Surreal

Surreal may refer to:

See also

Surreal (song)

"Surreal" (stylized as "SURREAL") is a song by Japanese recording artist Ayumi Hamasaki, taken from her third studio album Duty (2000). It was written by Hamasaki and produced by Max Matsuura. The song is a rock with elements of alternative rock. "Surreal" describes Hamasaki's madness and sense of confusion, while the themes of "Surreal" are based on Hamasaki's concept of loneliness, chaos, confusion, and the burden of her responsibilities, aimed mostly towards her public image as an recording artist. It was released as the fourth single from the album on 27 September 2000 by Avex Trax and Avex Taiwan.

Critical reception towards "Surreal" has been positive; majority of the critics commended the song writing and musical delivery, and highlighted it as an album and career stand out track. In Japan, "Surreal" became her sixth number one on the Oricon Singles Chart, and also reached the top spot on the Japanese Count Down TV chart. "Surreal" was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for shipments of 250,000 units. Released as a DVD Single in December 2000, it reached number three on the Oricon DVD Chart.

Surreal (album)

Surreal is the debut album from UK alternative rock band Man Raze. The album was written over a two-year period from 2004-2006 and recorded during April 2006 in Dublin in only two weeks. It features the singles "Skin Crawl" and "Turn It Up". The album was released in the USA on June 3, 2008. The UK Edition featuring a 5 track bonus disc is available from December 1, 2008.

Track listing

UK/European Bonus Disc

Personnel

Erasure

Erasure (/ᵻˈreɪʒər/) are an English synthpop duo, consisting of singer and songwriter Andy Bell and songwriter and keyboardist Vince Clarke. They formed in London, and entered the music scene in 1985 with their debut single "Who Needs Love Like That". Following the release of their fourth single "Sometimes", the duo established itself on the UK Singles Chart and became one of the most successful artists of the late 1980s to mid-1990s.

From 1986 to 2007, Erasure achieved 24 consecutive Top 40 hits in the UK, while having three Top 20 hits in the US (on the Billboard Hot 100): "A Little Respect", "Chains of Love", and "Always". By 2009, 34 of their 45 singles and EPs (of which 8 out of the 45 were not chart eligible in the UK) had made the UK Top 40, with 17 climbing into the Top 10. At the 1989 Brit Awards, Erasure won the Brit Award for Best British Group.

The duo are most popular in their native UK and mainland Europe (especially Germany, Denmark and Sweden) and also in South America (especially Argentina, Chile and Peru). To date, they have sold over 25 million albums worldwide. The band is also popular within the LGBT community, for whom openly gay Bell has become a gay icon.

Erasure (heraldry)

Erasure in blazonry, the language of heraldry, is the tearing off of part of a charge, leaving a jagged edge of it remaining. Due to the usual construction of blazons, this is most often found in its adjectival form (i.e., erased), usually applied to animate charges, most often used of heads but sometimes other body parts. When a tree or other plant is shown uprooted (with the bare roots showing), it is eradicated.

The term erased is most often used of an animal's head, when the neck is depicted with a ragged edge as if forcibly torn from the body. Erased heads are distinct from those couped, in that the former are cut off along a jagged line while the latter are cut off along a straight line.

John Craig's dictionary of 1854 says:

Forms of erasure

There are different traditions for the erasing of heads. For instance, with the head of a bear, whether couped or erased, in English heraldry the separation is done horizontally under the neck, which is not lost, whereas in Scottish heraldry the usual practice is for the head to be separated from the body vertically, without keeping the neck attached to it.

Erasure (novel)

Erasure is a 2001 novel by Percival Everett and originally published by UPNE. The novel reacts against the dominant strains of discussion surrounding the publication and criticism of African American literature.

Plot

The novel's plot revolves around how the publishing industry pigeon-holes African-American writers. The protagonist, Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, a professor of English literature, is repeatedly criticized for not writing "black enough". Ellison is angered by the success of an Oprah-like book club's selection of a novel reflecting what is supposedly contemporary black experience, but which presents a stereotypical story. He composes a satirical response based on Richard Wright's Native Son and Sapphire's novel Push, which he first entitles My Pafology before changing it to Fuck. The talk show host, a Hollywood producer, and a panel of famous novelists, all prove more willing to accept the brutal, dehumanized black man of the novel than a middle-class intellectual like Ellison. He in turn has trouble facing impoverished blacks both real and fictional.