Listen up reta.....err, I mean memelords. I know we’ve all moved on from the meme era into the weed era (and hopefully people stick around that one due to the fundamentals for a while, but if not....) and soon to be a redux of the vehicle era, but there’s one meme stonk we need to have a real, honest heart-to-heart about (and hey, it even ties into cars): Let’s talk about Blackberry ($BB)
First, let’s get some misconceptions out of the way:
Blackberry was never a short squeeze stonk, even though it ended up getting roped in with the other squeezers we were denied squozing because of Wall Street cheating. A lot of people thought it was and that’s simply not the case. Blackberry was, is, and always will be, a phoenix rising from the ashes story, nostalgia peppered with functionality. You know, kind of like how you sometimes go watch some classic porn to beat off to and don’t stop to think about the fact that the actress is now in her 60’s and probably has super saggy tiddies.
Next misconception: It’s not a Boomer mobile phone company. They don’t make phones anymore – phones that are branded with their logos are made by another company that pays licensing for the logo and some of the patents. Blackberry sold all their mobile patents months ago.
Third misconception: No matter how much we ask, they’re never changing their name back to Research in Motion so that we can talk about Rim-jobs. Sorry, just isn’t going to be a thing.
So what are they? It’s simple really: They’re now an enterprise level software security company. When you think about it, it’s not such a big pivot, given that their security encryption in their heyday was so powerful that they ended up having to set up offices in certain nations because it was impossible to crack and ran afoul of certain international laws.
Let’s take a dive into the financials before we get into the story:
At the time of this writing, BB is a 7 billion dollar company with shares trading in the $12.50 range. Even after the meme war collapse, they’re still worth double what they were when the ball dropped in New York City with absolutely nobody watching in person and everybody at home wondering why even Anderson Cooper was using an autotuner. They generate a hair over a quarter billion dollars in revenue each quarter over the last year and in 2020 had a negative EPS of about 32 cents a share as they retooled, though they trimmed that to .23 cents a share for their last quarterly earnings report. They have about a billion dollars in cash on hand and receivables, and they have about half a billion dollars in debt. It’s not a great fiscal outlook there, but it’s certainly manageable for a growth company (which is what they presently are).
Where do they make their money?
Almost half of their revenue is legacy income from selling endpoint management and secure communications licensing. A third of their revenue comes from licensing their patents. Oh, they also own Cylance, for you IT help desk monkeys.
That shit’s pretty boring, not gonna lie. Your wife’s boyfriend might find it interesting, but only because he can use it to laugh at you that you know this shit. But the rest? The rest is where things get interesting. Blackberry Radar is a fleet management solution, and the most interesting thing is....well, for that, we have to go back in time for a moment:
(Wayne’s World flashback/dream noises)….
July 29th, 2017. Las Vegas Nevada. 50,000 of the world’s most feared hackers descend upon Sin City for a weekend of debauchery, drinking, and talking about all the new and interesting ways they found to break shit or in general cause chaos - aka DefCon 25, which was NOT cancelled, contrary to what you might have been told. A young hacker from Wisconsin positively stuns everybody at a panel by revealing how it is that he found he could effectively hack almost every late model vehicle on the road that possessed connected features – from range and while the vehicles are in motion – using.....music theory. It’s an absolutely stunning revelation, something matched only by how terrifying the implications of it are. And all anybody needed was a $300 RF modulation tool. Using this, he found he could take control of every mass produced car on the market except those made by Volkswagen Group and Tesla, and those only because they had randomized frequencies they used. This guy fucked. This process was so dangerous that, for one of the only times in DefCon’s history, they didn’t publish the how-to publicly. Oh, and a team from a then relatively unknown EV company in China called $NIO won the car hacking capture the flag tournament in less dramatic fashion. If you didn't hear about any of this, it's because you were too much of a square to be there. Sucks to be you, chump. Something had to be done.
Enter Blackberry
I’ll spare you all the things that have happened since then, but what you need to know is this: Blackberry came up with a solution to defend against this and a myriad of other problems (not to mention Europoor compliance in the form of ISO 26262) not to mention autonomous security - and their security software suite (QNX) is now on almost every new car rolling off a factory line today. This software is also critical for EV’s, because it controls battery management ECU’s (that’s the shit that makes it so you don’t have to drop 10 grand on a new power plant every 2 years). Or, for those of you with IQ’s of 60: Computer make car gooder.
OK, so that’s cool. But how does this get me TENDIES, man? How much can these guys make?
They’re coy about this and won’t give hard numbers, but there are ways we can estimate what they’re pulling. But to do that, we need to go back in history again, and take a look at a stock nobody cares about
(More Wayne’s World noises)
Enter: Nuance Communications ($NUAN). You’ve probably never heard of these guys, but you and almost everybody you know has used their products at some point. They used to be best known for their Dragon Naturally Speaking software suite, which your grandparents who decided they were too old to figure out how to use a fucking keyboard bought so that they could talk to their computer and send you messages that you hated getting unless it came with a 20 dollar bill, but which they thought you cherished forever. However, at some point around 2010, IBM – whom the Nuance CEO at the time was close friends with the management of, literally just *gave* about 125 patents around voice recognition to Nuance thinking that they were worthless. Nuance took these patents and – for a brief moment – became one of the coolest techs on the planet, because their tech is what made Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, Samsung’s whatever it was called and a billion other voice recognition platforms work. That is, until Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Steve Ballmer, and everybody else Nuance was dumb enough to trust to let look under the hood of their secret sauce came along and all stole the IP to made their own platforms, leaving Nuance rotting in a hole in the desert. But one of the really cool things Nuance expanded into before they went full retard was they bought a couple of companies around 2013 or so– Tweddle and some other company I can’t be bothered to look up – and got into the connected car space. At one point, Nuance’s Dragon Drive virtual assistant was in every new car made by 9 of the world’s top 10 auto makers.
OK, dude, my wife’s boyfriend is asking me to bring him a beer. Can you speed this along? What does this matter?
It matters because we can look at what $NUAN was getting in licensing for putting their virtual assistant in these vehicles, and use that data to extrapolate an estimate of what $BB is getting for their software. With just their 9 car makers at their back, they were generating over 300 million dollars a year – and that was almost a decade ago, and just for something that would tell you where to pick up your Down’s Syndrome medication. Add a premium for security, include all the auto makers, carry the one, smoke a bowl to help you concentrate, adjust for inflation.....
This is a market worth about...oh, roughly 750 million dollars a year for Blackberry on the conservative side once they actually start charging a market rate for this product. Right now, they’re adopting the same go-to strategy Microsoft has been employing with Azure, which is to basically GIVE it away in order to gain market share and penetration, and then send Fat Tony to collect once the car maker is reliant on it. Plus all the other stuff we already glossed over because it’s boring as shit. Applying the average multiple of earnings for cybersecurity firms out there, their lack of competition in the space, etc. And you come up with a market cap valuation target of....oh, roughly between 45 and 50 billion dollars once they’re firing on all cylinders. And they don’t have to worry about Google or Apple throwing 10,000 engineers at this to make a competing product, because it’s just not worth it to them, so they’re largely gonna get left alone.
Or, by using maths....a share price of somewhere in the neighborhood of $87.50. Give or take 10 bucks. Make it 15 to the downside, just to be safe.
Yeah man! Cool. So I’m in. It’s gonna go to that by like, Friday or something?
An enterprise level cybersecurity company with a sub 10 billion dollar valuation is basically unheard of in this century. But this is not a burn play where you’re gonna get 50% gains every day with no work. It’s a company that’s going to have to melt up to that. It still won’t be to that point this time next year.
BUT....that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a great story. It just means that this isn’t something you do a 0DTE YOLO on and expect to get something out of. And making an Avengers meme about it isn’t going to send it to the moon. This is something you buy and stash in a musty corner of your portfolio so you can tell your Boomer parents that you’re being responsible with your investing and you were just joking about betting your inheritance on weekly FD’s for shitty online dating sites where the women have to talk to your sorry ass first. Oh, and it’ll make the lambo you buy with the money from this safer.
Because I know it matters, here are 69 rockets so you apes understand what all this meant.
.....no, there aren't going to be any rockets. I lied.
Disclosures/Positions: I am long $BB, holding 100,000 shares @ $7.67 average and another 5000 January 2022 5c’s.
TL:DR: $87.50
All my love
-Chad Dickens
submitted by Hello everyone. I made a post about two months ago sharing my library index (646GB at the time). I was working with 400GB of space back then so I went with a request format so people could comment and request titles on my list. However, I have since exceeded that storage space limit through the sheer number of requests I've been getting so I decided to purchase more space to accommodate everyone's needs. As a result, I now have enough space to upload my entire library which is what I have done. Please enjoy!
aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56L2ZvbGRlci96bDBtR1FDUSN3S21ORzVlUmdDVmxSeC0wUTlFQS1R
*This keeps coming up on my last post, so I will reiterate it here:
This is not a request post. I'm sharing what I have in my library. Please do not request titles that aren't listed below. Thank you. :)
If there's no quality specified, it's FLAC at 16bit / 44.1 or 48 kHz
[320] MP3 at 320kbps, when this number is 3 digits and not 16/24 it is always MP3 with the number indicating kbps
[24] FLAC at 24 bit, if the sampling rate is higher than 44.1/48kHz it will be specified
[MQA] will be specified after bit-rate
Discographies are studio albums mostly, some include EPs/Mixtapes/Live albums as well
All albums listed are complete, unless otherwise noted.
If there are multiple formats available within an album, they will be in separate sub folders.
Occasionally there will be albums with mixed formats, which will be noted.
There's a small percentage of titles that are labeled in FLAC but are actually upsampled MP3. Unfortunately I'm not quite sure which ones they are. I'd estimate this to be less than 3% of the collection.
Some video content are also included with certain titles.
I think that would be all for now. Please let me know if you have any concerns or questions below.
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2 Chainz - Discography (2012-2020)[16~24/96]
2 Pac - 2Pacalypse Now, Strictly 4 My NIGGAZ, Me Against the World, All Eyez on Me, Americaz Most Wanted
8 Mile Original Soundtrack
8Ball - Lost
21 Savage - Slaughter King [320], Savage Mode, Savage Mode II [24]
50 Cent - Discography (2003-2014), Power of the Dollar EP+Unreleased, Guess Who's Back [Mixtape], The New Breed [Documentary CD], Get Rich or Die Tryin' OST, This is 50 [Mixtape], The Kanan Tape [Mixtape], Best Of [Compilation], Singles
112 - 112, Room 112
A Boogie wit da Hoodie - Artist, The Bigger Artist, Hoodie SZN, Artist 2.0 [24]
A Great Big World - Is There Anybody Out There? [320]
A$AP Ferg - Furious Ferg, Floor Seats II [24]
A$AP Rocky -
Live.Love. ASAP, Long. Live. ASAP, At. Last. ASAP [24], Testing [24]
Aaryan Shah - In the Making, The Arrival: Part I+II [16~24]
AC/DC - Discography (1976-2020)[16~24/96]
Ace Hood [320] - Discography (2008-2013)
Mixtape: Ace Won't Fold, All Bets on Ace, Final Warning, Street Certified, The Preview, I Do It.. For the Sport, The Statement, Body Bag Vol.1, Sex Chronicles, The Statement 2, Body Bag Vol.2, Starvation, Starvation II
ACG:
.hack_Sign OST 1+2 [320]
Castlevania - Akumajo Dracula Best Music Collections Box
Curse of Darkness - Prelude of Revenge
Harmony of Despair
Lament of Innocence
Lament of Innocence Limited Edition Music Sampler
Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate
Symphony of the Night
Death Note OST 1+2+3 [320]
Detective Conan OST 3
Final Fantasy Symphonic Suite
Final Fantasy VII OST
Final Fantasy VII Reunion Tracks
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy X
Gensomaden Saiyuki - OST 1, Single Collection
Guilty Gear X - Heavy Rock Tracks, Rising Force of Gear Image Vocal Tracks
Guilty Gear XX OST
Guilty Gear XX - Sound Alive/A.S.H.
Hikaru no Go - Theme Song Selection
Howl's Moving Castle - OST [24], Symphony Suite [320]
Hunter x Hunter - OST 1+2+3, The Last Mission
Joe Hisaishi - Dream Songs/The Essential Joe Hisaishi [24]
Koudelka
Legend of Mana [320]
Madlax
My-HiME - OST 1+2
Neon Genesis Evangelion - Single Collection, "A Cruel Angel's Thesis" [24_192]
NieR:Automata [24]
Noir - OST 1+2+3
Ragnarok Online Complete Soundtrack
Rockman Zero: Remastered Tracks, Collection Soundtrack -résonnant vie-
Rockman Zero & ZX Sound Box (Zero 1+2+3+4, ZX, ZX Advent)
Rockman Zero/ZX Reploid Remixes
Rockman ZX: Soundsketch -ZX Gigamix-, ZX Tunes, ZXA Tunes
Rurouni Kenshin - OST 1 [320], OST 2+3+4, CD BOX [320], Director's Collection, Premium Collection, Songs, The Best Theme Collection
Shaman King - Comics Image Album, Melody of the Spirits, Osorezan Revoir ~au revoir~, Osorezan Revoir ~prologue to shaman~, Single Vocal Album, Vocal on Parade!!
Slayers TRY Treasure BGM
Spirited Away [320]
The Legend of Zelda - Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time, 25th Anniversary Special Orchestra CD
Tsubasa Chronicle - OST 1+2+3+4
Yu-Gi-Oh! Theme Song Single Collection
Z.O.E. - Zone of the Enders, Anubis: Zone of the Enders
Zenki - Character Song Collection 2, OST 2 Raigou Shourin!!
軒轅劍三外傳:天之痕 - 三個人的時光
風色幻想 - 1+SP+2+3+4+5
Adam Ben Ezra - Discography (2015-2020)
Adam Lambert - Trespassing
Adam Lopez - The Popera, Showstopper, Till the End of Time
Adele - Discography (2008-2015)
Afek-T - Les brumes, "Impassible"
Agnes Obel - Philharmonics, Aventine, Citizen of Glass [24], Myopia [24]
Akon - Trouble
Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls, Sound & Color
Alejandro Fernández - de noche - clasicos a mi manera, Confidencias [320]
Alicia Keys - Songs in A Minor
Aloe Blacc - Shine Through, Good Things, Lift Your Spirit
Aloosh - Separate, Ceramic [24/96]
Amber Run [320] - 5am, For a Moment I Was Lost
Amy Winehouse - Frank [24], Back to Black [24/96], Lioness: Hidden Treasures, At the BBC
Andrea Bocelli - Romanza, Verdi
Angra - Discography (1992 - 2010)[160~231, except Temple of Shadows in 16]
Anita Baker - Rhythm of Love
Anthony Ramos - The Freedom EP, The Good & The Bad
Ariana Grande - Discography (2013-2020)[16~24/MQA]
Arvo Part - Various works
Audiophile Analog Collection Vol. 2 [DSD256]
Aurora - Discography (2015-2019)[24, except Infections of a Different Kind in 16]
AZ - Doe or Die
Az Yet - Az Yet, She's Magic
Babyface - The Day
Bad Meets Evil - Hell: The Sequel
Ballet Class Music [320]
Banks - Discography (2014-2019)[16~24/MQA]
Basso Profondo from Old Russia
Belly - Another Day in Paradise, Inzombia, Mumble Rap, Immigrant
Beyoncé - 4, Beyoncé, Lemonade
Big Boi - Boomiverse
Bilal - 1st Born Second
Bill Evans Trio [320] - Explorations, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, Waltz for Debby
Bill Withers - Lovely Day: The Very Best of Bill Withers
Billie Eilish - Discography (2017-2020)
Birdy - Discography (2011-2016)
Bishop Briggs - EP [24MQA], Church of Scars [24MQA], Champions [24]
Black OST
Black Hill - Discography (2014-2019)[16~24]
Stvannyr - Secrets of the runes
Black Panther - Original Score [24], The Album [24], Wakanda Remixed [16]
Blindspotting - The Collins EP, The Miles EP
Bloom - Sinses
Blue - All Rise
Bob Marley & The Wailers - Legend
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony - Creepin on ah Come Up EP
Brent Faiyaz - A.M. Paradox EP, Sonder Son, Lost EP, Fuck the World
Bruno Mars - Discography (2010-2016)
Busta Rhymes - The Coming
Call Me By Your Name OST
Camila Cabello - Romance
Cardi B - Gangsta Bitch Music Vol.1 [128], UnderEstimated - The Tour Album [128], GBMV2 [128], Invasion of Privacy
Carolina Eyck - Discography (2008-2019)
Case - Open Letter
Céline Dion - All the Way... A Decade of Song, A New Day Has Come, Courage
Charlotte Cardin - Big Boy EP, Main Girl EP
Charlotte Cardinale - Florescentia
Chase Holfelder - Major to Minor, Vol. 1+2
Chet Faker - Thinking in Textures, Built on Glass, Lockjaw
Childish Gambino - Camp, Because the Internet, 3.15.20, "This is America"
Chingy - Jackpot
Chloe x Halle [24] - Sugar Symphony EP, The Kids Are Alright, Ungodly Hour
Choral: Aliqua, Chor Leoni Men's Choir Discography (1998-2018), Christmas with The Princeton Singers, musica intima (clear), Rajaton (Boundless, Tarinoita), The Manitou Singers - Repertoire for Women's Voices, Vol. 2
Christina Aguilera - Christina Aguilera [320], Stripped, Back to Basics, Bionic, Lotus [320], Liberation [24]
Cirque du Soleil - Discography (1992-2015)[128~320, 3 albums in 16]
Clann [24] - Kin Fables, Seelie
Classical:
100 Great Symphonies
Bach - Selected Organ Works, The Famous Cantatas, The Six Motets
Beethoven - Complete String Quartets, Piano Sonata No.8 op.13 'Pathetique', Piano Sonata No.14 op.27 'Moonlight', Piano Sonata No.23 op.57 'Appassionata'
Brahms - Brahms on Life and Love, Requiem, Symphony No.1
Bruckner - Te Deum
Chopin Complete Piano Music [192]
Dvořák - Mass in D, Requiem, Symphony No.7+8+9
Fauré - Requiem
Glazunov - Violin Concerto in Am op.82
Grieg - Piano Concerto op.16 in Am
Liszt - 10 Hungarian Rhapsodies, Jorge Bolet - Favourite Piano Works, Piano Works
Mendelssohn - Symphony No.4, Violin Concerto in Em
Mozart - Clarinet Concerto in A, Concerto in C for Flute, Harp, Orchestra, Horn Concerto No.4, Piano Concerto No.20, Piano Concerto No.21, Requiem
Paganini - Salvatore Accardo plays Paganini's Guarneri del Gesu 1742
Schubert - Piano Sonata No.14+19
Schumann - Piano Concerto op.54 in Am
Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No.1, Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, The Symphonies [192]
Verdi - Requiem
Vivaldi - Concerto in C for Violin and Double Orchestra, Concerto in D for Violin and Double Orchestra, The Four Seasons
clipping - CLPPNG [24], There Existed an Addiction to Blood
Coco OST
Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise
Corey Payette - Children of God, Les Filles du Roi
Craig David - Born to Do It, Slicker Than Your Average
Cris Derksen - The Cusp [320], The Collapse, Orchestral Powwow
Curtis Clearsky and the Constellationz - Indigifunk
D12 - Devil's Night, D12 World
Daley - Discography (2011-2017)
D'Angelo - Brown Suger, Black Messiah [24/96]
Darren Hayes - Spin
Daveed Diggs - Small THings to a Giant, Seven Nights in Chicago
David Morin - Every Colour
Deen Squad Mixtape 2015 [320]
Destino - Forte, Beginning Again
Destiny's Child - Destiny's Child, #1s
Disclosure - Caracal
DJ Danger Mouse - The Grey Album
DJ Drama - Quality Street Music 2
Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony No.1+2+3+4+5+6+8+9+12+14+15, Violin Concerto No.1
DMX - It's Dark and Hell is Hot, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, ...And Then There Was X
Dr. Dre - 2001, Compton
Drake - So Far Gone [320], Thank Me Later [320], Take Care [320], Nothing Was the Same [320], If You're Reading This It's Too Late
Dream Theater - Discography (1989-2019)[16~24/96]
Dream Warriors - Subliminal Simulation
Drezus - Red Winter, Indian Summer
Dru Hill - Dru Hill, Enter the Dru
Dumbfoundead - Discography (2011-2016), Café Bleu, Inside/Outside [24]
Dylan Brady - All I Ever Wanted [24], Choker, Dog Show, This Car Needs Some Wheels
Eagles - Discography (1972-1979)[24/192]
Eazy-E - It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa, Eternal E
Elijah Blake - Discography (2012-2019)
Eminem - Discography (1996-2020)[16~24/96]
En Vogue - Funky Divas
Enrique Iglesias - Enrique, Euphoria
ES Posthumus - Unearthed [320]
Evanescence - Discography (2003-2017)[16~24]
Fantastic Negrito - Discography (2014-2020)
Far East Movement - Free Wired
FKA Twigs - LP1, Magdalene
Flipsyde - Discography (2005-2012)[128~320]
Florence + the Machine - Discography (2009-2018)[16~24/96]
Flume - Skin [24]
For Vance - Live at Bangor Abbey [16], From Muscle Shoals [24]
Frank Ocean - Discography (2011-2016)[16~24]
Frank Sinatra - Ultimate Sinatra
Frozen OST
Frvrfriday - More Than You Know, Offline, WHOISFRIDAY [24]
Fugees - The Score
Future - Beast Mode [24], Future [24/96]
Gallant - Zebra [320]
Game of Thrones - S1-8 OST, Various Orchestra Albums, For the Throne
Gary Jules - Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets
Get Out OST
Ghost - Meliora [24]
Ginuwine - Ginuwine... The Bachelor, 100% Ginuwine
Gorillaz - Discography (2001-2020)[24/MQA~24/96]
Grace VanderWaal [24] - Perfectly Imperfect, Just the Beginning
Guru - Jazzmatazz Vol. 1
GZA - Liquid Swords
Hamilton: An Americal Musical - Cast Recording, Hamildrops [AAC], Instrumentals [AAC], The Hamilton Mixtape [AAC]
Hans Zimmer - Batman Begins OST+Recording Session, The Dark Knight [24/96], Sherlock Holmes, Inception [16~24][5.1], The Dark Knight Rises [24/192], Intersteller [24], Blade Runner 2049, Live in Prague [24], The Classics [24/96], The Lion King (2019)[24]
Harry Potter OST
Hercules [192]
Higher Brothers - Black Cab, Five Stars
Hozier - Discography (2013-2019)[16~24]
Igorrr - Hallelujah
Il Divo - Discography (2004-2018)
In tha Beginning... There Was Rap
Ingrid Michaelson - Discography (2005-2014)
iskwē - iskwē, The Fight Within, acakosik
J. Cole [24] - 2014 Forest Hills Drive, Forest Hills Drive: Live
J.S. Ondara - Tales of America (The Second Coming) [24/192], Folk n' Roll Vol.1: Tales of Isolation [24]
Jacques Loussier Trio - Vivaldi- The Four Seasons
James Blake - Discography (2011-2020)
James Vincent McMorrow [320] - Early in the Morning, Post Tropical
Janelle Monáe - Discography (2010-2018)[16~24], Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) EP
Janne - Meeting the Wolf EP
Jasmine Cephas Jones - Blue Bird
Jay-Z - Discography (1996-2017)[16~24]
JB the First Lady - Get Ready Get Steady, Indigenous Girl Lifestyle, Meant to Be, Righteous Empowered Daughter
Jeremih - That Body, All About You, Late Nights: The Album, Late Nights: Europe
Jeremy Dutcher - Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa
Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure? [24]
Jhené Aiko - Chilombo [24/96]
Jimi Hendrix - Experience Hendrix- The Best of Jimi Hendrix
JMSN - Discography (2011-2019)
Joe - All That I Am, My Name is Joe
John Coltrane - Both Directions at Once/The Lost Album
John Legend - Discography (2005-2016)[320~16]
Jon Mcxro - The Fifth of Never [320~16]
José Tomás Molina - Discography (2014-2019)[16~24]
Josh Groban - Discography (2001-2015)[320, except Stages in 16]
Joss Stone - Introducing... Joss Stone
Juice OST
Justin Timberlake - Discography (2002-2013)[16~24]
k.d. lang - Ingénue, Invincible Summer
Kadebostany - Pop Collection, Monumental [24]
Kanye West - Discography (2003-2019)[320-24]
Kehlani - Discography (2014-2020)
Keith Ape - Project: Brainwash, Born Again, various singles
Kelly Fraser - Sedna
Kendrick Lamar - Discography (2011-2017)
Kerry Muzzey - Trailer Music 3, The Architect, Trailer Music 4: Neo
Kevin Garrett - Mellow Drama, A Heart Like Yours, Hoax, Made Up Lost Time, Singles
Kid Cudi - Discography (2008-2013)[ALAC]
Kiel Magis - Kiel Magis
Kieran Fearing - Reprieve
Kieran Martin Murphy - The Painter's Hand, Theatrics
Korean:
DJ Doc - 4th Album
eAeon - Guilt-Free
H.O.T. - We hate all kinds of violence, I yah!, Age of Peace OST, Outside Castle, The Best
IU - Miscellaneous
Park Wan Kyu - 천년지애 (千年之愛)
Rain - First Drop
Shinhwa - First Mythology, My Choice, Wedding
Taeyang - Hot [EP]
Taeyeon - Miscellaneous
k-os - Exit, Joyful Rebellion, Atlantis: Hymns for Disco
Koutev Bulgarian National Ensemble
Krizz Kaliko - Son of Same [239~270], Go [320]
Kubo and the Two Strings OST
Kwabs - Wrong or Right [245], Pray for Love, Walk, Love + War
La La Land - The Complete Musical Experience [24]
La Quinta Estación - Sin Frenos [192]
Lady Gaga - Discography (2008-2020)[24]
Ladysmith Black Mambazo [192~257] - The Very Best of
Lana Del Rey - Discography (2012-2019)[16~24]
Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Le Flow - The Definitive French Hip Hop Compilation
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares - Vol.1+2 [320]
Le mystère des voix Corses - les plus belles polyphonies [320]
Led Zeppelin - Discography (1969-1982), Remasters [24/96]
Lenny Kravitz - Greatest Hits
Leonard Cohen - The Future
Les Choristes OST
Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien - The High Road to Kilkenny
Leslie Odom Jr. - Leslie Odom Jr. [24], Mr.
Lhasa de Sela - La Llorona [320]
Lil Dicky - Hump Days [256], So Hard [320], Professional Rapper [128]
Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake
Linkin Park - Discography (2000-2020)[16~24/96/MQA]
Lionel Richie - Back to Front
Loïc Nottet - Selfocracy, Sillygomania
London Grammar - If You Wait [24/96], Truth is a Beautiful Thing [24]
Lou Val - Lonely in Paradise, Don't Look Now, Singles
LP - Lost on You
Ludacris - Chicken-Beer, Release Therapy
Ludovico Einaudi - Echoes: The Einaudi Collection, Una Mattina, Divenire [320], Nightbook, Islands: Essential Einaudi [320], Elements [320], Seven Days Walking [24]
Luniz - Operation Stackola
Mac Miller [24] - Swimming, Circles
Madredeus - Various albums (1987-2005)[128~320]
MAGIC! - Don't Kill the Magic, Primary Colours, Expectations
Maksim - Discography (1999-2010)[320, except 2 albums in 16]
Mandarin:
5566 - 1st Album
Energy - E3, 無懈可擊, 米迦勒之舞
F4 - 煙火的季節
IPIS 蟑螂 - 第四蟑
RuRu - 美麗心情
S.H.E. - 青春株式會社, 美麗新世界, Together
Tension 天炫男孩 - Discography (2001-2004)
不能說的秘密 OST [148~224]
伍佰 - 夢的河流, 冬之火 九重天演唱會特選錄音專輯
伍思凱 - 分享
南拳媽媽 - 南拳媽媽的夏天
周杰倫 - Discography (2000-2006)
宋岳庭 - Life's a Struggle
張信哲 - 精選, 從開始到現在
張學友 - 走過1999, 張學友音樂之旅Live演唱會
張智成 - 凌晨三點鐘
張衛健 - 齊天大聖孫悟空
徐婕兒 - 愛之初
戴佩妮 - 怎樣
手牽手大合唱
林俊傑 - 樂行者, 第二天堂
海豚灣戀人 OST
王心凌 - Begin...
臥虎藏龍 (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) OST
英雄 (Hero) OST
范逸臣 - 同名專輯
蔡依林 - 看我72變, 城堡
薔薇之戀 OST
許慧欣 - 孤單芭蕾, 幸福
謝霆鋒 - VIVA, 了解, Viva Live 謝霆鋒演唱會
郭富城 - 目眩城迷 全精選
陳冠希 - Edison Chen
陳小春 - 抱一抱, That's Mine
Mandido - Time on Our Hands
Marc Anthony - Discography (1993-2013)[320]
Marian Hill - Discography (2013-2020)[320~24]
Mario - Turning Point
Marvin Gaye - Discography (1961-2019)[16~24/192]
Mario Frangoulis - Various Albums (1998-2014)[128~320]
Marques Houston - MH
Mase - Harlem World
Master P - Ghetto D
Matt Corby - Into the Flame [EP], Resolution [EP], Live on the Resolution Tour [EP], Telluric, Rainbow Valley
Max Richter - Discography (2002-2020)[16~24/96]
MC 900 ft. Jesus - Welcome to My Dream, Open Step Ahead of the Spider
Meek Mill - Dreams Worth More Than Money [24], Championships
Metallica - Discography (Remastered)(1983-2020)[24]
Metro Boomin - Not All Heroes Wear Capes
Miah Luz - The Coming LP
Michael Bolton - Only a Woman Like You
Michael Bublé - Discography (1995-2013)[96~320]
Michael Conway Baker - Four Musical Portraits
Michael Jackson - Discography (1972-2014)[320 except Invincible in 16], The Ultimate Collection, The Essential Michael Jackson [24], King of Pop
Migos - Discography (2015-2018)[16~24]
Miguel - Discography (2010-2017)[16~24]
Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool [24/192], Bitches Brew [24/88], Kind of Blue
Mirah - Discography (1997-2009)[198~256]
Misha Mishenko - Discography (2016-2019)
Missy Elliott - Under Construction
Moana OST
Mob Bounce - Transformation, "Vision Quest"
Mobb Deep - The Infamous, Infamy
Mos Def [ALAC] - Black on Both Sides, The Ecstatic
Moulin Rouge! OST
Muddy Waters - Anthology
Muse - Origin of Symmetry [24/96], Absolution [24/96], The 2nd Law [24/96], Simulation Theory, Drones [24/96]
Musical Theatre - Various Musical Cast Recordings (1934-2017)[170~202, except Come From Away and Hamilton in 16]
Nahko - Dark as Night, On the Verge, Hoka [320], My Name is Bear [320]
Namie Amuro - Break the Rules, Genius 2000
Nas - Illmatic, It Was Written, Stillmatic, God's Son [ALAC], The Lost Tapes, Street's Disciple, Life is Good
Naturally 7 - Discography (2000-2015)
Naughty by Nature - 19 Naughty III
Nav - Good Intentions [24]
Ne-Yo - Discography (2006-2012)[320~16]
Night Lovell - Discography (2014-2019)[320~24]
Nina Simone - The Essential of Nina Simone [24/96]
Nipsey Hussle [ALAC] - Crenshaw, Victory Lap
Niro - Les autres
Niykee Heaton - Bad Intentions [320], The Bedroom Tour Playlist, Starting Over
Norah Jones - Come Away with Me, Feels Like Home, Not Too Late, Pick Me Up Off the Floor [24/96]
Notre-Dame de Paris (Musical) Cast Recording
NSYNC - No Strings Attached
Obie Trice - Cheers
October London - Discography (2016-2018)[320, except Color Blinds in 16]
Omar LinX - A Cold Welcome [320], City of Ommz, The Living Dead EP [128], Victor [320], M.O.R.
Omarion - O, 21, Ollusion
Once OST [96]
Onegin (Musical)
Opera Babes - Beyond Imagination
P. Diddy - No Way Out, The Saga Continues..., Bad Boy's 10th Anniversary... The Hits
PartyNextDoor - PX3
Pentatonix - Various albums [128~320]
Peter Gundry - Discography (2016-2019)[16~24]
Pharrell - Girl [24]
Pink Floyd - Discography (1967-2014)[16/24/MQA/DSD64]
Playboi Carti - Die Lit
PNL - Deux frères [320]
Portishead - Discography (1994-2008)
Post Malone - Discography (2016-2019)[16~24/88]
Prince - Discography (1978-2019)
Pusha T - Daytona [24]
Putomayo - World Reggae, Asian Lounge
Quavo - Quavo Huncho [24]
Queen - Discography (1973-1995), Live Killers, Live at Wembley '86, Greatest Hits, The Platinum Collection,
Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife, SremmLife 2
Raincity - Tell Me, Stuck on Replay, Raincity EP
Raleigh Ritchie - You're a Man Now, Boy
Reggie Couz - Just Couz, singles
Rick Ross - Discography (2006-2017)
Ricky Martin - Ricky Martin, Música + Alma + Sexo
Rihanna - Discography (2005-2016)
Riit - ataataga
Robyn - Body Talk Pt. 1 + 2, Body Talk
Rockapella - 2
Roscoe Dash - J.U.I.C.E. [320], Dash Effect [160]
ROSK - remnants
Ruelle - Up in Flames, Madness, Rival, Emerge, Ode to Shadows, Earth Glow, Exodus
Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2, RTJ3 Instrumentals [24/96]
Sade - The Best of Sade
Saint-Preux - Concerto pour une voix
Sam Chimes
Sam Cooke - Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964
Sam Smith - Discography (2014-2017)
Sandra van Nieuwland [320] - And More, Banging on the Doors of Love
Santino Le Saint - Cloud 304, Xeno, Rage of Angels, Blue Pill [24+16], Red Pill, Singles
Sara Bareilles - Discography (2007-2015)[320, except What's Inside - Songs from Waitess in 24]
Scorpions - Discography (1972-2015)
Scott Leonard - 1man1mike
Sevdaliza - Discography (2017-2020)
Shai - If I Ever Fall in Love...
Sia - Discography (1997-2017)[16, except OnlySee + Healing is Difficult in M4A260, This is Acting in 24/96]
Sigur Rós - Discography (1997-2013)
Silla and Rose - Debut, Galactic Gala
Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle, The Doggfather, Tha Last Meal, R&G (Rhythm&Gangsta): The Masterpiece, The Blue Carpet Treatment
Snotty Nose Rez Kids - The Average Savage, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Trapline, Born Deadly [EP]
Solange - A Seat at the Table
Southern Journey - Bad Man Ballads (Songs of Outlaws and Desperadoes, Vol. 5)
Stacey - Stacey, Stacey (Reconstruction), First Move
Stevie Wonder - The Definitive Collection
Straight Lines - Run for Cover
Stromae - Cheese, Racine carrée [24]
Sun Kil Moon - Discography (2003-2017)[320, except Benji + Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood in 16]
Swollen Members - Bad Dreams
SWV - It's About Time
System of a Down - Discography (1998-2020)[16~24/96]
SZA - Ctrl
T.I. - Trouble Man Heavy is the Head
Tame Impala - Discography (2010-2020)[24/96~24/192]
Tamia - Tamia, "Stranger in My House"
Tanya Tagaq - Auk/Blood, Animism, Retribution, Toothsayer
Tasha the Amazon - Die Every Day, Black Moon
Taylor Swift - folklore [24]
Tech N9ne - Discography (1999-2013)[192~320, The Storm+Enterfear in 16]
TGT - Three Kings
The Beatles - Discography (1963-2009)
The Blaze - Territory, Dancehall
The Carters - Everything is Love
The Chronicles of Narnia OST
The Cinematic Orchestra [320] - Every Day, Man with a Movie Camera, Ma Fleur, To Believe
The Fingerbangerz - Vi-R-Us
The Game - The Documentary, Jesus Piece, Blood Moon: Year of the Wolf [320], The Documentary 2+2.5 [320]
The Godfather I+II+III OST [320]
The Great Gatsby - OST, The Orchestral Score, The Jazz Recordings
The Great Tenors - Vol.1+2, In Concert
The Hobbit OST (Special Editions) [24]
The Lion King - Complete Score [128], Return to Pride Rock [128]
The Lord of the Rings OST
The Lumineers - Cleopatra [24/96], C-Sides [24], Live Tracks [24], III [24]
The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die, Life After Death [ALAC], Born Again
The Nutcracker (Ballet) [24/96]
The Piano Guys - The Piano Guys
The Pink Panther OST [320]
The Savannah Leigh Band - City of Grey
The Tango Project - The Tango Project
The Tenors - Discography (2008-2015)[156~254, except The Perfect Gift+Under One Sky in 16]
The Tony Rich Project - Words
The Weeknd - Discography (2012-2020)[16~24/192]
The xx - xx, Coexist, I See You
Three 6 Mafia - Most Known Unknown
Timbaland - Shock Value
Tinie Tempah - Demonstration [320]
Toni Braxton - Toni Braxton, Secrets
Tony Bennett - The Essential Tony Bennett, a wonderful world (with k.d. lang), The Absolutely Essential 3 CD Collection, Duets II [320], Tony Bennett Celebrates 90
Tory Lanez - Discography (2010-2020, except Daystar)[160~320, except I Told You in 16, Chixtape 5+The New Toronto 3 in 24]
T-Pain - Discography (2005-2012)[192~320, except Epiphany+Thr33 Ringz in 16]
Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman
Travis Garland - Discography (2011-2015)[160~320, except Travis Garland in 16]
Travis Scott - Discography (2013-2018)[16~24/88]
Trey Songz - Trey Day [320], Passion, Pain & Pleasure [320], Chapter V [320], Back Home [24]
TroyBoi - icekream [128~320], SoundSnobz [128~320], Left is Right [128], V!BEZ [128], V!BEZ, Vol.3, V!BEZ, Vol. 4 [16MQA], "Afterhours"
Tsar B - Discography (2016-2020)
Ty Dolla $ign - Featuring Ty Dolla $ign
Tyga - Discography (2008-2016)[320], Legendary
Tyrese - I Wanna Go There
UltraVillain [24] - "Break Out", Lost in You, I N V U
Ulvesang - Ulvesang [24], The Hunt
Unity: Athens 2004 (Olympic Games Album)
Usher - Discography (1994-2018)[16~24]
Van Morrison - Moondance
Vitas - Discography (2001-2009)[128~256, except A Kiss as Long as Eternity+20th Century Hits in 16]
Waka Flocka Flame - Flockaveli
Whitney - Light Upon the Lake
Whitney Houston - Whitney Houston
Wisin & Yandel - Discography (2000-2012)[320]
Wiz Khalifa - Cabin Fever, Rolling Papers, Cabin Fever 2, We Dem Boyz [320], Cabin Fever 3, various songs
Wiz Khalifa & Curren$y - 2009 [24]
Wyclef Jean - Carnival, Vol. II- Memoirs of an Immigrant
X Japan - Discoraphy (1988-2017)[16~24/96]
Xavier Rudd - Discography (2002-2018)
XXXTentacion - Revenge [320], 17 [24/192], ? [320]
Xzibit - Restless
Yann Tiersen - Discography (1995-2003)[96~160, except Amélie in 16], Portrait [24/96]
YG - My Krazy Life, Still Brazy, My Life 4Hunnid [24]
Young Bleed - My Balls and My Word
Young Buck - Buck the World
Young Thug - Barter 6 [320], Slime Season [24], Slime Season 2 [320], I'm Up [320], Slime Season 3 [320], Jeffery [320], So Much Fun
Yuki Kajiura - Discography (includes side projects: FictionJunction/YUUKA, Kalafina)(Anime soundtracks 1996-2018)
Yuna - Chapters
Zed Yun Pavarotti - French Cash
Zeina - Odd One Out, various singles
submitted by Oh, Astros, Astros, Astros. Where do we begin with you. You know that you're fucking pathetic, you know that? WE WON A TITLE IN 2017! That was tainted, you fucking cheaters. Seriously? Trash cans? What the fuck, man. Grab your notebooks, kids! It's time for some history.
1962-1968 - The Astros start life as one of the great punching bags of the league. Seriously, a carpet for all of teams to walk on. Even the fucking LOLMets.
1969 - Good job, you have a record at .500 and you don't suck! Have a trophy!
1970-71 - Conglaturation! You are now a victim of mediocrity!
1972 - You have a decent season at 84-69! I happen to say this as if there's a catch. You bet your sweet mother's ass there is. The Reds had other plans and quietly sabotaged your plans of making it to October ball. You miss out on playoffs by 10 games.
1973-75 - It turns out that Leo Durocher didn't give two fucks about coaching! Back to the basement.
1979 - Hot damn, an 89-win season! But the Reds had plans again and sabotaged your plans again. You miss out on the playoffs by 1 1/2 fucking games.
1980 - You add this emerging talent in Nolan Ryan and he leads you to the promise land. You're going to the NLCS! Impressive!
1980 NLCS - You get your dicks pounded by the Phillies. Better luck next year, boys!
1981 - Or just get shitpiped by the Dodgers in the NLDS.
1982-1985 - And back to mediocrity, boys!
1986 - Hot damn, a 90-win season? And you made the NLCS? Have another trophy!
1986 NLCS - Get walloped in the NLCS by the Mets.
1987-1996 - Welcome back to the basement, boys!
1991 MLB Draft - Here's this Jeff Bagwell guy that dropped to us. Fuck it, let's give him a shot.
1997 MLB Draft - Here's this Lance Berkman kid. Shall we? Okay, why not.
1997 - It turns out that he, Jeff Bagwell, and Bobby Abreu are the answers to this team. You finally make the playoffs. Only to be swept by the Braves juggernaut. Remember that team, will ya?
1998 - Seattle are fucking dumb, you know that? They just traded their best pitcher for Carlos Guillen and some prospects! And you had a 100-win season? Yessir!
1998 NLDS - And you get embarrassed by the Padres. You couldn't even make this a series? Are you fucking serious?
1999 - Walk in to Turner Field to get pantsed on national television by the Braves.
2000 - You finally get that grand spanking new stadium at Enron Field! You reward your fans with giving them a 90-loss season.
2001 - You lose in the NLDS to, WHADDAYA KNOW, THE FUCKING BRAVES!!
2004 - You sign Roger Clemens to your arsenal and he wins the Cy Young Award and you get past those goddamn Braves. Only a brick wall could stop you. Its name is the Cardinals.
2005 - You did it. You made the World Series. Finally, after all those years of futility, of misery, are washed away. You finally have a legitimate playoff contender. Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio deserve their rings. Make H-Town proud, boys. YOU CAN DO IT!
2005 World Series - The Astros simply forget how to play baseball and they get their dicks handed to you by the fucking White Sox. OH NO! WE SUCK AGAIN!
2006 - Miss out on October ball by 1 1/2 games due to be getting bent over by your old pals in Atlanta again.
2007 - Jeff Bagwell has been told to fuck off and never return! Poor Jeff. What a waste. Wait, YOU PAID CARLOS LEE HOW MUCH?! I mean, he's good and all, but that's a steep price to pay! You still suck however.
2008-2010 - Back to mediocrity huh, fellas?
2011-2014 - BEHOLD THE POWER OF LASTROS!! BASK IN ITS AURA, YOU FILTHY CASUALS!
2014 MLB Draft - Hey, we've sucked enough to get this elite hitter in George Springer! Draft the man, surely!
2015 - He leads you to the playoffs the next year. Only for you to choke and lose in brutal fashion to the Royals.
2015 World Series - That Royals team would end up winning the damn thing. You get a trophy of avian flu.
2016 - And you're terrible again!
2017 - You did it, Houston. You won a Championship!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! HOLD IT! Wait a minute, you used trash cans to steal signs? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?! Fuck off. FUCK OFF! DID YOU NOT HEAR YOU DENSE SACKS OF SHIT?! OUTTTTTT!!
2018 - You get another 100-win season. Only to be bitchslapped by those Red Sox. A.J.? NO, PUT THAT SHIT DOWN! WE FUCKING TALKED ABOUT THIS!
2019 - Get another 100-win season only to be schooled by the Nationals in the World Series. Fuck you, Jim Crane.
2020 - You get schooled again... but this time to the Rays in the ALCS. You deserve this bullshit. And George Springer fucked off to Canada for... 25 million dollars a year for almost a decade? Have fun being trapped, Blue Jays!
That 2017 season? You shouldn't enjoy that anymore. And now you're terrible again. But here's the fact: No one feels bad for you. Everyone loves that you suck again. You deserve this outcome.
NOW PUT YOUR FUCKING HEADS DOWN, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!
submitted by There is a concept called Carcinisation. It is convergent evolution. Crustacean-like creatures evolve into a crab-like form. What is fucking freaky is that this has happened in nature no less than five different times, separated by millions of years.
Nature. Wants.
Crabs. In the early 90’s, a brand new sound emerged out of the Pacific Northwest. Grunge
exploded onto MTV and the airwaves and blew all the hair spray out of hair metal. 80’s synth pop just withered and died. Screaming Trees and Soundgarden and Nirvana and Alice in Chains all
erupted onto the music scene. Grunge dominated.
Thing is, the same thing happened with another band AT THE SAME TIME in
San Diego, California. How could the Grunge sound be born elsewhere, without
flannel? Without
wallet chains? Without the
Space Needle? Simple: Nature. Wants.
Crabs. ...and Grunge. Nature also wants
Grunge. Let’s listen to that Grunge band from San Diego. It is time to check out
STONE TEMPLE PILOTS About Them Scott Weiland wanted drugs. Or he wanted to go to see a
Black Flag concert in Long Beach, California.
Same thing, maybe.
That 1986 concert was a fateful one. Weiland might have been looking to score some pot or something, but he ended up meeting
Robert DeLeo. Weiland and DeLeo hit it off immediately when they started talking about their respective girlfriend.
Yes, girlfriend, not girlfriends. They quickly realized that they were dating the same woman.
Awkward. Presumably, Weiland and DeLeo enjoyed the show. It was Black Flag, after all, with
Henry Rollins on vocals. I’m willing to bet that the conversations that followed between DeLeo, Weiland and that young lady were
somewhat pointed. Long story short, the cheating ex-girlfriend
moved to Texas, and Weiland and DeLeo moved into her San Diego apartment. They knew from the concert that they shared a taste in music (and, um, women...and I guess
real estate) and so decided to form a band. DeLeo was already an accomplished bass player and songwriter, and Weiland was a good singer. But while his voice was unremarkable (compared, say, to Josh’s falsetto or Cornell’s incredible range), he had what can only be described as
stage presence. Like many famous front men, Weiland had an uncanny ability to command a crowd. Weiland shared in his autobiography that he was raped at the age of 12 by a man. It is likely that this traumatic experience pushed him towards a self-destructive lifestyle of - literally -
sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. He was also diagnosed as being bipolar. So when he was on stage, Weiland would be eccentric and manic and often under the influence of substances. He did not care (or was unable to care) about what others thought of him, and that liberated him to sing, dance, act out, and hold everyone’s attention.
Crowds loved him.
Weiland initially had some friends, Corey Hicock and David Allin, join the band, which was then called Swing. Though Weiland knew both of them from childhood, it quickly became clear that they were not compatible with their vision for Swing. They recruited
Eric Kretz to drum for them after seeing him play with another band at a club in Long Beach.
Kretz is one of those underrated drummers that consistently flies under the radar, not unlike our very own Jon Theodore. If you know them, you know how great they are - but most of the general public would never be able to name them, even if they recognized the band. Not only was Kretz rock steady behind the kit, he also co-wrote a number of the band’s hit songs.
The band, however, still needed a guitarist. They auditioned many different axemen but nobody quite fit. In frustration, DeLeo suggested his brother Dean.
Dean DeLeo was five years older than Robert, and had started a career in business, and was just playing guitar for fun as a hobby. Younger brother Robert leaned into him. This was no small request he was making of Dean: give up the stable life and
roll the dice for music. Dean eventually agreed, on one condition: there was no way he was going to play rock’n’roll for a band named
Swing. Weiland, Kretz, and the younger DeLeo agreed, and the band changed their name to
Mighty Joe Young, after the title gorilla in the 1949 movie of the same name (the movie you are more likely to have seen is the
Bill Paxton/Charlize Theron remake from 1998). Mighty Joe Young toured the club circuit in the San Diego area and recorded a demo tape in 1990. They even opened for Henry Rollins - the man who fronted Black Flag at that fateful 1986 concert - at a show at the world famous
Whisky a Go Go club in Hollywood.
As they were on the verge of breaking through, they hit a major snag: it turned out that
Mighty Joe Young was not just a fictional gorilla from the ‘40s. There was a blues musician by the same name.
So
Swing Mighty Joe Young the band, having built up a fanbase, had to change names.
Where did they find inspiration? At the
local garage. There is something about the initials STP. They just kind of roll off the tongue. Lots of people have used them, to the point that there is a
Wikipedia disambiguation page for their use. But where most of us may know them is from seeing them on the wall of the high school auto shop or at the local mechanic’s place. Almost everyone recognizes that iconic logo. In case you are wondering, STP actually stands for
Scientifically Treated Petroleum, and is German in origin, dating back to WWII.
So yeah, just like the
Volkswagen Beetle and the
atomic bomb, this iconic bit of Americana has its origins with the Nazis.
Awkward. The
STP Motor Oil sticker was the inspiration for their name. They tried to come up with monikers that fit those initials:
Shirley Temple’s Pussy and
Stereo Temple Pirates were bounced around until the band settled on the name we all know today. Weiland was the one who decided on Stone Temple Pilots. There was no real meaning behind the name; he just liked the initials STP.
Building on that Mighty Joe Young fanbase, the newly christened Stone Temple Pilots released one of the best debut albums in rock’n’roll history. Just like Alice in Chains and Melvins and Soundgarden and Nirvana, they were inspired by the angry rebelliousness of Punk and the heavy, driving down tuned riffage of metal. What emerged was Grunge...in Southern California.
The album
Core was conceived as just that - an album, to be listened to from start to finish. It incorporated many songs from their demo tape and is a true musical journey. The album was recorded in five short weeks, and it is a great place to start if you have not listened to the band. Robert DeLeo wrote most of the songs on the album.
Core dropped in 1992, just as Grunge got huge. Four singles were released -
Sex Type Thing,
Wicked Garden,
Creep, and
Plush. You will likely still hear
Plush on regular rock radio from time to time. This was a massive debut that got them huge gigs and appearances at festivals. It remains a landmark album of the Grunge movement and was rated #11 by Rolling Stone in the top 50 Grunge albums of all time. However, it also drew scathing criticism from reviewers, who pegged it as a rip-off of the Seattle sound.
Clearly, those critics have never heard of
carcinization (or the demo tape which proved that STP had found their sound on their own).
Weiland and co. followed up
Core with another monster album in 1994.
Purple was recorded in under a month and one song off of it,
Big Empty, was in the Brandon Lee film
The Crow. You know you’ve made it as a band when your music forms part of a major film soundtrack.
Meatplow, the record’s opener, was a showstopper when played live and
Vasoline became a true international hit.
Interstate Love Song, the third single from
Purple, was also hugely popular and is their most listened to song on Spotify today with over 181 million plays. Interestingly, the
title of the album is in Chinese on the cover and nowhere else on the record.
STP could do no wrong. And along with this unprecedented success, Scott Weiland discovered that he could do
ALL the drugs. The follow up album,
Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop began with two weeks of recording in early 1995. However, this project was put on an abrupt hold as Weiland was arrested for possession of heroin and cocaine and was sentenced to one year of probation. I mean, booze and pot on the weekend is recreational...but heroin and coke is a whole other level of drug use.
The band took a break until the fall, with Kretz and the DeLeo brothers starting a side project called Talk Show. As Robert DeLeo was the main songwriter for both bands, what followed when the band got back together was a
weird sorting project where they just arbitrarily decided which tunes would be STP and which would be Talk Show.
Perhaps because of the band growing musically, or the extended time apart from Weiland and his growing drug habit, STP saw their sound evolve. It was more post-Grunge than Grunge, with elements of Punk and Glam Rock. Weiland was for sure his own front man, but there were elements of
Rollins’ angry confrontation and Bowie’s star child in his performances, all mixed into something new.
Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop was a massive album and spawned three number one singles for the band:
Big Bang Baby,
Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart, and
Lady Picture Show. The band went out and toured in support, but Weiland relapsed and his drug use got worse. This time, STP were forced to cancel the rest of their tour so Weiland could go into rehab.
Incidentally, I have actually been to the
Vatican Gift Shop in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, and found a depressing lack of STP there.
Tiny Music may have been a departure from their heavy Grunge sound, but their next album -
No. 4 - was a return to their heavy Grunge roots. The title was a subtle tribute to the Black Sabbath album
Vol. 4. It was released in 1999. The song
Down has one of the dirtiest, heaviest riffs in Grunge, and was nominated for a Grammy award. But it was
Sour Girl - a song about Weiland’s costly divorce - that was an even bigger hit. The video featured Sarah Michelle Gellar of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. Weiland was credited along with Robert DeLeo as writing most of the songs. A tour followed and Weiland managed to hold things together - or avoid getting caught by the police.
Shangri-La Dee Da, their fifth album, came out in 2001.
This album is a
mess. Conceptually, it began as a tribute to
Andrew Wood - the man who was once Chris Cornell’s roommate, the man who inspired Temple of the Dog, and the man who fronted Mother Love Bone and Malfunkshun. The record label, however, vetoed that idea. The album quickly became
directionless and bloated, and this was made even more of a mess by the fact that the band had arranged for a behind-the-scenes documentary to be made.
Days of the Week was a modest hit for them and
Hollywood Bitch was a live go-to for the band, but the album is largely forgettable and missing a spark.
It was like the band had run out of gas. Or
lubricant. Or Scientifically Treated Petroleum.
Blame it on the pressure, or Weiland’s drug use, or just growing stale - but the band had
lost something and needed a change.
So they broke up in 2003.
Weiland was quickly recruited to join the supergroup
Velvet Revolver, which arose out of the ashes of Guns ‘n’ Roses. They dropped two successful albums and toured around the globe. Perhaps the coolest thing about Velvet Revolver was that they played their own stuff, they played G’n’R, and they played a ton of STP at their live shows. Weiland had supplanted one band with another, and was his manic self on stage each night.
The brothers DeLeo had their own side project, Army of Anyone. Kretz opened a music studio and drummed for the band
Spiralarms.
It seemed to all the world that STP was gone for good.
But Velvet Revolver
imploded, because Weiland again got mixed up with
heroin. He quit the band before he could be fired, and that simply spelled the end of that supergroup. Army of Anyone never really took off, and Kretz’s studio, while a modest success, was not his real passion.
They reunited in 2008 to
cash in on the sweet nostalgia do a 65-day tour of North America. Somewhere, somehow, Weiland got his addictions under better control and gelled again with his old band.
The spark was back.
They returned to the studio and recorded their sixth album, a self-titled record.
Stone Temple Pilots was produced by the DeLeo brothers and recorded in part at Eric Kretz’s studio. Compared to their other records, which were completed and mastered in a matter of weeks, this album took over 10 months to produce. What resulted from that work was a very different STP album, more inspired by 70’s rock and country music.
Fans bought the album upon release, happy with new music. But it was a record that confused the listeners. Those that wanted a return to Grunge didn’t get it; those that wanted more of the glam punk were disappointed.
Either way, there was a tour, and anyone who missed them last time was just happy that they could see them live again.
But this tour was the last one with Weiland. His behavior became increasingly erratic (who knew
coke and heroin could make you erratic? ). He did a radio interview where he stated that he would be happy to rejoin Velvet Revolver...while he was on tour with STP. He dove nose first into the Coke and dropped the needle with heroin again. Concerts suffered. Tensions built. By early 2013, the band could not take it anymore.
Weiland was
fired. He was quickly replaced by Chester Bennington of Linkin Park fame. Bennington toured with STP for two years,and even dropped an EP with them called
High Rise. Weiland was pissed and sued the band, and they counter sued him. Things got to Van Halen level bullshittery pretty quickly. Meanwhile, Bennington - the Sammy Hagar in this tale - did a great job on vocals and was embraced by fans. Weiland went full
David Lee Roth and founded his own band, with blackjack and hookers.
Both experiments ended in late 2015 - one amicably, one tragically.
Bennington decided in November of that year that he wanted to return to Linkin Park, and thanked STP. He left them on good terms and with no hard feelings.
Weiland, on the other hand, was touring with his own band, The Wildabouts. His 2013 tour was called Purple at the Core. Real
subtle there, Scotty. To be fair, he had released some solo stuff too and had recorded an album,
Blaster, with The Wildabouts that was released in March of 2015.
While on tour with The Wildabouts, Weiland was found dead in his tour bus. The date was December 3rd, 2015. The coroner’s report stated that the cause of death was an accidental drug overdose of a mixture of alcohol, cocaine, and MDA. A contributing factor was his prolonged substance abuse.
Weiland was 48.
The rock world was stunned. Not that Weiland was using drugs, but that his drug use had caught up with him. He had seemed invincible. He was widely mourned and missed.
STP found themselves without Bennington and no longer had even the opportunity to consider a reunion with Weiland. They, too, were stunned by the news of his death.
After a proper period of mourning, the band made the decision to carry on as a group. A search for a new front man ensued. There was a series of auditions and in 2017, a replacement was found: former X-Factor contestant
Jeff Gutt. The dude is almost
a dead ringer for Weiland, and his vocal stylings are eerily similar. Together, Gutt and STP have dropped a second
Self-Titled album in 2018 and their latest release,
Perdida, in 2020.
STP are still alive as a band, even if they are now on their third vocalist. Though Weiland has tragically left us, I highly encourage you to see them live if you ever get the chance.
Links to QOTSA QotSA was one of Scott Weiland’s favorite bands. To quote him:
"I did see Kyuss one time when we got asked to open up for Ministry. They were on the bill. Queens' Songs for the Deaf is my favorite album, with the very first song which starts out with the radio on the background ['You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire']. That's one of my favorites by far. That's just pure adrenaline. And then 'No One Knows,' 'Go with the Flow,' those are obvious songs that stand out as some of the best they've ever written. I also think it's so cool that Dave Grohl played drums on that record. It's ethereal at times, but it's also at times just really barebones and dry and just in your face." Clearly, Weiland thought that the 2002 line up was peak QotSA. And well, he’s not wrong.
Weiland also did a side project in the late 1990’s called The Wondergirls with our resident vampire, Troy Van Leeuwen. Here’s a track by them called
Massive Heart Attack. Joey Castillo, former drummer for QotSA, was briefly the drummer for Weiland’s band The Wildabouts in 2015.
Their Music Sex Type Thing - I wonder what he’s talking about.
Sex Type Thing - live version, complete with bird noises and a Queen Bitch hat.
Plush - Weiland’s hair cut + hair colour in this video is giving me some Ginger elvis vibes. Clearly, that’s the peak style of rock and roll.
Dead and Bloated - Live in 1993
Creep - I want you to notice, when I’m not aroun- wait. Shit, wrong write up.
Big Empty - From The Crow soundtrack, with movie clips.
Vasoline Interstate Love Song - You evil little worm. GET OUT!
Big Bang Baby - I am pretty sure this video was shot on VHS by someone’s uncle. The drugs kick in at 1:45. Also, the gorilla heads are a Mighty Joe Young shout out.
Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart - Also starts with a gorilla head. Not a coincidence.
Lady Picture Show - A Girl Revue.
Down - This has to be one of the sickest riffs of the Grunge era.
Sour Girl - The Teletubbies took some ‘ludes. Also, Buffy.
Days of the Week - Travelling salesmen? Astronauts? Space band? 2001 with more drugs? You decide!
Hollywood Bitch - You’re on the outside, looking in.
Revolution - A Grungy cover of the Beatles classic.
Between the Lines - You always were my favorite drug, even when we used to take drugs. “Used to”. Ok.
Take a Load Off - An official video that looks fan made.
Meadow - When you see Jeff Gutt in this video you might think you are looking at Scott Weiland. There is another crab metaphor here somewhere.
Fare Thee Well - From their latest album,
Perdida.
Six Eight Off of the 2018 Self Titled, with an accurate title.
Show Them Some Love /stonetemplepilots - Just 1,500 members. 1,500? Scott took more drugs than that on any given weekend.
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For those not in the know, the Tartaria conspiracy theory is one of the most bizarre pieces of pseudo history out there. Its core notion is that the region known as ‘Tartaria’ or ‘Grand Tartary’ in Early Modern European maps was not simply a vague geographical designate, but in fact a vast, centralised empire. Said empire emerged… at some point, and it disappeared… at some point, but for… some reason, its existence has been covered up to suit… some narrative or another. As you can tell, there’s a lot of diverse ideas here, and the fact that there hasn’t been the equivalent of a Christological schism every time a controversial thread goes up is really quite impressive. While this post will
primarily address one particular piece of writing that is at the core of Tartaria conspiracy theorising, I’ll include a few tidbits to show you just how much madness its adherents have come up with. But first, some background.
State of Play, and why I’m doing this
The Tartaria theory has a small but active following on subreddits such as
Tartaria,
tartarianarchitecture, and
CulturalLayer, which as of writing have around 5,300, 2,400 and 23,000 subscribers, respectively, but it’s clear from the
8 questions on the topic asked at AskHistorians since January 2019 and
this debunk request from June that it’s a theory that has somewhat broad appeal and can reach beyond its core niche. This is unsurprising given how little education most people in the West receive about basically anything east of Greece: simply put, the reality of Eurasian history is just not something most of us are taught. And if we don’t know the reality of Eurasian history to begin with, or if we do then it's all in bits and pieces where we might not even know a basic set of dates and names, then what seems to be a pretty developed narrative about a lost empire actually turns out rather plausible.
Unfortunately, many debunks of the Tartaria narrative come from people pushing competing conspiracy theories, like this guy claiming that there’s a
global Jewish Phoenecian conspiracy and that Tartaria is simply rehashing the notion that Khazars were Jews in order to distract from the real Phoenecian threat at the heart of global society or some nonsense like that. (I don’t really care, I died of laughter after page 3.) Now, there are those coming from serious perspectives, but they focus largely on the problems with Tartaria as a concept rather than addressing the more specific claims being made. This is of course valuable in its own right (shoutout to
Kochevnik81 for their responses to the AskHistorians threads), but we can go deeper by really striking at the roots of this ‘theory’ – what is the ‘evidence’ they’re presenting? But to do that, we need to find out what the origins of the ‘theory' are, and thus what its linchpins are. Incidentally, it is because of some recent events regarding those origins that I’ve been finally prompted to write this post.
Where does it come from?
My attempts to find the exact origins of the Tartaria conspiracy have been not entirely fruitful, as the connections I’ve found have been relatively circumstantial at best. But as far as I can tell, it at least partially originates with that Russian pseudohistorian we all know and love, Anatoly Fomenko. Fomenko is perhaps best known in the English-speaking world for his 7-volume ‘epic’ from 2002,
History: Fiction or Science?, but in fact he’s been pushing a complete ‘New Chronology’ since the publication of
Novaia khronologia in Russian in 1995. While the New Chronology is best known for its attempt to explain away most of the Middle Ages as a hoax created by the Papacy on the basis of bad astronomy, it also asserts a number of things about Russian history from the Kievan Rus’ to the Romanovs. Key to the Tartaria theory is its claim that there was a vast Slavo-Turkic ‘Russian Horde’ based out of ‘Tartaria’ which dominated Eurasia until the last ‘Horde’ ruler, Boris Godunov, was overthrown by the European Mikhail Romanov. This, of course, is a clear attempt at countering the notion of a ‘Tatar Yoke’ over Russia, as you can’t have a ‘Tatar Yoke’ if the Tatars were Russians all along. Much as I’d like to explain that in more detail here, I don’t have to: in 2004, Konstantin Sheiko at the University of Wollongong wrote an entire PhD thesis looking at the claims of Fomenko’s New Chronology and contextualising them within currents of Russian nationalism,
which can be accessed online.
But I personally suspect that if there are Fomenko connections as far as Tartaria specifically is concerned, they are limited. For one, at one stage users on the Tartaria subreddit
seemed unfamiliar with Fomenko, and there are those arguing that
Fomenko had ‘rewritten’ Tartarian history to be pro-Russian. This is why I said that the evidence was circumstantial. The only other link to Fomenko is indirect: the
CulturalLayer sidebar lists the ‘New Chronology Resource Collection’ and the audiobook of
History: Fiction or Science? under ‘Essential Resources’, and
Tartaria in its ‘Related Subs’.
As far as I can tell, the ultimate origin of its developed form on the Anglophone web traces back to
this post on the StolenHistory forums, posted on 17 April 2018. This makes some chronological sense: only one top-level post on
CulturalLayer that mentions Tartaria predates this. Moreover, KorbenDallas, the OP of the thread, was also the forum’s chief admin, and given that StolenHistory is still (as of writing) the top resource on CulturalLayer’s sidebar, that suggests significant influence. However, using the search function on camas.github.io, it was mentioned in comments at least 9 times before then, with the first mention, on 10 January 2018, mentioning that the ‘theory’ had been doing the rounds on the Russian web for at least 5 years. Nevertheless, as the detail in these early comments is sparse and generally refers only to speculation about maps, it is probably fair to say that the first in-depth English-language formulation of the Tartaria ‘theory’ was thus the April 2018 forum post. Funnily enough, it is not cited often on
Tartaria, but that subreddit was created on 27 December, long after discussion had been taking place on places like
CulturalLayer, and combined with the ‘mudflood’ ‘theory’ and the notion of giant humans, which are not significant features of the StolenHistory thread. This more convoluted and multifaceted version of the Tartaria theory doesn’t really have a single-document articulation, hence me not covering it here.
It is this StolenHistory thread which I will be looking at here today. Not just because it seems to be at the heart of it all, but also because it got shut down around 36 hours ago as of writing this post, based on the timestamps of panicked ‘what happened to StolenHistory’ posts on
CulturalLayer and
Tartaria. So what better occasion to go back to the Wayback Machine’s version, seeing as it’s now quite literally impossible to brigade the source? Now as I’ve said, this is not the most batshit insane it gets for the Tartaria crowd, in fact it’s incredibly tame. But by the end of it, I bet you’ll be thinking ‘if this is mild, how much more worse is the modern stuff!?’ And the best part is, I can debunk most of it without recourse to any other sources at all, because so much of it involves them posting sources out of context or expecting them to be read tendentiously.
But that’s enough background. Let us begin.
Part 1: The Existence
Exhibit 1: The Encylcopædia Britannica, 1771
”Tartary, a vast country in the northern parts of Asia, bounded by Siberia on the north and west: this is called Great Tartary. The Tartars who lie south of Muscovy and Siberia, are those of Astracan, Circassia, and Dagistan, situated north-west of the Caspian-sea; the Calmuc Tartars, who lie between Siberia and the Caspian-sea; the Usbec Tartars and Moguls, who lie north of Persia and India; and lastly, those of Tibet, who lie north-west of China.” - Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. III, Edinburgh, 1771, p. 887.
Starting a post about the ‘hidden’ history of Central Asia with an encyclopædia entry from Scotland is really getting off to a good start, isn’t it? Anyone with a sense of basic geography can tell you that Tibet lies due west of China, not northwest. But more importantly, this shows you how single-minded the Tartaria advocates are and how tendentiously they read things. ‘Country’ need not actually refer to a state entity, it can just be a geographical space, especially in more archaic contexts such as this. Moreover, the ethnographic division of the ‘Tartars’ into Astrakhanis, Circassians, Dagestanis, Kalmuks, Uzbeks, and, for whatever reason, Tibetans, pretty clearly goes against the notion of a unified Tartary.
Now compare to the description given by Wikipedia, ”Tartary (Latin: Tartaria) or Great Tartary (Latin: Tartaria Magna) was a name used from the Middle Ages until the twentieth century to designate the great tract of northern and central Asia stretching from the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, settled mostly by Turko-Mongol peoples after the Mongol invasion and the subsequent Turkic migrations.”
Obviously, Wikipedia is not a good source for… anything, really, but the fact that they’re giving a 349-year-old encyclopaedia primacy over the summary sentence of a wiki article is demonstrative of how much dishonesty is behind this. And it only gets worse from here.
Exhibit 2: Hermann Moll’s A System of Geography, 1701
THE Country of Tartary, call'd Great Tartary, to distinguish it from the Lesser, in Europe, has for its Boundaries, on the West, the Caspian Sea, and Moscovitick Tartary; on the North, the Scythian, or Tartarian Sea; on the East, the Sea of the Kalmachites, and the Straight of Jesso; and on the South, China, India, or the Dominions of the great Mogul and Persia : So that it is apparently the largest Region of the whole Continent of Asia, extending it self [sic] farthest, both towards the North and East: In the modern Maps, it is plac'd within the 70th and 170th Degree of Longitude, excluding Muscovitick Tartary; as also between the 40 and 72 Degree of Northern Latitude.
Immediately underneath the scan of this text is the statement, clearly highlighted, that
Tartary was not a tract. It was a country.
Hmm, very emphatic there. Except wait no, the same semantic problem recurs. ‘Country’ need not mean ‘state’. Moreover, in the very same paragraph, Moll (or rather his translator) refers to Tartary as a ‘Region’, which very much disambiguates the idea. Aside from that, it is telling that Moll refers to three distinct ‘Tartaries’: ’Great Tartary’ in Asia, ‘Lesser Tartary’ in Europe, and ‘Muscovite Tartary’ – that is, the eastern territories of the Russian Tsardom. If, as they are saying, ‘Great Tartary’ was a coherent entity, whatever happened to ‘Lesser Tartary’?
Exhibit 3: A 1957 report by the CIA on ‘National Cultural Development Under Communism’
Is a conspiracy theorist… actually believing a CIA document? Yep. I’ll add some context later that further complicates the issue.
Or let us take the matter of history, which, along with religion, language and literature, constitute the core of a people’s cultural heritage. Here again the Communists have interfered in a shameless manner. For example, on 9 August 1944, the Central Committee of the Communist Party, sitting in Moscow, issued a directive ordering the party’s Tartar Provincial Committee “to proceed to a scientific revolution of the history of Tartaria, to liquidate serious shortcomings and mistakes of a nationalistic character committed by individual writers and historians in dealing with Tartar history.” In other words, Tartar history was to be rewritten—let its be frank, was to be falsified—in order to eliminate references to Great Russian aggressions and to hide the facts of the real course of Tartar-Russian relations.
[similar judgement on Soviet rewriting of histories of Muslim areas to suit a pro-Russian agenda]
What’s fascinating about the inclusion of this document is that it is apparently often invoked as a piece of
anti-Fomenko evidence, by tying New Chronology in with older Russian-nationalist Soviet revisionism. So not only is it ironic that they’re citing a CIA document, of all things, but a CIA document often used to undermine the spiritual founder of the whole Tartaria ‘theory’ in the first place! But to return to the point, the fundamental issue is that it’s tendentious. This document from 1957 obviously is not going to be that informed on the dynamics of Central Asian ethnicity and history in the way that a modern scholar would be.
In a broader sense, what this document is supposed to prove is that Soviet coverups are why we don’t know about Tartaria. But if most of the evidence came from Western Europe to begin with, why would a Soviet coverup matter? Why wasn’t Tartarian history deployed as a counter-narrative during the Cold War?
Exhibit 4: ‘An 1855 Source’
This is from a footnote in Sir George Cornwalle Lewis’
An Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History, citing a travelogue by Evariste Huc that had been published in French in 1850 and was soon translated into English. From the digitised version of of Huc’s book on Project Gutenberg (emphasis copied over from the thread):
Such remains of ancient cities are of no unfrequent occurrence in the deserts of Mongolia; but everything connected with their origin and history is buried in darkness. Oh, with what sadness does such a spectacle fill the soul! The ruins of Greece, the superb remains of Egypt,—all these, it is true, tell of death; all belong to the past; yet when you gaze upon them, you know what they are; you can retrace, in memory, the revolutions which have occasioned the ruins and the decay of the country around them. Descend into the tomb, wherein was buried alive the city of Herculaneum,—you find there, it is true, a gigantic skeleton, but you have within you historical associations wherewith to galvanize it. But of these old abandoned cities of Tartary, not a tradition remains; they are tombs without an epitaph, amid solitude and silence, uninterrupted except when the wandering Tartars halt, for a while, within the ruined enclosures, because there the pastures are richer and more abundant.
There’s a paraphrase from Lewis as well, but you can just read it on the thread. The key thing here is that yes, there were abandoned settlements in the steppe. Why must this be indicative of a lost sedentary civilisation, and not instead the remnants of political capitals of steppe federations which were abandoned following those federations’ collapse? Places like Karakorum, Kubak Zar, Almaliq and Sarai were principally built around political functions, being centres for concentration of religious and ritual authority (especially monasteries) and stores of non-movable (or difficult to move) wealth. But individual examples of abandoned settlements are not evidence of broad patterns of settlement that came to be abandoned en masse. Indeed, the very fact that the cited shepherd calls the abandoned location ‘The Old Town’ in the singular implies just how uncommon such sites were – for any given region, there might really only be one of note.
Exhibit 5: Ethnic characteristics in artistic depictions of Chinggis and Timur
I… don’t quite know what to make of these.
Today, we have certain appearance related stereotypes. I think we are very much off there. It looks like Tartary was multi-religious, and multi-cultural. One of the reasons I think so is the tremendous disparity between what leaders like Genghis Khan, Batu Khan, Timur aka Tamerlane looked like to the contemporary artists vs. the appearance attributed to them today.
Ummm, what?
These are apparently what they look like today. These are ‘contemporary’ depictions of Chinggis:
Except, as the guy posting the thread says, these are 15th-18th century depictions… so NOT CONTEMPORARY.
As for Timur, we have:
In what bizzaro world are these contemporary?
We’ll get to Batur Khan in a moment because that’s its own kettle of worms. But can this user not recognise that artists tend to depict things in ways that are familiar? Of course white European depictions of Chinggis and Timur will tend to make them look like white Europeans, while East Asian depictions of Chinggis will tend to make him look Asian, and Middle Eastern depictions of Chinggis and Timur will make them look Middle Eastern. This doesn’t prove that ‘Tartaria’ was multicultural, in fact it you’d have an easier time using this ‘evidence’ to argue that Chinggis and Timur were shapeshifters who could change ethnicities at will!
Exhibit 6: Turkish sculptures
Why this person thinks modern Turkish sculptures are of any use to anyone baffles me. The seven sculptures shown are of Batu Khan (founder of the ‘Golden Horde’/Jochid khanates), Timur, Bumin (founder of the First Turkic Khaganate), Ertugrul (father of Osman, the founder of the Ottoman empire), Babur (founder of the Mughal Empire), Attila the Hun, and Kutlug Bilge Khagan (founder of the Uyghur Khaganate). They are accompanied (except in the case of Ertugrul) by the dates of the empires/confederations that they founded – hence, for instance, Babur’s dates being 1526 to 1858, the lifespan of the Mughal Empire, or Timur’s being 1368 (which seems arbitrary) to 1507 (the fall of Herat to the Shaybanids). To quote the thread:
A few of them I do not know, but the ones I do look nothing like what I was taught at school. Also dates are super bizarre on those plaques.
Again, Turkish sculptors make Turkic people look like Turks. Big surprise. And the dates are comprehensible if you just take a moment to think.
Do Turks know something we don't?
Turkish, evidently.
Exhibit 7: A map from 1652 that the user can’t even read
The other reason why I think Tartary had to be multi-religious, and multi-cultural is its vastness during various moments in time. For example in 1652 Tartary appears to have control over the North America.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/1652-nova-totius-terrarum-orbis-geographica-ac-hydrographica-tabula_1-1-jpg.37277/ This speaks for itself.
The thread was later edited to include a link to a post on ‘Tartarians’ in North America made on 7 August 2018, but that’s beside the point here, read at your own leisure (if you can call it ‘leisure’). Except for the part where at one point he admits he can’t read Latin, and so his entire theory in that post is based on the appearance of the word ‘Tartarorum’ in an unspecified context on a map of North America.
Part 2: The Coverup
The official history is hiding a major world power which existed as late as the 19th century. Tartary was a country with its own flag, its own government and its own place on the map. Its territory was huge, but somehow quietly incorporated into Russia, and some other countries. This country you can find on the maps predating the second half of the 19th century.
…Okay then.
Exhibit 8: Google Ngrams
https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/tartary_ngram-jpg.37276/ This screenshot shows that the use of ‘Tartary’ and ‘Tartaria’ declined significantly over time. This is apparently supposed to surprise us. Or maybe it shows that we actually understand the region better…
Part 1a: Back to the existence
You know, a common theme with historical conspiracy theories is how badly they’re laid out, in the literal sense of the layout of their documents and video content. Don’t make a header called ‘The Coverup’ and then only have one thing before jumping back to the evidence for the existence again.
Exhibit 9: A Table
Yet, some time in the 18th century Tartary Muskovite was the biggest country in the world: 3,050,000 square miles.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/tartary_huge-13-jpg.37329/ I do not have enough palms to slap into my face. Do they not understand that this is saying how much of Tartary was owned… by
foreign powers?
Exhibit 10: Book covers
You can look at the images on the thread itself but here’s a few highlights:
- 1654: Bellum Tartaricum, or the Conquest of China By the Invasion of the Tartars, who in the last seven years, have wholly subdued that empire
- 1670: Historia de la Conquista de la China por el Tartaro
Histories of the Qing conquest of China, because as far as Europeans were concerned the Manchus were Tartars. Proof of Tartaria because…?
- 1662: The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors of the Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy, and the King of Persia… Containing a compleat History of Muscovy, Tartary, Persia, and Other Adjacent Countries…
An ambassador who never set foot in ‘Tartary’ itself, cool cool, very good evidence there.
There’s also three screenshots from books that aren’t even specifically named, so impossible to follow up. Clearly this is all we need.
Exhibit 11: Maps
The maps are the key think the Tartaria pushers use. All these maps showing ‘Grand Tartary’ or ‘Tartaria’ or what have you. There’s 20 of these here and you can look for yourselves, but the key thing is: why do these people assume that this referred to a single state entity? Because any of these maps that include the world more generally will also present large parts of Africa in generic terms, irrespective of actual political organisation in these regions. And many of the later maps clearly show the tripartite division of the region into ‘Chinese Tartary’, ‘Russian Tartary’, and ‘Independent Tartary’, which you think would be clear evidence that most of this region was controlled by, well, the Chinese (really, the Manchus) and the Russians. And many of these maps aren’t even maps of political organisation, but geographical space. See how many lump all of mainland Southeast Asia into ‘India’. Moreover, the poor quality of the mapping should give things away.
This one for instance is very clear on the Black Sea coast, but the Caspian is a blob, and moreover, a blob that’s elongated along the wrong axis! They’re using Western European maps as an indicator of Central Asian realities in the most inept way possible, and it would be sad if it weren’t so hilarious. The fact that the depictions of the size of Tartaria are incredibly inconsistent also seems not to matter.
Exhibit 12: The Tartarian Language
There’s an 1849 American newspaper article referring to the ‘Tartarian’ language, which is very useful thank you, and definitely not more reflective of American ignorance than actual linguistic reality.
The next one is more interesting, because it’s from a translation of some writing by a French Jesuit, referring to the writing of Manchu, and who asserted (with very little clear evidence) that it could be read in any direction. In April last year,
Tartaria users [claimed to have stumbled on a dictionary of Tartarian and French](np.reddit.com
/Tartaria/comments/bi3aph/tartarian_language_dictionary/) called the
Dictionnaire Tartare-Mantchou-François. What they failed to realise is that the French generally called the Manchus ‘Tartare-Mantchou’, and this was in fact a
Manchu-French dictionary. In other words, a [Tartare-Mantchou]-[François] dictionary, not a [Tartare]-[Mantchou]-[François] dictionary. It is quite plausible, in fact probable, that the ‘Tartarian’ referred to in the newspaper article was Manchu.
Exhibit 13: Genealogies of Tartarian Kings
Descended From Genghiscan
Reads the comment above
this French chart. How the actual hell did OP not recognise that ‘Genghiscan’ is, erm, Genghis Khan? Is it that hard to understand that maybe, just maybe, ‘Tartars’ was what they called Mongols back in the day, and ‘Tartaria’ the Mongol empire and its remnants?
Exhibit 14: Ethnographic drawings
These prove that there were people called Tartars, not that there was a state of Tartaria. NEXT
Exhibit 15: Tartaria’s alleged flag
Images they provide include
https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/tartary_flags-11-jpg.37367/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/tartary_flag_6-jpg.37307/ Except there’s one problem. As any EU4 player will tell you, that’s the flag of the Khanate of Kazan. And while they can trot out a few 18th and 19th century charts showing the apparent existence of a Tartarian naval flag, the inconvenient fact that Tartaria would have been landlocked seems not to get in the way. To be sure, their consistent inclusion is odd, given the non-existence of Tartary as a country, and moreover its landlocked status. It seems plausible that the consistent similarity of the designs is just a result of constant copying and poor checking, but on its own it means relatively little.
Exhibit 16: 19th-century racism
https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/flags_of_all_nations_1865-mongolian-1-jpg.37369/ That I think speaks for itself.
Exhibit 17: Flags of Moscow on one particular chart
It is also worth mentioning that in the British Flag Table of 1783, there are three different flags listed as a flag of the Tsar of Moscow. There is also an Imperial Flag of Russia as well as multiple naval flags. And all of them are proceeded by a flag of the Viceroy of Russia.
By that logic, the Royal Navy ran Britain because the Royal Navy ensigns precede the Union Jack. It’s simply a conscious decision to show the flags of individuals before the flags of states. The ‘Viceroy’ (unsure what the original Russian title would be) and ‘Czar’ of Muscovy would presumably be, well, the Emperor of Russia anyway, so as with the British section where the Royal Standard and the flags of naval officers came first, the same seems true of Russia. Also, as a side note, the placement of the USA at the end, after the Persians, the Mughals and ‘Tartarians’, is a fun touch.
Significance of the Viceroy is in the definition of the term. A viceroy is a regal official who runs a country, colony, city, province, or sub-national state, in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. Our official history will probably say that it was the Tsar of Russia who would appoint a viceroy of Moscow. I have reasons to doubt that.
Why is the flag of the Viceroy of Moscow positioned prior to any other Russian flag? Could it be that the Viceroy of Moscow was superior to its Czar, and was "supervising" how this Tartarian possession was being run?
No.
Part 3: 1812
This, this is where it gets
really bonkers. A key part of this post is arguing that Napoleon’s invasion of Russia was a cover story for a joint invasion against Tartaria gone horrendously wrong. All the stops are being pulled out here.
There is a growing opinion in Russia that French invasion of Russia played out according to a different scenario. The one where Tsar Alexander I, and Napoleon were on the same side. Together they fought against Tartary. Essentially France and Saint Petersburg against Moscow (Tartary). And there is a strong circumstantial evidence to support such a theory.
Oh yes, we’re going there.
Questions to Answer:
1. Saint Petersburg was the capitol of Russia. Yet Napoleon chose to attack Moscow. Why?
He didn’t,
he was trying to attack the Russian army. (credit to
dandan_noodles).
2. It appears that in 1912 there was a totally different recollection of the events of 1812. How else could you explain commemorative 1912 medals honoring Napoleon?
Because it’s a bit of an in-your-face to Napoleon for losing so badly?
And specifically the one with Alexander I, and Napoleon on the same medal. The below medal says something similar to, "Strength is in the unity: will of God, firmness of royalty, love for homeland and people"
Yeah, it’s showing Alexander I beating Napoleon, and a triumphant double-headed Russian eagle above captured French standards. Also, notice how Alexander is in full regalia, while Napoleon’s is covered up by his greatcoat?
3. Similarity between Russian and French uniforms. There are more different uniforms involved, but the idea remains, they were ridiculously similar.
Ah yes, because fashions in different countries always develop separately, and never get influenced by each other.
How did they fight each other in the dark?
With difficulty, presumably.
Basically, he’s saying that this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/1_rus-jpg.37322/ Is too similar to this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/1_rus-jpg.37322/ To be coincidental.
OK, whatever. Here’s where it gets interesting:
There was one additional combat asset officially available to Russians in the war of 1812. And that was the Militia. It does appear that this so-called Militia, was in reality the army of Tartary fighting against Napoleon and Alexander I.
Russian VolunteeMilitia Units... Tartarians? Clearly this man has never encountered the concept of a cossack, an
opelchenie, or, erm, a GREATCOAT.
4. Russian nobility in Saint Petersburg spoke French well into the second half of the 19th century. The general explanation was, that it was the trend of time and fashion. Google contains multiple opinions on the matter. * Following the same logic, USA, Britain and Russia should've picked up German after the victory in WW2.
Clearly never heard of the term
lingua franca then.
5. This one I just ran into: 19th-century fans were totally into a Napoleon/Alexander romance
https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/treaties_of_tilsit_miniature_-france-_1810s-_side_a-jpg.37314/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/napoleonxalexander2-jpg.37310/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200701065421im_/https://www.stolenhistory.org/attachments/napoleon-alexander-jpg.37312/ It is true that after the Treaty of Tilsit, Napoleon wrote to his wife, Josephine, that
I am pleased with [Emperor] Alexander; he ought to be with me. If he were a woman, I think I should make him my mistress.
But Napoleon’s ‘honeymoon period’ with Russia following the Treaty of Tilsit should not be seen as indicative of a permanent Napoleonic affection for Russia. Notably, Napoleon’s war with Russia didn’t just end in 1812. How are the Tartaria conspiracists going to explain the War of the Sixth Coalition, when Russian, Prussian and Austrian troops drove the French out of Germany? Did the bromance suddenly stop because of 1812? Or, is it more reasonable to see 1812 as the end result of the bromance falling apart?
Conclusions
So there you have it, Tartaria in all its glorious nonsensicalness. Words cannot capture how massively bonkers this entire thing is. And best of all, I hardly needed my own sources because so much of it is just a demonstration of terrible reading comprehension. Still, if you want to
actually learn about some of the history of Inner Eurasia, see below:
Bibliography
- The Cambridge History of Inner Asia – 2 volumes so far, covering up to 1886. Not really a single contiguous narrative, as each chapter has its own individual author, but a good general coverage.
- Scott C. Levi, The Bukharan Crisis: A Connected History of 18th Century Central Asia (2020) – A book about actual Central Asian history, focussing on the global and local factors that led to the weakening and collapse of the Chinggisid state in Bukhara and the rise of the Uzbek-led Emirate. Also a very good historiographical examination of lay understandings of the period.
- Mark C. Elliott, ‘The Limits of Tartary: Manchuria in Imperial and National Geographies’, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 59, No. 3 (2000) – A discussion of conceptions of Manchuria by Manchu, Chinese, Japanese and European cartographers and geographers, with the section on European geographers being important for getting at the ‘Tartary’ aspect.
- David Christian, ‘Inner Eurasia as a Unit of World History’, Journal of World History, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1994) – A somewhat older view, presenting Inner Eurasia as a distinct unit in world history, but largely in terms of effects on the rest of Eurasia.
- Nicola di Cosmo, ‘State Formation and Periodization in Inner Asian History’, Journal of World History, Vol.10, No.1 (1999) – A partial response to Christian, offering an alternate periodisation based more on the internal dynamics of nomadic state formations and stressing viewing Inner Asian history in terms of those internal dynamics, rather than relegating it to a subordinate place in the histories of ‘Outer Eurasian’, sedentary states.
- Konstantin Sheiko, ‘Lomonosov’s Bastards: Anatolii Fomenko, Pseudo-History and Russia’s Search for a Post-Communist Identity’ [PhD Thesis] (2004) – Specifically deconstructs Fomenko’s version of Tartaria.
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