed pictures of due to the image limit, but honestly there isn't a lot of lore or super interesting stuff inside of it. however, i'd still be happy to detail it more in another post.
there's this GORGEOUS notebook that i'm also too scared to actually do anything with. it is actually quite a thick notebook. i looove the detail of the "PANIC!" barely visible in the middle of the pages.
now onto my absolute favorite part of this thing:
these cards for each song on fever are SO fucking cool and i love them so much. they're printed on really nice material too; they don't feel cheap and have this grainy feel to them too (idk how else to describe it) and it works so well. luckily i'm able to post individual pictures of each one.
so the back of all of them have the lyrics printed like that but i won't be able to post pictures of that for each one.
they just all encapsulate the theme of each song perfectly while also fitting so well with the aesthetic that they had this era. like my jaw dropped when i saw these for the first time. (side note: i'm not sure why they numbered intermission as number 12 when it should be 8 based on the album. i also don't know why they skipped introduction since they included intermission).
all in all, this is the coolest piece of merch a band has ever put out imo. like no one is doing it like this anymore. i'd been yearning for it since i was 14 so i'm so glad i was able to find it as such a steal of a price. i'll never shut up about owning it and if you're able to get your hands on it i cannot recommend it enough.
“If you don’t have any shadows, you’re not standing in the light.”
— Lady Gaga
okay but if you ever see a male creative who had a string of great work and then everything else he did was dogshit, go to the "personal life" part of his wikipedia and look at his relationships. you'll either find a major tragedy he didn't recover from (completely understandable) or, more likely, there was a woman in his life doing uncredited shit editing his stuff or contributing generally and she's not there anymore.
I told a friend about this phenomenon in literature and he called me weeks later like, I remembered what you said about women doing uncredited work when tim burton came up. he made a string of bangers then everything else just was nowhere near as good. the timeline matches perfectly to when he was with this german visual artist (lena gieseke). he's done some good work in collaboration, but if things were dug into I suspect we would find she did a lot more than people realise.
so yeah whenever you look around like wow women didn't work in history, or, women aren't auteurs, or, there just aren't as many great female writers - societal reasons for that aside, half the time they absolutely did.
Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Purple Green Pink Blue
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE (2010) dir. David Slade
Movie of the year (calling it now)
📸 Juergen Teller, Berlin '91