Line #117 WebVideo/SpectrumPulse


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/markspectrumpulse.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: [[Music/{{Chumbawamba}} “Do you suffer from long-term memory loss?”]]]]
3	->''"Hey there folks, welcome to Spectrum Pulse, we talk about music, movies, art and culture."''
4
5	''Spectrum Pulse'' is a web {{review}} show hosted by Mark Grondin, which started on his blog in 2012 and moved to Website/YouTube a year later. He reviews albums of various genres, as well as the occasional movie review or top ten list, where he is usually accompanied by a plush Voltorb that contributes to the show by adding snarky bottom text to the reviews.
6
7	His other series include:
8
9	* ''Billboard Breakdown'': A weekly in-depth look at that week in Billboard's Hot 100 by covering the Top 10, the movers and shakers, and reviewing new chart entries. In 2019, he moved it to [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCye6i2E-5zmXWDI32APXpIA a separate channel,]] largely because the show's frequent use of the songs he was covering was getting his main channel numerous copyright strikes from record labels, which was causing his main channel to get deprioritized.
10	* ''Special Comment'': An infrequent series where Mark makes a video essay about a specific burning topic regarding pop culture.
11	* ''The Trailing Edge'': A monthly catch-up series giving short reviews to albums that didn't get enough votes on his Patreon schedule, similar to WebVideo/TheNeedleDrop's YUNO reviews. As of 2020, the series has been replaced with ''On The Pulse''.
12	* ''Resonators'': A Patreon-voted series where he reviews classic albums that are considered landmarks of a particular genre. As of 2020, the series is on hold.
13	* ''On The Pulse'': A new series started in 2020, similar to the Trailing Edge but with a wider amount of albums, it is now the primary series on Grondin's main channel, with standard reviews only being made for stunningly good (or stunningly bad) albums, or albums that Mark has more to talk about on than in an ''On The Pulse'' segment.
14
15	His main [=YouTube=] channel can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/user/SilensCursor here]], his ''Billboard Breakdown'' channel is [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCye6i2E-5zmXWDI32APXpIA here]], his Twitter is [[http://www.twitter.com/SpectrumPulse here]], his Patreon is [[https://www.patreon.com/SpectrumPulse here]], and transcripts of his videos can be found on his blog [[https://www.spectrum-pulse.ca here]].
16
17	He is also a published author, with his first full-length novel ''To Kill A Dragon'' being published in November 2015.
18
19	----
20	!!This critic here provides examples of:
21	* AbandonedCatchphrase: Though he still says it, Mark has [[https://twitter.com/SpectrumPulse/status/1373276025983995909?s=20 toned down]] his use of "By the Nine Hells" starting in 2021, as he felt that the phrase became significantly less unique and cool after seeing other people use it unironically.
22	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: InUniverse. [[https://www.spectrum-pulse.ca/blog//2017/11/album-review-reputation-by-taylor-swift.html?m=1 His review]] of Music/TaylorSwift's ''reputation'' remarks that the shift from country to pop since ''Red'' and ''1989'' has caused Swift to lose control of her artistic image and while trying to be a role model without establishing clearly a core set of ideas, "at best she became representative of a [[DramaQueen catty]], [[CantTakeCriticism thin-skinned]] ControlFreak of an artist, or at worst like [[PlayingTheVictimCard the projection of white female victimhood]], or [[MistakenForRacist a projection of far-right leaning authoritarianism]]".
23	* AnatomicallyImpossibleSex: The "Imma turn the bed into the ocean" line in [[Music/FifthHarmony "Work From Home"]]:
24	--> '''Mark:''' Fellas, porn is not real, nobody squirts that much!
25	* TheArtifact: The show maintains the "we talk about music, movies, art and culture" tagline at the beginning of each video, even though the vast majority of episodes focus on just music, with videos on other topics being extremely rare, ''if even that''.
26	* AsTheGoodBookSays: He [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ0BoB3fMxA got biblical]] in his review of Music/KanyeWest's ''Jesus Is King'', which consisted entirely of him reading passages from [[Literature/TheBible the Gospels]][[labelnote:Specifically...]]Matthew 21:12-13 (the Cleansing of the Temple), Luke 18:18-30 (Jesus and the rich young man), and John 8:2-11 (Jesus and the woman taken in adultery).[[/labelnote]] of Jesus denouncing greed, judgmental attitudes, and people who exploit religion for their own personal gain. The unstated implication was that Kanye's turn towards [[ChristianRock Christian hip-hop]] and GospelMusic was a self-serving and {{hypocrit\|e}}ical one from a man who didn't seem to actually be [[HeelFaithTurn owning up to all his terrible behavior]], but was instead continuing to indulge in it and was now HidingBehindReligion to justify it.
27	* AuthorTract: [[invoked]] His "three Ps" for good political art are power, populism, and precision (or nuance), and he finds that, when a work lacks one or especially two of these qualities, it can descend into a bad case of this. He found Music/{{Megadeth}}'s ''Dystopia'' and ANOHNI's ''Hopelessness'' to have only power going for them, leading both to take broad, hateful swipes at large swaths of people, while Music/JustinMoore's ''Off the Beaten Path'' had only populism, causing it to feel like insincere {{pandering\|ToTheBase}}. By contrast, he cited White Lung's ''Paradise'', with its {{deconstruction}} of RiotGrrrl tropes and how women mistreat each other, as an album that hit all three Ps and escaped this.
28	* BadassBookworm: Has a degree in Physics, is a published author, goes on long analytical essays on music... and also used to be a track athlete in high school.
29	* BerserkButton:
30	** Early Music/PostMalone, so much so when he covered him in an episode of Billboard Breakdown, he put up a ''[[ContentWarnings trigger warning]]''. However, according to him, Post has improved as an artist and Mark now just considers him average, and has even placed songs by him on multiple Best Hit Songs lists.
31	** Misogyny, both [[MisogynySong lyrically]] and in general, is a pretty big one as Mark considers himself a sex-positive feminist.
32	** Songs (usually rap songs) that get big thanks to being part of a meme, such as "Harlem Shake" or "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)".
33	** Badly-executed political statements in music, as explained in his reviews of ANOHNI's ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrIvLQM0QW4 Hopelessness]]'' and Music/{{Megadeth}}'s ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s3Az61kskA Dystopia]]''.
34	** Related to the above, so-called "[[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump MAGA]] rappers", a type of right-wing {{political rap}}per that arose in the early 2020s. He regards the entire scene as artless junk that does little more than mindlessly parrot reactionary Fox News talking points, and which only charts because of conservatives buying it ''en masse'' on iTunes less to support the artists than to make a political statement. Every single time a MAGA rap song has shown up on ''Billboard Breakdown'', it was his Worst of the Week. The fact that, in 2021, the genre became a venue for anti-vaccination conspiracy theories especially grates on him; when he discussed Tom [=MacDonald=]'s "Brainwashed", he summed it up thusly:
35	--->''Okay, two lines into this song, Tommy boy here goes full anti-vaxxer. I shouldn't have to say more. But really, at this point I've realized there's no reason to cover this with anything beyond mockery and derision.''
36	** The chipmunk voice effect in songs.
37	** Bro-country, as seen by many of his review targets (e.g. Music/LukeBryan), and by his inclusion of Music/BrantleyGilbert's "Bottoms Up" as #1 on "Worst Hit Songs of 2014".
38	** Music/SamHunt, as seen in his reviews of "Take Your Time" from the Worst Hit Songs of 2015 list and "Make You Miss Me", "Drinkin' Too Much", and "Body Like a Back Road" from Billboard Breakdown and his review of his album "Southside".
39	** Music/{{AJR}}'s "The Click". Only 1 of 2 albums that was given a score of 1/10 as of April 2020 (the other being "Southside" by Sam Hunt).
40	** "Nu-crunk", his term for a variety of HipHop that got big through social media platforms like Website/{{Vine}} and [=SoundCloud=]. The proliferation of such songs on the charts starting in the mid-'10s was a bane of his existence.
41	** Album bombs, when artists (especially in the aforementioned nu-crunk genre) exploit the ''Billboard'' Hot 100's rules for streaming to hit the charts with the force of a thousand bricks, displacing other songs and often sapping their momentum so that most if not all of the album's songs, including the {{filler}} (even interludes and sketches in some extreme cases), can chart. It doesn't help that he suspects many of these album bombs are driven more by [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney payola]] with the major streaming services than anything. In 2018, he [[TheLastStraw got fed up]] and instituted a new rule on ''Billboard Breakdown'' for discussing album bombs: if eight or more songs chart off an album in one week, he will only discuss his best and worst of the week from the album and any songs that landed in the top 40. He considered going back on this rule in 2021 and limiting it to just the top ten when every single track off of Music/{{Drake}}'s ''Certified Lover Boy'' landed in the top 40, including becoming the first musical act since Music/TheBeatles in 1964 to score a clean sweep of the entire top five, but decided that he was going to review (and torch) the entire album, saying that, since Drake had gamed the ''Billboard'' charts fair and square, he was going to play fair with Drake's singles too. In 2022, he announced [[https://twitter.com/SpectrumPulse/status/1526309931103682563 on Twitter]] that he's revising the rules again for album bombs as follows: all songs will be covered if five or less songs chart, the original rule is in place if six to eleven songs chart, and only the top 20 and the best and worst will be covered if twelve or more songs chart.
42	** Rap lyrics about [[{{Cuckold}} stealing other men's girlfriends]], particularly the listener's girlfriend, in order to demonstrate how masculine and virile the rapper is. Not only does he find it icky, he thinks it's become a worn-out cliché in hip-hop.
43	** He actually uses the exact name of this trope to describe the line "God knows we're worth it" from the Jason Mraz song "I Won't Give Up," which was #2 on his Worst Hit Songs of 2012 list.
44	** As of 2021, account hackers, thanks to a bad experience with one who hacked both of his channels to hawk an NFT scam, forcing him to appeal directly to Website/YouTube to get his channels back. The experience, combined with those of other [=YouTubers=] who'd had their accounts hacked to promote crypto, also badly colored his views towards [=NFTs=] and crypto as a whole, causing him to conclude that any industry that is so flagrant about using such underhanded methods to promote itself is probably filled with scams and rotten to the core.
45	** Graverobbing, or when record labels exploit dead artists by taking incomplete songs and releasing them (sometimes by adding a featured artist) as to profit off of the artist's death.
46	* BigNo: His review of "Flex (Ooh Ooh Ooh)" by Rich Homie Quan on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5HypB0Y34w Billboard Breakdown (skip to 10.03)]].
47	* BigWhat: His reaction to a Music/GucciMane lyric on [[https://youtu.be/3knLLnN0MG0?t=13m another Billboard Breakdown]].
48	* BigWhy: His reaction to Beyoncé's "7/11" in the ''Worst Hit Songs of 2015'' video as well as [[https://youtu.be/GcWzBmNLAPA?t=1213 a Kanye West lyric from Billboard Breakdown.]]
49	* BrainBleach:
50	** When discussing DNCE's "Cake by the Ocean" on ''Billboard Breakdown'':
51	--> '''Mark:''' I was going to use the line "the cake is a lie", but then I considered what the sexualization of that metaphor might mean in reference to ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' and I now have to rethink my entire life.
52	** Also when discussing Music/BigSean's "Play No Games" on the July 18th, 2015 episode of ''Billboard Breakdown'':
53	--> '''Mark:''' Big Sean treats his girl with casual disinterest even though she apparently 'respects him like a father figure' - ew.
54	* BrokeTheRatingScale:
55	** A '''Refusal to Rate''' example: Mount Eerie's "A Crow Looked At Me". The reason being that Mark found it such an emotionally raw and personal album, dealing with the death of the artist's wife, that he felt that it stopped being a piece of "art" and couldn't bring himself to give it any kind of rating.
56	** Exaggerated from 2022 onwards, where Mark decided to overhaul the rating system completely. The justification for this was that trying to characterize an album based on said system only cheapened viewers' interpretation of his work, whereas Mark was in favor of discussing the critical analysis more.
57	*** This is even further exaggerated by his 2023 review of ''Weathervanes'' by [[Music/JasonIsbell Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit]], [[spoiler:an album he liked so much that he rated a 10/10 anyway despite getting rid of scores.]]
58	* TheCameo:
59	** Rodrigo Pasta appears in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvVztkbnnvs Episode 5]] of ''On The Pulse'' for 2021 to help Mark review Music/SelenaGomez's [[NewSoundAlbum Spanish-language EP]] ''Revelación''.
60	** Mark himself appears in Part 2 of WebVideo/TheDoubleAgent's ''Worst Hit Songs of 2009'' video as well as the ''[[Music/CreedBand Weathered]]'', ''[[Music/LinkinPark A Thousand Suns]]'', ''[[Music/SimplePlan Still Not Getting Any...]]'', ''[[Music/TheoryOfADeadman Scars and Souvenirs]]'' and ''Music/{{Trapt}}'' episodes of ''[[WebVideo/{{Rocked}} Regretting the Past]]''.
61	* CatchPhrase:
62	** "We talk about music, movies, art and culture."
63	** "NEXT!"
64	** "Skip it!"
65	** "Check it out!"
66	** "Stick the landing"
67	** "Good."
68	* CausticCritic: Has a tendency to lose his temper when discussing songs or albums that he dislikes. That said, he also says that he doesn't like giving negative reviews, and refuses to do a Worst Albums list.
69	* ClusterFBomb / FlippingTheBird: At the end of his review of Music/{{AJR}}'s ''The Click'', [[spoiler:his first ever 1/10 and what he considers the worst album he's ever reviewed]]:
70	--> Fuck this record, fuck everyone at Warner Brothers who bankrolled this, fuck the culture that enabled this and would excuse it, and if you inflict this on anybody, honestly, fuck you too!
71	* CriticalDissonance: [[invoked]]
72	** He has discussed this with regards to CountryMusic. Among other things, he blames this trope on the critics' end for the prevalence of LowestCommonDenominator junk within the genre, arguing that the dismissive attitudes towards country held by many highbrow critics and listeners have caused them to withdraw their voices from the cultural conversation within the genre, allowing the worst sort of PanderingToTheBase to flourish and essentially [[SelfFulfillingProphecy reinforce all of their prejudices]].
73	** With PopPunk and EmoMusic, meanwhile, he blames the critics' refusal to take those genres seriously for why sexism got so bad in scene culture in the 2000s. Nobody with a serious platform was calling it out, instead just treating it all as disposable teenybopper garbage, and so an audience comprised mostly of teenage girls too young to know better was showered with {{Misogyny Song}}s by musicians who often sexually groomed and outright abused them.
74	* CulturallyReligious: Attended a Catholic high school, and nowadays still identifies as Catholic but with complicated views on religion. Believes that the Bible is best interpreted metaphorically.
75	* DeadpanSnarker: His personality was a lot more like this in his early years of reviewing, but now has reached a CausticCritic level with small amounts of snark.
76	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In the first season of Billboard Breakdown, Mark would review the returning entries in addition to the new arrivals and consider them for Best/Worst of the Week (which often resulted in a returning entry getting one of the titles). He revised this format for Season 2 onward so that only the new arrivals would be reviewed and considered for Best/Worst of the Week.
77	** If you read his reviews on his blog pre-[=YouTube=], you can notice how his writing has evolved over the years. He was generally harsher back then, and also swore a whole lot more often, plus he didn't even say his name as Mark when talking about himself.
78	* EvilIsBurningHot / KillItWithFire: If you see an album/single cover art being engulfed in flames on a video thumbnail, expect Mark to rip it to shreds.
79	* FloweryInsults: The review of Music/{{AJR}}'s "The Click" is abundant with these. Said record being referred to as "dick-shreddingly gross" is just the tip of the iceberg.
80	** Seems to be an increasingly common feature in recent years when discussing songs he dislikes, usually involving some form of gross-out BodyHorror.
81	* ForcedMeme: Considers Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen to be this.
82	* FormulaBreakingEpisode:
83	** His review of "We Beefin?" as well as his episode of On The Pulse done entirely in ASMR.
84	** His reviews of Music/{{Drake}}'s ''Certified Lover Boy'' and Music/KanyeWest's ''Donda'', released at the same time, [[spoiler:where both videos are Mark giving the exact same criticisms to both albums and the artists themselves, with a scene of him giving his unique thoughts on each record in between.]]
85	* FreezeFrameBonus:
86	** When Mark reviews ''White Iverson'' on Billboard Breakdown, the information captions at the top-right of the screen that is displayed after the video clip lists the genre of the song as [[SarcasmMode "hip-hop"]], [[TakeThat including the quote marks]].
87	** Did the same several months later with ''Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen'' listed as [[TakeThat "comedy"]]. And again with "Earth" by Lil Dicky in 2019, where he not only put "comedy" in quotes again, he listed ''bowel cancer'' as one of the genres, and "way too many fucking people who should know better" as the featured artists.
88	** He does this rather often with country songs that he doesn't consider to be country, such as Sam Hunt songs. (Notably, the genre description for Sam Hunt's sophomore effort "Southside" includes the tags "insult to human decency" and "proof of the failure of capitalism and corporate radio".)
89	** In his "Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2012" video, he list the genre 'Birthday Cake (Remix)' by Rihanna ft. Chris Brown as "electro-pop/migraine".
90	** In "A Look At The Canadian Hot 100 - 2015", for his (positive) review of "I'm an Albatroz" by {{Music/AronChupa}}, the listed genres are "EDM", "Website/{{Vine}}" and "WTF".
91	** When reviewing Larray's "Cancelled" on Billboard Breakdown, the listed genres are "trap/[=YouTube=] bullshit".
92	** In the Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2020, his #1 pick, [[spoiler: "Sunday Best" by Surfaces]], is listed as "pop/torture".
93	* FunWithSubtitles: An interesting take on it with the Voltorb adding additional commentary in videos, usually referring to Mark as "this critic...". For a short time the Voltorb would not be adverse to taking the piss out of Mark either.
94	* GrayingMorality: His views on Music/TaylorSwift's musical arc starting (and his opinion failing) since ''reputation'', having shaky improvement on ''Music/{{Lover}}'', becomeing very good on ''[[Music/Folklore2020 folklore]]'' and ''[[Music/Evermore2020 evermore]]'' and finally culminateing to, in his opinion, her best album (or even best) since ''Music/SpeakNow'' - ''Music/{{Midnights}}''
95	* GuiltyPleasures: When asked in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXxdzSGPWp0 15,000 Subscriber Q&A episode]] what Mark's big guilty pleasure album is, he whips out an Music/SClub7 CD.
96	* HormoneAddledTeenager: Mark's explanation for why his 18 year-old self used to like Music/ChrisBrown's "Kiss Kiss" in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJlNvLFQvek Worst Hit Songs of 2008]] {{crossover}} review with WebVideo/TheDoubleAgent.
97	--> '''Double Agent:''' So basically, you liked this song because you wanted to get laid?\
98	'''Mark:''' Well, yeah, obviously...
99	* TheHorseshoeEffect: He believes that Music/{{Megadeth}}'s ''Dystopia'' and ANOHNI's ''Hopelessness'' failed for the exact same reason, despite their politics sitting on opposite ends of the spectrum (Megadeth on the right, ANOHNI on the left). His "three Ps" of good political art are power, populism, and precision, and he found both albums to have only power going for them, meaning that, while their messages felt sincere, they also felt sincerely hateful in their attacks on various groups of people without any concern for nuance, tact, or the listener's approval.
100	* IHatePastMe: Confessed to being somewhat of a Music/ChrisBrown fan back in the day in the ''Worst Hit Songs of 2008'' review. It's fair to say that he doesn't hold that same opinion these days:
101	--> '''Mark:''' Here's where my story of shame gets even dumber, because back in 2008 when I was looking for more Chris Brown songs-\
102	'''Double Agent:''' Why?!\
103	'''Mark:''' I DIDN'T KNOW ANY BETTER!
104	* INeedAFreakingDrink: The ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0tD4jsYvmI Nine Track Mind]]'' {{crossover}} review with WebVideo/{{ARTV}} sees plenty of swigs from a beer bottle.
105	* KubrickStare: Frequently happens.
106	* LargeHam
107	* {{Leitmotif}}: "Amnesia" by Chumbawamba as the ''Billboard Breakdown'' theme song.
108	* LOL69: On ''Billboard Breakdown'', whenever he mentions that a song is at #69 on the charts, he follows it with a [[Recap/SouthParkS10E10MissTeacherBangsABoy "nice."]]
109	* MinMaxing: He compared the chart strategy for Music/{{BTS}}' "Butter" to this as he discussed its run at #1 on the charts, especially with how their label was exploiting every rule they could to propel the song's chart run through sales.
110	* MisogynySong: Discussed in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPyqtbsuA2c his video essay]] on Music/FallOutBoy's ''Save Rock and Roll''. Given the context of the sexism of 2000s emo/scene culture and rock music more broadly, the album's TakeThatAudience themes, the band's fanbase in the '00s having been comprised mostly of teenage girls, and how every woman in the album's ''Young Blood Chronicles'' videos/film is presented as a villain (especially the casting of Music/CourtneyLove, a major YokoOhNo fixation of Music/{{Nirvana}} fans, as the [[MoralGuardians Tipper Gore]]-esque leader of an evil cult of women who hate music), he thought that it turned into a full-blown Misogyny Album railing against women as fickle killjoys who wrecked their career.
111	* NWordPrivileges: Considering his rap reviews, has stated on Twitter he won't say the word if he feels it isn't necessary. When songs with the N-word in the title appear on Billboard Breakdown, he says "N-word" in its place.
112	* NoIndoorVoice: When he's especially angry, it's a cross between this and SuddenlyShouting.
113	* OlderAndWiser: When covering ''Music/{{Fearless}} [[TheNotRemix (Taylor's Version)]]'', he thought that "Fifteen", a song about getting swept up in love when one is too young to know any better, benefited from Music/TaylorSwift's more grown-up perspective, and that she sold it a lot better than she did originally when she was herself still a teenager and couldn't really convey the kind of wisdom she was going for. [[SubvertedTrope On the other hand,]] he thought that "You Belong With Me", a NotLikeOtherGirls song that he already didn't really like back when Taylor was 18, sounded even more immature and catty when sung by a 31-year-old woman.
114	* PersonaNonGrata:
115	** After learning about the controversy regarding Music/{{Sia}}'s film ''Music'', Mark [[https://twitter.com/SpectrumPulse/status/1353037873159745537 tweeted]] that he will no longer cover anything related to her music on the channel again, due to being utterly disgusted with what he learned. He reclarified this when covering "Unstoppable" on ''Billboard Breakdown'' in 2022, deciding to play clips of his old ''This is Acting'' review rather than write and record a new review.
116	** On Twitter in October 2023, [[https://twitter.com/SpectrumPulse/status/1712488008304226709 he announced]] he will [[https://www.twitter.com/SpectrumPulse/status/1735386841954627815 not cover]] any new Music/KanyeWest albums because of his repulsion towards those who believe that because of new music coming out, all of West's past and present behavior, especially his antisemitism, should be swept under the rug. He later clarified this in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiIpHsZnznw this YouTube short]].
117	* PrecisionFStrike: He usually avoids swearing in his videos unless it's in the name of the song itself (like "Fuck You" by Cee-Lo Green) but sometimes he loses his cool.
118	** The end of the "Music/MileyCyrus & Her Dead Petz" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aOYGPP4zyg review]].
119	--> '''Mark:''' I can't believe I'm the one who has to say this, as a guy who used to be a fan of yours, but here it is: read between the lines and grow the '''FUCK''' up.
120	** His reaction to Ty Dollar $ign's line in "Blaze" where he compares himself to Nate Dogg on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1efYBVD2XQE Billboard Breakdown]]?
121	--> '''Mark:''' FUCK YOU!
122	** Also [[https://youtu.be/Whws7LbzEC8?t=7m49s his review]] of Sam Hunt's "Drinking Too Much" has him calling the song "fucking disgusting".
123	** During [[https://youtu.be/tJY9SdWsab0?t=300 his review]] of Big Sean's ''I Decided'', he says this about the closing track "Bigger Than Me."
124	-->'''Mark:''' And then we have the final song where he's going to acknowledge he needs to aim higher and aim for a bigger cause outside himself because he made that choice for him to live in the moment and be there... which is a cute Objectivist point of view that kind of flies in the face of the fact you brought on the Flint Chozen Choir and that no matter what people decide in that community the water is still poisoned and you don't even have the fucking spine to mention anything beyond yourself!
125	** After a rant about Drake not giving full credit to a lot of the guest acts featured on the More Life "playlist" on Billboard Breakdown, Mark decides to be as polite as a fellow Canadian living in Toronto would: he [[FlippingTheBird flips the bird at the camera]] and gives Drake a big fat "fuck you!".
126	** At the start of [[https://youtu.be/1jX5E4QhdD0?t=13m57s his review]] of "Gummo" by 6ix9ine, an artist who [[https://genius.com/a/here-s-what-you-need-to-know-about-controversial-brooklyn-rapper-6ix9ine-his-breakout-hit-gummo has pled guilty to 3 counts of the use of a child in a sexual performance]]:
127	-->'''Mark:''' DO I EVEN HAVE TO '''FUCKING''' DIGNIFY THIS?!
128	** As he approaches the end of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_xRUpan8yE his review]] of ''The Owl'' by Music/ZacBrownBand:
129	-->'''Mark:''' Congratulations, Zac Brown, I'm now stuck defending the '''fucking''' Kardashians because for as trashy as they can be, they've never had real expectations of quality - unlike you, who somehow delivered a project more worthless than their recorded output.
130	* ProudToBeAGeek
131	-->'''Mark:''' I'm the kind of nerd who has hundreds of fantasy and sci-fi novels, can quote Creator/MontyPython and ''Franchise/StarWars'' verbatim, used to be a Dungeon Master when playing ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', occasionally still goes to ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' tournaments, has a physics degree, and has Aragorn's longsword [[CoolSword Andúril]] from ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' mounted on his wall.
132	* RapIsCrap: He thought that the video for Music/FallOutBoy's "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'em Up)" treaded too close to this territory for comfort by casting the black rapper Music/TwoChainz as the guy who burns the band's merchandise and instruments, given the historic rivalry between fans of {{Rock}} and HipHop and a lot of the racism that went with it.
133	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
134	** From the pre-[=YouTube=] days, he delivered one at the end of his [[https://www.spectrum-pulse.ca/blog//2013/04/album-review-willpower-by-william.html written review]] of ''#willpower'':
135	-->And the worst part, Music/WillIAm, is that you're better than this. That's probably the most infuriating thing about ''#willpower'', in that there are tiny shreds of a good idea here. There are snippets that have real beauty and real potential, and you clearly have the money and industry clout to make the album you want - and you made this trash. It is bar none the worst album you've ever made, and I sincerely hope that if you consider this the height of your talents, that this album flops and your long-overdue fifteen minutes comes to a screeching end.
136	** His [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW2G1OJVONM review]] of Music/{{AJR}}'s 'The Click' is essentially one big, 21-minute long one of these.
137	** The end of his review of ''Southside'' by Music/SamHunt features a rather lengthy one, in which he argues that his success while Music/KaceyMusgraves faced constant roadblocks demonstrates that Nashville's supposed meritocracy is all a lie.
138	-->This isn’t just mediocre or forgettable, it’s an album that is actively enabled to suck, but will sell just enough with the full force of promotion and catering to the worst of cultural biases that it’ll push back on people who call it out. In that way, even though Sam Hunt has expressed no political affiliation publicly, it’s emblematic of this time and what guys like him have been actively enabled to get away with - and regardless of where you fall, that’s hypocritical and disgusting.\
139	Now some of you will say, ‘well, that’s just the industry, that’s not fair to hold the art that only exists because of that industry to that standard, separate the art from the conditions where it was made even though it drips through and shades every element of it’… and while that conclusion is the height of intellectual dishonesty, I can consider ''Southside'' outside of that: when it’s not boring it’s infuriating, it wants to push the sound but doesn’t grasp how any component part works, the content is so emotionally incoherent in its framing I thought the dissonance had to be part of the point until you realize there was nothing close to that level of sophistication or effort, and it features some of the worst sequencing on any album I’ve ever reviewed.
140	** A double-barrel one: on the July 3, 2021 episode of ''Billboard Breakdown'', he delivered one to Creator/ColumbiaRecords for gaming the charts and the way sales are measured in order to propel Music/{{BTS}}' "Butter" to #1, in a process that he compared to MinMaxing. The following week, after the [[invoked]] [[FanCommunityNicknames ARMY]] hit him with one of the worst {{Internet Counterattack}}s he'd ever experienced, he delivered an even bigger nine-minute missive against Columbia, the ARMY, and the entire [[KoreanPopMusic K-pop]] industry, arguing that both chart manipulation and [[LoonyFan awful fan behavior]] were doing lasting damage to K-pop's reputation in the US.
141	** He delivers a particularly serious one on the March 16, 2024 episode of ''Billboard Breakdown'', when Music/KanyeWest and Ty Dolla $ign hit #1 with "Carnival". Despite Mark's attempts to avoid covering the album or its songs previously, he uses the opportunity to call out the song's rampant misogyny and how it represents powerful men excusing each other for their crimes:
142	-->And with this many people behind it, those who are saying they’re only here ironically for the jokes or because "the beat and the hook go hard" or "I’m just here for Carti"… y’all aren’t getting away that easy from all of this. You have Rich the Kid saying he "pull up in the trenches like Columbine" - that’s right, one of the least interesting mainstream rappers of the mid-2010s who drops a forgettable verse here comparing himself to a school shooter, and he’s not as dubiously good as when Music/LilYachty did it on "Broccoli" in 2016 - Ty Dolla $ign going through the motions but with a line about how girls want to fuck his car, and Music/PlayboiCarti… honestly has nowhere close to the energy he needs to sell this bland flexing buried midway back where he compares his swag to a disease… I unironically agree with that, Music/IggyAzalea’s baby daddy and notable abuser made one point. But alongside those and this oily, clunky mix leaning hard on its choir to masquerade as a jock jam, alongside sampling [[Music/BlackSabbath the "Hell of a Life" riff]] because Kanye is nothing without tainting his legacy, he compares himself to Music/RKelly and Creator/BillCosby who were "cancelled" like him - he really wants you to ignore the context of the well-documented sex crimes, including towards minors, how in the former case it was targeted at Music/{{Aaliyah}} and often wrapped in gospel iconography, in the latter in respectability politics and conservatism - but also being so rich he’s like [[Music/SeanCombs Puff Daddy]] and can pay off the #[=MeToo=] accusations… and spoilers, I don’t think Diddy’s getting out of his either. But by the final lines, he says he’s doing it for Music/ChrisBrown, and references the fact his kids are in a fake school - probably smart you cut yourself off there given all the allegations around Donda Academy - and it snaps into place: we have documented photographic evidence of when Chris Brown assaulted Music/{{Rihanna}}, and how his career just kept on going - [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensational_(song) he’s literally charting a new single now]] - this is about the freedom of powerful men to cast doubt on abuse allegations, avoid accountability, their victims be silenced, and then be praised endlessly for it. That is in the text of the song, and they sure as shit aren’t beating the fash allegations now because this is at the roots of how they treat women, and when I look at the audience that unironically endorses this for being a banger and gets big mad whenever I bring up the rest… you’re telling on yourselves, and I do know some of you teenage white boys will grow out of this; I was alive for the late 90s, I remember the shock rap of that era, I know some of this is built for pure provocation, just entertainment - a carnival, child’s play even. But this is quite literally the definition of adolescent toxic machismo built for the gang rapes of Woodstock 99, insecure grasping at power from weak little men for the perpetually unfuckable wanting to live a fantasy, and the fact that it did go to #1 shows that a certain insufferably loud and privileged demographic has enough obsessive power to push it there regardless of what is being said, just like they did twenty five years ago, in the tradition of this proudly ignorant, reflexively conservative horseshit ''never going away''.
143	* RockIsAuthenticPopIsShallow: Mark is an unabashed poptimist who's not a fan of this attitude. In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPyqtbsuA2c his video]] on Music/FallOutBoy's 2013 comeback album ''Save Rock and Roll'', he said that making a great pop song can be just as difficult as making a great rock song if not moreso, in large part ''because'' of the [[CreativityLeash constraints]] placed on musicians that force them to get creative in subverting or working around them, and that it's a talent that's too often dismissed. He feels that rock, by contrast, is frequently placed on a pedestal of musical complexity and depth that it often doesn't deserve, especially not by the 2010s when the genre was entering one of its lowest ebbs of both mainstream success and critical respect. He castigated the 2000s music press (especially ''Pitchfork'') for having fully bought into this trope with regards to PopPunk and EmoMusic, and believes that ''Save Rock and Roll'' was fueled in large part by Fall Out Boy's desire to prove themselves as "real" musicians after having been treated for so long as a glorified BoyBand.
144	* RunningGag:
145	** "The Canadian charts are always better!" That said, by 2018 he'd begun retiring this bit, partly because streaming had homogenized the world's pop charts, and partly because of the rise of Music/{{Drake}}, a Canadian musician who, as the decade wore on, he increasingly viewed as emblematic of everything wrong with pop music in the 2010s.
146	** "So, did you know that [insert artist here] released a new record? Better question: did you care?!"
147	** Expect any country song he dislikes to have its genre listed in the subtitles as 'Pop [[ScareQuotes "country"]]'.
148	** He's mentioned multiple times that he never had an "angry white boy" phase, usually when he's about to discuss nu-metal type acts such as Music/AvengedSevenfold or Music/LinkinPark. Or political acts like Aaron Lewis' "Am I The Only One" in 2021.
149	* ScareQuotes: Expect any country song he dislikes to have its genre listed in the subtitles as 'Pop "country"'.
150	* SceneryPorn: Pretty much all of the vacation episodes (which were filmed in Portugal and Spain) and the January 14th episode of ''Billboard Breakdown'' which was filmed in the Dominican Republic.
151	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: The opening of the Music/ColeSwindell [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQRoCU-YXPI review]], where he abruptly got off his couch claiming he had better things to do, which caused Voltorb to argue with Mark to stop whining and finish the review. He reluctantly sat back down and demolished the album.
152	* ShoutOut: Gives one to WebVideo/TheWonkyAngle during his review of Against All Logic's 2012-2017. Which is particularly awesome, due to Tommy being an enthusiastic fan of Mark before he created the channel.
153	* ShownTheirWork: Always makes the effort to do research on an artist's discography or musical genre when doing an album review.
154	* SigningOffCatchphrase: "I'm Mark, you're watching Spectrum Pulse, and I'll see you next time."
155	* TopTenList: Every year there's two top ten lists for the best and worst hits of the year, a top 50 for the best songs (not just hits) of the year, and a top 25 for best albums of the year.
156	* TotallyRadical: Mark got the definition of "yiff" hilariously wrong when he talked about the song "What Does The Fox Say?" by Music/{{Ylvis}}, stating that the furries had answered that question: The fox "yiffs". While in the fandom foxes are stereotypically known for yiffing, [[TheInternetIsForPorn "yiff" is furry jargon for having sex.]]
157	* UnreliableNarrator: In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcziICLQJwo 10,000 Subscriber Q&A episode]], Mark claims to be a secret Pokémon trainer that found a wild Voltorb in a power plant and adopted him. Voltorb then explains the REAL story: [[spoiler: Mark simply bought him from a friend of an ex-girlfriend who made and sold plush Pokémon on Etsy.]]
158	* UnusualEuphemism: Has a habit of using the phrase "by/in the Nine Hells" to express exasperation. It kind of makes sense considering that he's Catholic...
159	* [[VacationEpisode Vacation Series]]: In August 2016, Mark did a series of short 30 second reviews while he was on vacation in Europe, as he didn't want to put the channel on hold while he was gone. He did it again a year later, this time doing joint four-album reviews in place of his typical one per episode.
160	* ValuesDissonance: [[invoked]] His dishonorable mentions for the Worst Songs of 2011 included "Pumped Up Kicks" by Music/FosterThePeople, in no small part for this reason: it's "a jaunty song intentionally written from the perspective of a [[AxesAtSchool school shooter]]." He disliked it back then for other reasons, but nowadays, its portrayal of school shootings looks especially misguided.
161	* VerySpecialEpisode:
162	** His reviews of Music/DavidBowie's ''Blackstar'' and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' ''Skeleton Tree'', both having an uncharacteristically downtrodden and mournful tone; Mark himself has gone on the record as saying he nearly teared up in the process of filming both reviews. The former was shot mere days after the death of David Bowie, and the latter was [[spoiler:the second and to date one of only four albums he's awarded a perfect 10/10 score.]]
163	** Could also be considered for his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaA3fZ0BWTY review]] of Mount Eerie's "A Crow Looked At Me", the very first album which [[spoiler:he gave no rating.]]
164	** His "review" of ''[[Music/KanyeWest Jesus is King]]'', where he doesn't even discuss the album's content. Instead, Mark decides to get his point across by reading a few verses from the New Testament (specifically Matthew 21:12-13, Luke 18:18-30 and John 8:2-11) which boils down to calling Kanye a massive immoral hypocrite who is trying to profit out of preaching the Christian faith in his music.
165	* VitriolicBestBuds: Mark and Voltorb, mainly Voltorb, who seems to think of Mark as somewhat of an idiot.
166	* WolverinePublicity: Believes this is the case with Drake in the last couple of years, to the point where as of late 2016, Mark is at the stage where he can't wait for Drake to finally go away.
167	* YoungerThanTheyLook: Mark was born in 1990 but has often been mistaken for being in his 30s. The receding hairline doesn't really help.
168	----
169	-->[[TheStinger I've got the poll up here, so if you want to tell me how wrong this trope page is, here's your chance. Anything else this trope page can do to improve its presentation, I'm all ears.]] [[SigningOffCatchphrase But until then: I'm Mark, you're watching Spectrum Pulse, and I'll see you next time.]]

Context WebVideo / SpectrumPulse