title: Scrooged

text: "The Hollywood Reporter" said that the story was uproarious and sometimes vitriolic, labeling it a scathing satire of the entertainment industry, that was a "wild and wooly holiday feast that should scrape off the competition". Their review continued that "Scrooged" features "wickedly amusing flashbacks", but also some overwrought comic misfires. The "Radio Times" John Ferguson appreciated the film, calling it a "joyously black Christmas treat", but once the "sentimentality starts seeping in", it seems like a misstep. A 2007 review by "Den of Geek" agreed, saying that the film and Murray are at their best before the redemption begins, and that the only film to come close to capturing Murray's vitriol was "Bad Santa" (2003).


title: Scrooged

text: Jonathan Rosenbaum called "Scrooged" an ironic film, for seemingly condemning the commercialization of Christmas while also capitalizing on it, taking on the moral message of "A Christmas Carol", "without sacrificing its yuppie priorities for an instant". Rosenbaum cited the ending in particular, wherein Frank gives his Christmas message, causing Karen to leave the needy homeless to come to his side, and both are watched over approvingly by Herman, a homeless man who froze to death. Ebert and "Empire" concurred about the ending. Ebert said that the necessary words are spoken by the characters, but it lacks heart, continues at embarrassing length, and seems like an onscreen breakdown. "Empire" also called the ending embarrassing and beyond Murray's capabilities. Conversely, the BBC's Ben Falk said it is hard not to join in singing at the end.


title: Scrooged

text: Critics were divided by Murray's performance. Falk said that Murray is a comic genius at his best, and Brown said that he created a credible, comic character. Ferguson said that the first part of "Scrooged" featured Murray at "his sour faced best". "The Hollywood Reporter" called him "hilariously convincing" and "impressively sinister" as the TV executive, saying that his hip and sassy performance gives the film energy, nuttiness and charm. Their review said that his deadpan, cutting style was hilarious, but that he layers the character's histrionics with inner sensibility that makes his eventual redemption believable and uplifting.


title: Scrooged

text: Conversely, Ebert said that Murray looks genuinely unhappy, and lacked the lightness and good cheer lurking beneath previous performances. Ebert also criticized Murray's ad-libbing, blaming it for being at odds with, and blocking the flow of the story. Benson said that Murray imbued Frank Cross' worst attributes with sincerity, making his redemption difficult to accept.


title: Scrooged

text: Carol Kane was praised for her performance, with "The Hollywood Reporter" referring to her as a "certified hoot", and "Entertainment Weekly"s Sara Vilkomerson saying that she "steals the show" from Murray. Benson said that watching her fragile, winged character pummel Murray was "strangely satisfying", although the joke eventually wore out. Benson was more positive on Woodard, saying that she offered the film's one completely persuasive performance.


title: Scrooged

text: "The Hollywood Reporter" also praised Woodard, Mitchum, and John Glover's credible portrayal of a sleazy executive. Both "The Hollywood Reporter" and Brown appreciated Goldthwait's role, with Brown calling it "twitchingly touching". Thomas called Johansen's Ghost of Christmas Past a "bonus", but he and Benson lamented the "king's ransom of actors" that were wasted. "The Hollywood Reporter" said that Elfman's music is "full blast with holiday spirit", and singled out J. Michael Riva's production design, calling it "dead on the mark funny".


title: Scrooged

text: O'Donoghue was very critical of the finished film. He said, "We wrote a fucking masterpiece. We wrote "It Happened One Night" (1934). We wrote a story that could make you laugh and cry. You would have wanted to share it with your grandchildren every fucking Christmas for the next 100 years. The finished film was a piece of unadulterated, unmitigated shit."


title: Scrooged

text: Make up artists Thomas R. Burman and Bari Dreiband-Burman were responsible for the film's single nomination at the 61st Academy Awards for Best Makeup, losing to "Beetlejuice".


title: Scrooged

text: Since its release, "Scrooged" has become a cult classic and a Christmas classic, being regularly shown on television during the holiday period. "Entertainment Weekly"s Whitney Pastorek called it an immortal classic and argued that it is the most underrated Christmas movie. Pastorek said that the film is "both crude and sentimental, resonant and ludicrous..."Scrooged" is the perfect holiday movie for bitter, reluctant, closet Christmas lovers". "The Boston Globe"s Maura Johnston said that the film was ahead of its time which allowed it to remain relevant years later.


title: Scrooged

text: "PopMatters" said that their view of the ongoing commercialization of Christmas, and the film's anticipation of marketing tactics aimed at pets watching television, made the film more relevant now than at the time of its release. In 2012, "Den of Geek!" described it as the "finest Christmas comedy of all time". Al Green's and Annie Lennox's "Put a Little Love in your Heart" is also played regularly at Christmas despite not being about or mentioning Christmas. O'Donoghue disavowed the film before his death, stating that the script was much funnier than what ended up on screen.


title: Scrooged

text: Contemporary review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes offers a score of based on reviews—an average rating of , which provides the consensus: ""Scrooged" gets by with Bill Murray and a dash of holiday spirit, although it's hampered by a markedly conflicted tone and an undercurrent of mean-spiritedness." The film also has a score of 38 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 14 critics indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Scrooged

text: In 2015, IGN named it the 11th-best holiday movie of all time. In 2016, "Empire" listed "Scrooged" as the seventh-best Christmas film, and in 2017, "Time Out" and "Consequence of Sound" listed it as, respectively, the 12th-best and 23rd best. That same year, Collider named it the fifth-best adaptation of "A Christmas Carol", calling it is easily the best non-traditional translation of the story, and saying that it uses "a classic tale of redemption as the framework for a satire of modern culture's desire to embrace the irredeemable".


title: Scrooged

text: In 2018, "The Ringer" said that even 30 years after its debut, the film represented the perfect Christmas movie, saying it is "loud, cartoonish, and misanthropic, but... remarkably well-suited for our fraught present moment". David Johansen's New York Dolls bandmate Arthur Kane was sent into a jealous rage after seeing Johansen's prominent role in "Scrooged". Kane reacted by beating his wife, and attempting suicide by jumping from a third-story window.


title: Balance of power (international relations)

text: The balance of power theory in international relations suggests that states may secure their survival by preventing any one state from gaining enough military power to dominate all others. If one state becomes much stronger, the theory predicts it will take advantage of its weaker neighbors, thereby driving them to unite in a defensive coalition. Some realists maintain that a balance-of-power system is more stable than one with a dominant state, as aggression is unprofitable when there is equilibrium of power between rival coalitions.


text: When threatened, states may seek safety either by "balancing", allying with others against the prevailing threat; or "bandwagoning", aligning themselves with the threatening power. Other alliance tactics include "buck-passing" and "chain-ganging". Realists have long debated how the polarity of a system impacts the choice of tactics; however, it is generally agreed that in bipolar systems, each great power has no choice but to directly confront the other. Along with debates between realists about the prevalence of balancing in alliance patterns, other schools of international relations, such as constructivists, are also critical of the balance of power theory, disputing core realist assumptions regarding the international system and the behavior of states.


text: The principle involved in preserving the balance of power as a conscious goal of foreign policy, as David Hume pointed out in his "Essay on the Balance of Power", is as old as history, and was used by Greeks such as Thucydides both as political theorists and as practical statesmen. A 2018 study in "International Studies Quarterly" confirmed that "the speeches of the Corinthians from prior to the Persian Wars to the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War reveal an enduring thesis of their foreign policy: that imperial ambitions and leveling tendencies, such as those of Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, should be countered in order to prevent a tyrant city from emerging within the society of Greek city-states."


text: It resurfaced among the Renaissance Italian city-states in the 15th century. Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence, were the first rulers to actively pursue such a policy, with the Italic League, though historians have generally attributed the innovation to the Medici rulers of Florence. Discussion of Florence's policy can be found in "De Bello Italico", by Bernardo Rucellai, a Medici son-in-law. This was a history of the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France, and introduced the phrase "balance of power" to historical analysis.


text: Internationalism, which was the dominant direction of European international relations prior to the Peace of Westphalia, gave way to the doctrine of the balance of power. While the balance of power was not explicitly mentioned in the Peace of Westphalia, it was referenced during the negotiations. Subsequent behavior by states reflected the balance of power. In the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the doctrine was explicitly referenced multiple times.


text: It was not until the beginning of the 17th century, when Grotius and his successors developed the idea of international law, that the balance of power was formulated as a fundamental principle of diplomacy, although this formulation must have reflected existing practices. In accordance with this new discipline, the European states formed a sort of federal community, the fundamental condition of which was the preservation of a balance of power, i.e., such a disposition of things that no one state, or potentate, should be able absolutely to predominate and prescribe laws to the rest. And, since all were equally interested in this settlement, it was held to be the interest, the right, and the duty of every power to interfere, even by force of arms, when any of the conditions of this settlement were infringed upon, or assailed by, any other member of the community.


text: This balance-of-power principle, once formulated, became an axiom of political science. Fénelon, in his "Instructions", impressed the axiom upon the young French Dauphin. Frederick the Great, in his "Anti-Machiavel", proclaimed the principle to the world. In 1806, Friedrich von Gentz re-stated it with admirable clarity, in "Fragments on the Balance of Power". The principle formed the basis of the coalitions against Louis XIV and Napoleon, and the occasion (or excuse) for most of the European wars between the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the Congress of Vienna (1814). It was especially championed by Great Britain, even up to World War I, as it sought to prevent a European land power from rivaling its naval supremacy.


text: During the greater part of the 19th century, the series of national upheavals which remodeled the map of Europe obscured the balance of power. Yet, it underlaid all the efforts of diplomacy to tame the forces of nationalism let loose by the French Revolution. In the revolution's aftermath, with the restoration of comparative calm, the principle once more emerged as the operative motive for the various political alliances, of which the ostensible object was the preservation of peace. Regarding the era 1848–1914, English diplomatic historian A.J.P. Taylor argued:


text: Regarding the last quarter-century of the period outlined by Taylor, his American colleague, diplomatic historian Edward Mead Earle, argued: "During the quarter-century beginning about 1890, Europe and the Far East lived under a precarious balance of power with the result … that the world moved crazily from one crisis to another and finally to catastrophe". Earle concludes: "The balance of power may well land us all in crematory". The balance of power theory prepared catastrophe in 1939 as in 1914, wrote Clarence Streit in his famous "Union Now". There is "no more sterile, illusory, fantastic, exploded and explosive peace policy than the balance of power."


text: In 1953, Ernst B. Haas criticized balance of power theory, arguing that international relations works that used the concept were plagued with "philological, semantic, and theoretical confusion."


text: Since 1945, the arguments of Streit and Earle has prevailed over that of Taylor. Atomic scientists launched an all-out attack on the balance-of-power concept:


text: Former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer interpreted the core of the concept of Europe after 1945 as the rejection of the European balance-of-power principle and the hegemonic ambitions of individual states that had emerged following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648: "European integration was the response to centuries of a precarious balance of powers on this continent which again and again resulted in terrible hegemonic wars and culminated in the two World Wars between 1914 and 1945." Former US Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney expressed the same for Europe and other democracies: "It is not in our interest or those of the other democracies to return to earlier periods in which multiple military powers balanced one against another in what passed for security structures, while regional, or even global peace hung in the balance." NATO Secretary General, Manfred Wörner, outlined the European alternative at the end of the Cold War:


text: According to historian Sverre Bagge, a balance of power logic may have prevented unification of the three Scandinavian kingdoms (Norway, Sweden and Denmark), as balancing coalitions formed to prevent one kingdom from conquering the other kingdoms.


text: It has been argued by historians that, in the sixteenth century, England came to pursue a foreign policy which would preserve the equilibrium between Spain and France, which evolved into a balance-of-power policy:


text: In 1579, the first English translation of Francesco Guicciardini's "Storia d'Italia" ("History of Italy") popularised the Italian balance of power theory in England. This translation was dedicated to Elizabeth I of England and claimed that "God has put into your hand the balance of power and justice, to poise and counterpoise at your will the actions and counsels of all the Christian kings of your time".


text: Thomas Carlyle referred to statesmen "in shadow-hunting, shadow-hunted hour ... looking with intense anxiety into a certain spectral something the call the Balance of Power."


text: Statesman Richard Cobden labeled the balance of power "a chimera" due to its unclear meaning: "It is not a fallacy, a mistake, an imposture—it is an undescribed, indescribable, incomprehensible nothing." The only point on which writers on the balance of power agree "is in the fundamental delusion that such a system was ever acceded to by the nations of Europe." They imply long, uninterrupted, peaceful and prosperous co-existence. Instead, for centuries "Europe has (with only just sufficient intervals to enable the combatants to recruit their wasted energies) been one vast and continued battle-field…" He criticized Lord Bacon for his adherence to the balance of power as a universal rule:


text: Sir Esme Howard wrote that England adopted the balance of power as "a cornerstone of English policy, unconsciously during the sixteenth, subconsciously during the seventeenth, and consciously during the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, because for England it represented the only plan of preserving her own independence, political and economic". With the coming of World War II, however, Edward Carr found that today the balance of power badly preserves the independence of England:


text: In 1941, Winston Churchill was criticized by his rival, Adolf Hitler, for his adherence to the balance of power:


text: On another occasion he added: Without the Wehrmacht, a "wave would have swept over Europe that would have taken no care of the ridiculous British idea of the balance of power in Europe in all its banality and stupid tradition—once and for all."


text: In fact, Churchill shortly adopted a similar view: Our Russian friends and Allies, he spoke in 1946, most admire strength and least respect military weakness. "For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford … to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength." If the Western Democracies do not stand together "then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all." If, however, "the population of the English-speaking Commonwealths be added to that of the United States with all that such co-operation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe and in science and in industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary, there will be an overwhelming assurance of security."


text: A 2021 assessment by Morten Skumsrud Andersen and William C. Wohlforth concluded that "balance of power is not a universal empirical law" and that it does not merit explanatory precedence" in international relations research.


text: In an attempt to disprove the balance of power theory, some realists have pointed to cases in international systems other than modern Europe where balancing failed and a hegemon arose. A collaboration between nine scholars (William Wohlforth, Richard Little, Stuart J. Kaufman, David Kang, Charles A. Jones, Victoria Tin-Bor Hui, Arthur Eckstein, Daniel Deudney, and William L. Brenner) pointed to the failure of state-like units to balance against Assyria in the first millennium BCE; the Hellenic successor states of Alexander the Great to balance against Rome; the Warring States to balance against the Qin dynasty in ancient China and five other cases. This cross-cultural research concludes:


text: Wohlforth et al. state that systemic hegemony is likely under two historically common conditions: First when the rising hegemon develops the ability to incorporate and effectively administer conquered territories. And second, when the boundaries of the international system remain stable, and no new major powers emerge from outside the system. When the leading power can administer conquests effectively so they add to its power and when the system's borders are rigid, the probability of hegemony is high. The argument of universal reproduction of anarchy can be correct in the European context, "whereas a systematic survey of world history reveals that multipolarity has frequently given way to unipolarity or hegemony." Henry Kissinger, Historian by profession, noted that "theories of the balance of power often leave the impression that it is the natural form of international relations. In fact, balance-of-power systems have existed only rarely in history." Yet based on these rare occurrences, many realists "elevate a fact of life … into a guiding principle of world order." Earlier, political scientist Martin Wight had drawn a conclusion with unambiguous implication for the modern world:


text: The post-Cold War period represents an anomaly to the balance of power theory too. Rousseau defined the theoretical limit how far balance of power can be altered: "Will it be supposed that two or three potentates might enter into an agreement to subdue the rest? Be it so. These three potentates, whoever they may be, will not possess half the power of all Europe." "Within two-and-a-half centuries, only one potentate possessed half the power of all the world, including Europe. In 2008, US military expenditures, including supplemental spending, exceeded those of the rest of the world combined."


text: Since 2000, the founder of Neorealism, Kenneth Waltz, confessed that "the present condition of international politics is unnatural." "Clearly something has changed." Wohlforth, Little and Kaufman undertook the above-mentioned historical study after they had coped with what they called the "puzzle" of the unipolar stability. Elsewhere, Richard Little wrote: Events since the end of the Cold War "create a potential anomaly" for the theory because the outcome has "left the United States as the sole superpower in a unipolar world ... A major puzzle for realists ... is the fact that unipolarity has not provoked a global alarm to restore a balance of power." The same anomaly stressed seventeen other experts on alliances, Stephen Walt, Randall Schweller, Xiaoyu Pu, John Ikenberry, Robert Pape, T. V. Paul, Jack S. Levy, William R. Thompson, John Lewis Gaddis, David A. Lake, Campbell Craig, Fareed Zakaria, John M., Owen, Michael Mastanduno, Thomas S. Mowle, David H. Sacko and Terry Narramore:


text: Fareed Zakaria asks, "Why is no one ganging up against the United States?" And John Ikenberry and John M. Owen ask the same question. Prominent Historian of the Cold War, John Lewis Gaddis, poses a more general question and replies: Do the weak always unite against the strong? "In theory, yes, but in practice and in history, not necessarily." One of the issues the discipline of political science "has been wrestling with recently is why there is still no anti-American coalition despite the overwhelming dominance of the United States since the end of the Cold War." French or Chinese officials publicly denounce "hyperpower" and aspire for "multipolarity" but refrain from forming a counterbalancing coalition. "Rhetorically, leaders and public want the United States to be balanced" but "we find very little balancing." French academic Michel Winock said: "Before we could say we were on American side. Not Now. There is no counterbalance." Two American Neoconservative thinkers, Robert Kagan and William Kristol, completely agree: "Today’s international system is built not around a balance of power but around American hegemony."


text: Christopher Layne published two articles on the post-Cold War case, "The Unipolar Illusion…" (1993) and "The Unipolar Illusion Revisited" (2006). The former predicted imminent anti-American balancing as the balance of power theorists expected; the latter explains "why balance of power theorists got it wrong."


text: Finally, Dall'Agnol analyzes, through a critical bias, the implications of unipolarity for balancing behavior. In order to do so, he discusses the dynamics of balance of power theory, assumed to be inoperative in the post-Cold War period by main academic debates over unipolarity: i) unipolar stability; ii) balance of threats; iii) soft balancing; iv) liberal institutionalism. He then argues that these approaches, including the unipolar illusion view, tied to the balance of power theory, overestimate the effects of unipolarity on balancing behavior of other states. Concluding that balance of power dynamics, especially those of hard balancing, are still observed in the post-Cold War era, he criticizes two main conclusions from the literature: i) that balancing became inoperative and; ii) that the only available strategies to other states are soft balancing and bandwagoning. In sum, this conclusion has directly implication on strategies available both to the United States and to its main competitors.


text: The balance of power theory is a core tenet of both classical and neorealist theory and seeks to explain alliance formation. Due to the neorealist idea of anarchism as a result of the international system, states must ensure their survival through maintaining or increasing their power in a self-help world. With no authority above the state to come to its rescue in the event of an attack by a hegemon, states attempt to prevent a potential hegemon from arising by balancing against it. According to Kenneth Waltz, founder of neorealism, "balance-of-power politics prevail wherever two, and only two requirements are met: that the order be anarchic and that it be populated by units wishing to survive". They can do this either through "internal balancing" , where a state uses internal efforts such as moving to increase economic capability, developing clever strategies and increasing military strength, or through "external balancing", which occurs when states take external measures to increase their security by forming allies. States happy with their place in the system are known as "status quo" states, while those seeking to alter the balance of power in their favor are generally referred to as "revisionist states" and aspire for hegemony, thus repairing the balance.


text: States choose to balance for two reasons. First, they place their survival at risk if they fail to curb a potential hegemon before it becomes too strong; to ally with the dominant power means placing one's trust in its continued benevolence. Secondly, joining the weaker side increases the likelihood that the new member will be influential within the alliance.


text: States choose to bandwagon because it may be a form of appeasement as the bandwagoner may hope to avoid an attack by diverting it elsewhere—a defensive reason—or because it may align with the dominant side in wartime to share the spoils of victory—an offensive reason.


text: Realists claim that balancing is when states ally against the prevailing threat and results in a more secure world whereas in a bandwagoning world security is scarce as rising hegemons are not kept in check. With bandwagoning, the threatened state abandons hope of preventing the aggressor from gaining power at its expense and instead joins forces with its dangerous foe to get at least some small portion of the spoils of war.


text: The weaker the state the more likely it is to bandwagon than to balance as they do little to affect the outcome and thus must choose the winning side. Strong states may change a losing side into a winning side and thus are more likely to balance. States will be tempted to bandwagon when allies are unavailable, however excessive confidence in allied support encourages weak states to free ride relying on the efforts of others to provide security. Since bandwagoning "requires placing trust in the aggressors continued forbearance" some realists believe balancing is preferred to bandwagoning. According to Stephen Walt, states are more likely to balance in peacetime but if they are on the losing side of a war they may defect and bandwagon in the hopes that they will "share the fruits of victory".


text: Chain-ganging occurs when a state sees its own security tied to the security of its alliance partner. It chains itself by deeming any attack on its ally the equivalent of an attack on itself. That is another aspect of the balance of power theory, whereby the smaller states could drag their chained states into wars that they have no desire to fight. A key example was the chain-ganging between states prior to World War I, dragging most of Europe to war over a dispute between the relatively major power of Austria-Hungary and the minor power of Serbia. Thus, states "may chain themselves unconditionally to reckless allies whose survival is seen to be indispensable to the maintenance of the balance".


text: Balancing and buck passing are the main strategies for preserving the balance of power and preventing a potential hegemon's rise. Instead of balancing against an aggressor, some states instead choose to "pass the buck" whereby instead of taking action to prevent a potential rise, it will pass the responsibility on to another state. John Mearsheimer, a prominent offensive realist, claims that threatened states can take four measures to facilitate buck passing, including: seeking good diplomatic relations with the aggressor in the hope that it will divert its attention to the "buck-catcher"; maintaining cool relations with the buck-catcher so as not to get dragged into the war with the buck-catcher and as a result possibly increase positive relations with the aggressor; increasing military strength to deter the aggressive state and help it focus on the buck-catcher; and facilitating the growth in power of the intended buck-catcher.


text: In the case that a state is an enemy with both the aggressor and the intended buck-catcher, a buck-passer can implement a "bait and bleed" strategy whereby the state causes two rivals to engage in a protracted war while the baiter remains on the sideline. This form of buck passing enables the state to increase in relative strength at the expense of the two rivals. "Bloodletting", a further variant whereby a state does what it can to increase the cost duration of the conflict can further increase the buck-passer's relative power. Thus, threatened states usually prefer buck-passing to balancing as the buck-passer avoids the costs of fighting the aggressor in the event of war.


text: Some realists believe there is a strong tendency to buck-pass or free-ride within balancing coalitions themselves, usually leaving their alliance partners to assume the heavy burden of wearing down the enemy, leaving the free-riders military fresh to win the final battles of the war and thus be in a better position to dictate the peace, such as the UK's light involvement in the early stages of World War I. Likewise, buck-passers can enter wars late after both sides have been worn down, allowing the buck-passer to dominate the post-war world.


text: A potential drawback of the strategy occurs if the buck-catcher fails to check the aggressor, as the buck-passer will be in a much more vulnerable situation. Proponents of the theory point to the Soviet Union's role in World War II whereby it passed the buck to the UK and France through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. After eliminating France the Germans had no Western front to divide their forces, allowing them to concentrate their forces against the USSR.


text: Defensive realists emphasize that if any state becomes too powerful, balancing will occur as other powers would build up their forces and form a balancing coalition. Because this resulting security dilemma would leave the aspiring hegemon less secure, defensive realists maintain that it is in a state's interest to maintain the status quo rather than maximize its power.


text: Offensive realists accept that threatened states usually balance against dangerous foes, however, they maintain that balancing is often inefficient and that this inefficiency provides opportunities for a clever aggressor to take advantage of its adversaries. Buck passing, rather than joining a balancing coalition, is another tactic offensive realists point to when disputing the balance of power theory.


text: Offensive realists believe that internal balancing measures such as increasing defense spending, implementing conscription, are only effective to a certain extent as there are usually significant limits on how many additional resources a threatened state can muster against an aggressor. However, since offensive realists theorize that states are always seeking to maximize their power, states are "effectively engaged in internal balancing all the time".


text: The balance of threat theory is an offshoot of neorealism, coined in 1985 by Stephen M. Walt in an attempt to explain why balancing against rising hegemons has not always been consistent in history. In contrast to traditional balance of power theorists, Walt suggests that states balance against threats, rather than against power alone. The "balance-of-power theory is not wrong; it is merely incomplete. Power is one of the factors that affect the propensity to balance, although it is not the only one nor always the most important." The theory acknowledges that power is an extremely important factor in the level of threat posed by a state, but also includes geographic proximity, offensive capabilities, and perceived intentions.


text: Balance of threat theory is an interesting adjunct to neorealism, because as a structural theory, neorealism only predicts that balances of power will form, not whether a particular state will balance or bandwagon (inter alia), or which state it might balance with. As Waltz put it:


text: "balance of power theory is often criticized because it does not explain the particular policies of states. True, the theory does not tell us why state X made a certain move last Tuesday. To expect it to do so would be like expecting the theory of universal gravitation to explain the wayward pattern of a falling leaf. A theory a one level of generality cannot answer questions about matters at a different level of generality."


text: Walt's balance of threat formulation allows neorealism to serve as the foundation for a theory of foreign policy, thus allowing it to explain or predict which potential threats a state is most likely to balance against.


text: "Soft balancing" was developed in the 2000s to account for the contemporary anomaly of the unipolar unbalanced world.


text: Thomas Mowle and David Sacko describe "soft balancing" as "balancing that does not balance at all." These theoretical efforts are counter-productive, since Realism and unipolarity are compatible and structural realism should rather develop a set of hypotheses for a unipolar world: "Scholars do not need to desperately search for signs of balancing, they do not need to soften balancing beyond recognition, and they do not need to stand to watch for the first glimmering of a new multipolar dawn."


text: Campbell Craig explained the development of soft balancing theory on the Thomas Kuhn's three-stage model how scholarly communities respond to anomalies that seem clearly to defy their core theoretical predictions:


text: The preponderance of power has been suggested as an alternative to the balance of power since World War II. In his 1940 article, "War, Peace and the Balance of Power", Frederick L. Schuman included a chapter titled "Necessity for Preponderance of Power". It argued:


text: In 1941, Alfred Vagts wrote an article, titled "The United States and the Balance of Power," in which he recalled the words of Thomas Jefferson:


text: In 1942, Robert Strausz-Hupé found that it "is in the interests of the United States no less than that of humanity" that the United States should be the only one "geographical power nucleus" from which a "balancing and stabilizing" power of arbiter be exercised. This "will pave the way for a new and universal order." Writing the same year in "Life" magazine, Joseph Thorndike tells about "many observers" seeking "preponderant power in the postwar world" to replace balance of power:


text: However, Thorndike added in the same 1942 article, many may wonder whether, over the years, Russia and China "will not rival Anglo-America". The following year, the founder of the Paneuropean Union, Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, also invoked the example of the two-centuries-long "Pax Romana" which, he suggested, could be repeated if based on the preponderant US air power and inter-regional organization:


text: In self-contradiction, Peffer ended the article recommending for the postwar period a preponderance of power of offensive kind backed by total national effort: The United States will need "a larger permanent military establishment," alliances with other powers having common interests and an alliance with Great Britain that would be not only defensive but also "outright, unconditional offensive." It means full-scale power politics and to it "must be accommodated and sometimes subordinated everything else in the nation’s life."


text: On 24 September 1946, Truman's Special Counsel Clark M. Clifford submitted a report "American Relations with the Soviet Union…" advocating a preponderant power:


text: In the early Cold War, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson combined the concepts of preponderance and bandwagoning. As he put it, the United States was going to have to be "the locomotive at the head of mankind," while the rest of the world was going to be "the caboose."


text: While arguing that equilibrium was essential to justice, Reinhold Niebuhr asserted that "nothing but the preponderance of power in the non-Communist world can preserve the peace."


text: Melvyn Leffler describes the US strategy throughout the Cold War as a strategy of preponderance. In its last year, he summarized: Backed by strategic preponderance, the United States integrated and rearmed the Eurasian industrial areas, shored up the Eurasian periphery and rolled back the Iron Curtain.


text: Already during the Cold War, some scholars stressed that the pattern accords the preponderance of power rather than balance of power. The balance of power presupposes such a distribution of power in the system that no single state is preponderant. In this sense, during the period 1945–1965 if "there was any threat to the general balance of power [...] it was from the United States rather than from the Soviet Union that this came."


text: Stephen Walt observed in the 1980s that most states, including all developed states, ally with, rather than balance against, the preponderant power. Noting this "anomaly", Walt suggested his balance of threat hypothesis:


text: In 1986, still not envisaging the end of the Cold War in sight, Zbigniew Brzezinski emphasized the historical uniqueness of the current period regarding the preponderance of power: "[N]ever before would the eclipse of one of the major rival powers have given to the other effective global preponderance." Shortly after one of the rival superpowers eclipsed, the Pentagon Regional Defense Strategy (1992) formulized: "It is not in our interest … to return to earlier periods in which multiple military powers balanced one against another in what passed for security structures, while regional or even global peace hang in the balance."


text: In the first post-Cold War year, Leffler advocated for the United States to continue its strategy of "preponderance of power". Christopher Layne claims that the preponderance of power has been the dominant US strategy during both the Cold War and the post-Cold War periods. "Preponderance's strategic imperatives are the same as they were during the post-World War II era: pacification and reassurance in Europe and East Asia, and protection of these regions from instability in the periphery." The post-Cold War strategy of preponderance holds that "only a preponderance of US power ensures peace" which is "the result of an imbalance of power in which US capabilities are sufficient, operating on their own, to cow all potential challengers and to comfort all coalition partners. It is not enough consequently to be "primus inter pares" [...] One must be "primus solus"."


text: Layne since the beginning of the post-Cold war period expects the preponderance of power to trigger counterbalancing. He finds that "it was the bipolar structure of the postwar system that allowed Washington to pursue a strategy of preponderance successfully" and thereby smother the emergence of other great powers. But the preponderance of power which "others found merely irritating in a bipolar world may seem quite threatening in a unipolar world." Because of these structural factors, "an American strategy of preponderance [...] is doomed to failure"; it will "cause other states to balance against the United States".


text: Overturning the scholarly conventional wisdom, however, the current preponderant power seems to render inoperative the counterbalancing long central to research in international relations. By the preponderance of American power and the absence of balance of power William Wohlforth explains the peacefulness and stability of the present world order. No distribution of power rules out war. "The greater the preponderance of power, however, the more extreme the values of other variables must be to produce war [...]" Campbell Craig believes that "Power Preponderance theory" will become one of the dominant American IR schools of the post-Cold War era:


text: Expecting anti-American balancing, Waltz drew a much-cited analogy: "As nature abhors vacuum, so international politics abhors unbalanced power." Craig paraphrased:


text: US National Security Strategy of 2002 uses repeatedly the term 'balance of power' favoring freedom. The author of the "Preponderance of Power…" (1992), Melvyn Leffler, was puzzled: A balance of power is linked historically to the evolution of the Westphalian state system and "envisions equilibrium, while the Bush administration yearns for hegemony." When they invoke the language of power balancing, Bush's advisers obfuscate more than they clarify:


text: According to Leffler's exegesis, Bush has invoked a balance of power vocabulary in purpose to integrate the tradition with the hegemonic dilemma. British Orwell Prize-winning policy analyst, Anatol Lieven, comments: In this conception, however, a phrase "was a form of Orwellian doublespeak. The clear intention actually was to be so strong that other countries had no choice but to rally to the side of the United States, concentrating all real power and freedom of action in the hands of America." The surprising rehabilitation of the balance-of-power term in the 2002 NSS "can be accounted for in terms of mythopoetic function that the terminology serves in the document." It keeps alive the traditional concept in a new unipolar world.


text: Eventually, explanation what implies "the balance of power favoring freedom" was dropped by "US National Security and Defense Strategies" of 2018: The Pentagon will ensure that the United States remain the "preeminent military power in the world," and the regional "balances of power remain in "our" favor." [Emphasis added] The "balance of power favoring freedom" appeared identical with the balance of power favoring "us."


text: Russian President Vladimir Putin complained: "Instead of establishing a new balance of power … they [the United States] took steps that threw the [international] system into sharp and deep imbalance."


text: In 1826, George Canning "called the new world into existence to redress the balance of the old". In 1898, Theodore Roosevelt found that the United States had become "more and more the balance of power of the whole globe." In 1941, a New Deal Economist with the National Resources Planning Board, Otto T. Mallery, averred that "destiny offers to the United States the ultimate balance of power and of resources in the world after the war." Colin Gray titled his 2005 chapter by question, "Where Is the Balance of Power?" The chapter opens: "The short answer is that the United States is the balance of power."


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Kevin Weeks (born March 21, 1956) is an American former mobster and longtime friend and mob lieutenant to Whitey Bulger, the infamous boss of the Winter Hill Gang, a crime family based in the Winter Hill neighborhood in Somerville, Massachusetts.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: After his arrest and imprisonment in 1999, he became a cooperating witness. His testimony is viewed as responsible for the convictions of FBI agent John Connolly, as well as forcing Bulger's right-hand man, Stephen Flemmi, to plead guilty as well. Since his release from prison, he has written the bestselling true crime memoir, "Brutal: My Life in Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob" (). This was followed by "Where's Whitey?", which was also written with Phyllis Karas, a fictional novel using Bulger as a character. Promotion for the book started on the day the FBI stepped up its efforts to catch Bulger with an advertisement; Bulger was caught two days later.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Kevin Weeks was born in South Boston, Massachusetts on March 21, 1956, to a working-class family of Irish and Welsh descent. He was the fifth child in a family of six and grew up in the Old Colony Housing Project at 8 Pilsudski Way, apartment 554. His father, John Weeks Sr., originally hailed from Brooklyn, New York. He changed tires for a living and later obtained a position with the Boston Housing Authority.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: John Sr. was a WWII veteran and had served in the infantry; he also had fought as a professional middleweight boxer (this may be incorrect as no record of him exists in BoxRec). When he was 26, he married Margaret, who was from Boston. A full-time homemaker, she suffered from severe arthritis and hobbled


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Weeks had two brothers, William and John Jr., and three sisters, Maureen, Patricia, and Karen. John Sr. trained his sons in boxing and earned extra money by coaching prizefighters. Kevin first started attending school at Michael J. Perkins, but then changed to John Andrew School in Andrew Square for grades 5 and 6; he finally completed elementary school at Patrick F. Gavin School. He graduated from South Boston High in 1974, ending his formal education. His two brothers would later go on to graduate from Harvard University and would seek out careers in politics: John Jr. became an advance man for Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, and William became a selectman in Acton, Massachusetts. Kevin Weeks is also related by marriage to former South Boston liquor store owner and alleged extortion victim Stephen ("Stippo") R. Rakes and Boston Police Department Detective Edward ("Eddie") Walsh.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Kevin's brother, William, has described their childhood: ""Smart was good, but having the ability to beat someone senseless! Now "that" was real power. Education was often talked about in the apartment, but always with the implied threat that if your marks weren't acceptable, be ready to give up your soul to God because your ass belonged to our father ... and As weren't acceptable.""


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Throughout high school, Weeks was involved in extra-curricular activities. When he wasn't boxing, he was on a team traveling to swim meets all over New England.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: In 1975, Weeks became a bouncer at a popular neighborhood bar called Triple O's Lounge, owned by Kevin O'Neil. This was a frequent hangout of the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish-American crime family which was then headed by James J. "Whitey" Bulger. It was here that Weeks first met Bulger, as well as Bulger's Italian-American partner Stephen Flemmi.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Beginning in 1978, Weeks began working for Bulger part-time as muscle and a personal driver. Impressed by Weeks' knack for making money and genuinely liking him, Bulger decided to bring him in closer than any other associate. Meanwhile, Weeks turned to running a loansharking business on the side.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: In 1982, just four years after beginning to work as part of the Winter Hill Gang, Weeks left his legitimate job and became a full-time mobster in the gang.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: On the night of May 11, 1982, Bulger was told of the whereabouts of a former associate turned federal informant, Edward Brian Halloran, known on the streets as "Balloonhead".


title: Kevin Weeks

text: After arriving at the scene, Weeks staked out Anthony's Pier 4 Restaurant, where Halloran and construction worker Michael Donahue were dining together. As Donahue and Halloran drove out of the parking lot Weeks signaled Bulger by stating, "The balloon is in the air", over a handheld radio. Bulger drove up with a masked man armed with a silenced Mac 10; Bulger himself carried a .30 caliber carbine. Bulger and the other shooter, allegedly Pat Nee, opened fire and sprayed Halloran and Donahue's car with bullets. Donahue was shot in the head and killed instantly.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Bulger, Weeks, and Flemmi became heavily involved in narcotics trafficking in the early 1980s. Bulger began to summon drug dealers from in and around Boston to his headquarters. Flanked by Kevin Weeks and Flemmi, he would inform each dealer that he had been offered a substantial sum to assassinate them. He would then demand a large cash payment not to do so.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Jimmy, Stevie and I weren't in the import business and weren't bringing in the marijuana or the cocaine. We were in the shakedown business. We didn't bring drugs in; we took money off the people who did. We never dealt with the street dealers, but rather with a dozen large-scale drug distributors all over the State who were bringing in the coke and marijuana and paying hundreds of thousands to Jimmy. The dealers on the street corner sold eight-balls, ...grams, and half grams to customers for their personal use. They were supplied by the mid level drug dealer who was selling them multiple ounces. In other words, the big importers gave it to the major distributors, who sold it to the middlemen, who then sold it to the street dealers. To get to Jimmy, Stevie, and me, someone would have had to go through those four layers of insulation.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: In South Boston, most of the neighborhood's drug trade was managed by a handpicked crew of prize fighters led by John Shea. Edward MacKenzie Jr., a former member of Shea's crew, has stated that this was done because Shea viewed athletes as less likely to abuse the drugs they were selling.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: The only people we ever put out of business were heroin dealers. Jimmy didn't allow heroin in South Boston. It was a dirty drug that users stuck in their arms, making problems with needles, and later on, AIDS. While people can do cocaine socially and still function, once they do heroin, they're zombies.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Weeks also insists that Bulger strictly forbade PCP and selling to children, and that those dealers who refused to play by his rules were violently driven out of the neighborhood.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: In 1990, "Red" Shea and his associates were arrested as part of a joint investigation involving the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Boston Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police. All refused to testify against Bulger, Flemmi, and Weeks. According to Weeks,


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Of course, Jimmy lost money once the drug dealers were removed from the streets in the summer raid, but he always had other business going on. Knowing I had to build something on the side, I had concentrated on my shylocking and gambling businesses. The drug business had been good while it lasted. But our major involvement in it was over.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Weeks also remained in frequent touch with Bulger, with whom he had several clandestine meetings in New York City and Chicago.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: In 1997, shortly after "The Boston Globe" disclosed that Bulger and Flemmi had been informants, Weeks met with retired agent John Connolly (later sentenced to 40 years in prison), who showed him a photocopy of Bulger's FBI informant file. In order to explain Bulger and Flemmi's status as informants, Connolly said, "The Mafia was going against Jimmy and Stevie, so Jimmy and Stevie went against them." According to Weeks:


title: Kevin Weeks

text: As I read over the files at the Top of the Hub that night, Connolly kept telling me that 90 percent of the information in the files came from Stevie. Certainly Jimmy hadn't been around the Mafia the way Stevie had. But, Connolly told me, he had to put Jimmy's name on the files to keep his file active. As long as Jimmy was an active informant, Connolly said, he could justify meeting with Jimmy and giving him valuable information. Even after he retired, Connolly still had friends in the FBI, and he and Jimmy kept meeting to let each other know what was going on. I listened to all that, but now I understood that even though he was retired, Connolly was still getting information, as well as money, from Jimmy. As I continued to read, I could see that a lot of the reports were not just against the Italians. There were more and more names of Polish and Irish guys, of people we had done business with, of friends of mine. Whenever I came across the name of someone I knew, I would read exactly what it said about that person. I would see, over and over again, that some of these people had been arrested for crimes that were mentioned in these reports. It didn't take long for me to realize that it had been bullshit when Connolly told me that the files hadn't been disseminated, that they had been for his own personal use. He had been an employee of the FBI. He hadn't worked for himself. If there was some investigation going on and his supervisor said, 'Let me take a look at that,' what was Connolly going to do? He had to give it up. And he obviously had. I thought about what Jimmy had always said, 'You can lie to your wife and to your girlfriends, but not to your friends. Not to anyone we're in business with.' Maybe Jimmy and Stevie hadn't lied to me. But they sure hadn't been telling me everything.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: On November 17, 1999, Weeks, O'Neil, and other Winter Hill associates were arrested in South Boston by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Massachusetts State Police. The next afternoon, he was presented with a 29-count indictment under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). At first refusing to cooperate, Weeks was transferred to a Federal penitentiary in Rhode Island.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Imprisoned in Rhode Island, it took about two weeks for Weeks to decide to co-operate with authorities, leading some in South Boston to dub him "Kevin Squeaks" or "Two Weeks". Weeks stated that he was approached by one of his fellow prisoners, a made man in the New England crime family, who made a surprising suggestion–he should testify against Bulger and Flemmi. As the mafioso put it, "Remember, you can't rat on a rat. Those guys have been giving up everyone for thirty years."


title: Kevin Weeks

text: He was also unnerved when two lawyers told him his chances at trial were dismal. Prosecutors were outraged at Winter Hill's crime spree, and were also frustrated when IRA sleeper associate James "Gentleman Jim" Mulvey refused to flip. Weeks recalled that his attorneys told him that prosecutors wanted to take their anger out on Weeks and press for the maximum if he were convicted–which would have all but assured he would die in prison. In addition, Weeks was also deeply impressed by the cooperation of John Martorano, a legendary enforcer for the Winter Hill Gang.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: He led authorities to six different bodies buried by the Winter Hill Gang, including the triple grave of Hussey, McIntyre and Barrett. He implicated Bulger in the murder of Brian Halloran (nicknamed "Balloonhead" by Bulger) as well as agreeing to testify against Stephen Flemmi and Whitey Bulger. He also revealed that Whitey's younger brothers, Senate President Billy Bulger and juvenile magistrate clerk Jackie Bulger, had talked with Whitey while he was on the lam. According to Weeks, Jackie had even helped Whitey get a fake ID which Weeks delivered to Whitey during a rendezvous in Chicago.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Jackie was sentenced to six months in federal prison for lying to a grand jury about his actions, while Billy was forced to resign as president of the University of Massachusetts. Weeks also testified against two of Bulger's friends in law enforcement; Special Agent Connolly and Lieutenant Richard J. Schneiderhan of the Massachusetts State Police. Weeks was then sentenced to five years in federal prison.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Kevin Weeks married his longtime girlfriend, Pamela Cavaleri (born 1957), on April 26, 1980 at the Gate of Heaven Roman Catholic Church in their native South Boston. They have two sons, Kevin Barry Weeks (born 1982), to whom Whitey Bulger stood as godfather, and Brian Weeks (born 1986), to whom Kevin O'Connor, another former enforcer, stood as godfather. The couple later separated.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: Weeks was released from Federal prison in early 2005. He collaborated with journalist Phyllis Karas (of "People" magazine). Weeks's account of his life with Bulger and Flemmi was published in March 2006. He was a star witness at Connolly's 2008 trial on state charges of murdering former World Jai Alai president John Callahan, as well as at Bulger's 2013 trial on racketeering charges two years after Bulger was finally captured. At the latter trial, Bulger lost his composure when Weeks called him a rat and the two former compatriots almost came to blows.


title: Kevin Weeks

text: At a book signing in April 2006, Kevin Weeks told the crowd at a Boston Barnes & Noble that he once intended to return to being a gangster once he was released from prison. "Now I can't," he quipped, "Everybody knows my face."


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: For Love of the Game is a 1999 American sports drama film directed by Sam Raimi and written by Dana Stevens based on Michael Shaara's 1991 novel of the same title. Starring Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston, it follows the perfect game performance of an aging star baseball pitcher, Billy Chapel as he deals with the pressures of pitching in Yankee Stadium in the Bronx in his final outing by calming himself with memories about a long-term relationship.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: The play-by-play of the game is announced by longtime Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers baseball broadcaster Vin Scully, who himself called four perfect games in his career, and Steve Lyons.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a box office disappointment, grossing $46.1 million against a $50 million production budget. Costner received a nomination for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: The Detroit Tigers travel to New York to play a season-ending series against the New York Yankees. At 63–97, the team has long since been eliminated from playoff contention and are playing for nothing but pride against the Yankees, who have a chance to clinch the American League East with a win.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: In his Manhattan hotel suite, 40-year-old pitcher Billy Chapel awaits his girlfriend Jane Aubrey, but she doesn't show. Jane is a single mother with a teenage daughter Heather whom Billy got to know. The next morning, Billy is told by Tigers' owner Gary Wheeler that the team has been sold and that the new owners' first move will be to end Billy's 19-year tenure with the Tigers by trading him to the San Francisco Giants. Billy learns from Jane that she is leaving that same day to accept a job offer in London.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: Billy is a famous, accomplished pitcher, but has a losing record this season, is near the end of his career, and is recovering from a hand injury. Wheeler hints that Billy should consider retiring rather than join another team. As he goes to Yankee Stadium to make his last start of the year, Billy reflects about Jane, detailing how they met five years prior. These flashbacks are interspersed within the game, along with glimpses of Jane watching the game on a television at the airport.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: As the game progresses, Billy dominates the Yankees' batters, often talking to himself on how to pitch each one. While in the dugout resting between innings, Billy reflects how he shut Jane out of his life after he suffered a career-threatening injury in the off-season. The pain of pitching gets worse as the game goes on.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: Billy is so caught up in his thoughts that he does not realize he is pitching a perfect game until he looks at the scoreboard in the bottom of the eighth inning. Friend and catcher Gus Sinski confirms that no one has reached base, and that the whole team is rallying behind Billy to do whatever it takes to keep the perfect game bid alive. Billy's shoulder pain has become intense, and after he throws his first two pitches of the inning well out of the strike zone, Tigers manager Frank Perry makes the call to warm up two relief pitchers in the bullpen. The count goes to 3–0 before Billy recalls pitching to his father (now deceased) in the back yard. He rallies and throws a strike, then gets the batter out on the next pitch.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: Before the Tigers take the field for the bottom of the ninth inning, Billy has final ruminations about his career and his love for Jane. He autographs a baseball for Wheeler, who has been like a father to him for many years. Along with a signature, Billy inscribes the ball with "Tell them I'm through. For love of the game." Ken Strout comes up representing the last chance for New York. Strout chops up the middle just out of the reach of Chapel, heading towards center field. The Tigers' shortstop dives and throws to first in time to retire Strout, giving Chapel his perfect game.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: Billy sits alone in his hotel room as the realization sinks in that everything he has been and done for the past 19 years is over. Despite his amazing accomplishment, Billy weeps not only for the loss of baseball, but for the other love of his life, Jane.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: The next morning, Billy goes to the airport to inquire about a flight for London. Jane had missed her flight the night before so she could watch the end of his perfect game. He finds her there waiting for her plane and they embrace and reconcile.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: The pitching coach who prepared Costner for this role was former New York Yankees/Milwaukee Brewers middle reliever, Mike Buddie. Buddie also had a small speaking role in the film as the character Jack Spellman, the starting pitcher for the Yankees.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: Sydney Pollack was originally slated as the director, with Tom Cruise cast in the part of Billy Chapel. Armyan Bernstein, chief of Beacon Pictures, got Kevin Costner interested in the film. The studio wanted to keep the film's budget to $50 million, so Costner helped out by waiving his usual $20 million salary in exchange for a bigger percentage of the film's gross; Costner was also given the generous rights of final cut privilege (normally only given to the producer or director, if anyone) and director approval.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: Director Sam Raimi, who had previously only done low-budget films, later explained why he agreed to take on the big budget project: "I was simply moved by the screenplay. It was moving and simple and I love baseball. I love baseball and I thought it hadn't really been put on film and I wanted to see it on the wide screen format. I thought that would be exciting for the audience, like being at a game. I get so excited by some baseball games I wanted to see if I could put some of that into the picture. And I simply liked it and wanted to try something different."


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: The actor playing Billy Chapel as a child in the opening credits is also Costner; the footage is actually old home movies of Costner and his father. J.K. Simmons later joked about the fact that he was only nine days older than Costner, despite being cast as a 63-year-old.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: During post-production, a handful of lines (amounting to roughly 10 seconds of film) were edited or cut in order to prevent the film being given an "R" rating under the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system. Costner objected to the edits but was overruled by Universal Pictures, and his contract specified that he only had final cut privilege so long as the film was rated "PG-13" and had a running time of less than 2 hours, 10 minutes. A week before the film was to hit theatres, he voiced his complaints in a "Newsweek" interview, a breach of professional etiquette when speaking about a current film that one appears in. Universal Pictures co-chairman Stacey Snider, while agreeing with Costner that the cuts the Motion Picture Association demanded were unjust, stated, "Kevin's not the director and it's not fair for him to hijack a $50-million asset. I realize this is very much about principle for Kevin, but principle doesn’t mean that you never compromise. Our feeling is that we have backed the filmmaker and his name is Sam Raimi, not Kevin Costner." Raimi, while supporting Universal's decision and agreeing that a "PG-13" rating was a necessity, said he sympathized with Costner's feelings and wished the lines could have been kept in without losing the "PG-13" rating. Universal compromised with Costner on the length, allowing a final cut of 2 hours, 17 minutes. Recognizing that he might nonetheless feel betrayed after he had waived his usual fee, Universal offered to pay him the full $20 million fee, but Costner declined.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: The film received mixed reviews from critics. "For Love of the Game" has a 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 94 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's consensus states: "Baseball wins, romance loses." On Metacritic, it has a score of 43% based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: In Roger Ebert's review, he gave the film one and a half stars out of four, calling it "the most lugubrious and soppy love story in many a moon, a step backward for director Sam Raimi after "A Simple Plan", and yet another movie in which Kevin Costner plays a character who has all the right window dressing but is neither juicy nor interesting."


title: For Love of the Game (film)

text: The film opened at No. 2 with a weekend gross of $13,041,685 from 2,829 theaters for a per venue average of $7,023. Ultimately, "For Love of the Game" grossed only $35,188,640 domestically and an additional $10,924,000 in other territories to a total of $46,112,640 worldwide. Based on an estimated $50 million budget, the film lost money.


title: Punisher (album)

text: Punisher is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, released on June 18, 2020 by Dead Oceans. Bridgers first established herself with her 2017 debut, "Stranger in the Alps", a widely acclaimed indie rock effort. In the years preceding her second album, the California native formed the bands boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Center. On "Punisher", Bridgers' songwriting is somber and sardonic; deeply personal in nature, it explores topics like dissociation and fragmenting relationships.


title: Punisher (album)

text: "Punisher" was recorded over a year and a half at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles and reunited Bridgers with producers Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska, who also engineered "Alps". Its recording process was collaborative with its liner notes crediting over two dozen prominent musicians, including Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, Christian Lee Hutson, Jim Keltner, Blake Mills, and Conor Oberst. "Punisher" was supported by five singles "Garden Song", "Kyoto", "ICU", "I Know the End" and "Savior Complex". Upon its release, the album attracted acclaim from music critics, who celebrated its open lyricism.


title: Punisher (album)

text: American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers rose to prominence in the late 2010s with a blend of subdued and specific songwriting that quickly garnered her a significant level of fame among indie rock fans. Bridgers grew up writing songs and playing guitar; a Los Angeles native, she attended its County High School for the Arts, where she studied vocal jazz. In 2017, she released her debut album, "Stranger in the Alps", on Indiana-based indie label Dead Oceans. The LP received widespread acclaim from critics and peers; guitarist John Mayer heralded it as "the arrival of a giant".


title: Punisher (album)

text: She rapidly became an in-demand performer, guesting on songs with the National, Fiona Apple, the 1975, and Jackson Browne. She formed the all-female supergroup boygenius with musicians Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus, which released an EP in 2018. She also began collaborating with Conor Oberst, forming the band Better Oblivion Community Center; it released its debut, self-titled album in 2019. She also began closely working with singer-songwriter Christian Lee Hutson, going on to produce Hutson's debut album, "Beginners", released in 2020. Ryan Leas, writing for "Stereogum", observed that Bridgers' growing body of work—particularly before releasing a second album—was already "diverse and complex".


title: Punisher (album)

text: Bridgers first began developing songs for "Punisher" while on the road touring; many songs predate the release of "Alps". Songs such as "ICU" were written at soundchecks. Bridgers considered her efforts on "Punisher" nothing revolutionary but rather a breakthrough in combining her disparate influences: "how to reference a hundred things at once that I've always loved," she said. She continued to work with drummer Marshall Vore as her closest collaborator, often approaching him first with song ideas. Lyrically, she aimed to imbue each song with an interesting angle, even when it had little to do with her. She reworked lyrics frequently, writing placeholder verses to amuse herself that she ultimately enjoyed too much to replace.


title: Punisher (album)

text: "Punisher" was recorded at Sound City, a celebrated studio in the L.A. neighborhood of Van Nuys. Bridgers considered its illustrious past "not a big selling point" for her but conceded it to be a "magical place". "Punisher" hosts a wide array of guest performers, including all of Bridgers' collaborators on her side projects. She noted that many contributors to the album appear because they were simply around Sound City at the time, including veteran percussionist Jim Keltner—known for his work with Bob Dylan and John Lennon—who performs on two tracks, and musician Blake Mills, who adds to three songs on "Punisher".


title: Punisher (album)

text: The album was worked on sporadically between mid-2018 and late 2019. To produce "Punisher", she recruited Tony Berg and Ethan Gruska, two previous collaborators on "Alps". The album came together in a sequential order; many songs were recorded in the order they appear on the album. For the title track, Gruska utilized samples of birds, a Mellotron and a back-masked clip of Bridgers' voice that fade in and out at various points in the song—or as Bridgers puts it, "riding the faders". The technique is one she learned from engineer Joseph Lorge. Bridgers also continued her practice of double tracking all of her vocals as a tribute to her favorite artist, singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. Sonically, the album mixes Bridgers' "arpeggiated guitar work" with "looping synths and eerily groaning strings".


title: Punisher (album)

text: "Punisher" has been described as an indie rock, emo-folk, and indie folk album. Lyrically, it tackles themes of "missed connections, the tension between the inner and outer self, [and] the lonely ache of watching things end." In a press release, Bridgers used the words "crying" and the feeling of numbness to describe its contents. Quinn Moreland of "Pitchfork" interpreted the LP as born from "languid spells of depression, desire, and self-destruction". The album's liner notes dedicate it to Max, a black pug Bridgers had for sixteen years until his passing in 2019. His death had a profound effect on Bridgers, who noted that "going home to an empty apartment was pretty fucked up" and that perhaps it worked its way into the darkness present on "Punisher". She also credited the author Joan Didion as an inspiration on "Punisher" and referenced the podcast "My Favorite Murder" in two separate articles highlighting her influences on "Punisher": "I think it probably snuck in (to the album)," she remarked.


title: Punisher (album)

text: Bridgers' songwriting ranges from sardonic to sharply honest; Lindsay Zoladz of "The New York Times" observed that Bridgers "weav[es] tiny, specific, time-stamped details (chemtrails, Saltines, serotonin) into durable big-tent tapestries of feeling." Altogether, the album chronicles Bridgers' personal journey towards therapy and being able to better enjoy life. While "Alps" is rooted in trauma, "Punisher" identifies tools she used to deal with that trauma.


title: Punisher (album)

text: The instrumental "DVD Menu" opens the LP and segues into "Garden Song", the album's lead single. "Garden Song" centers on self-manifestation and how one's actions can push things into motion. Bridgers considered it a "sequel" of sorts to "Smoke Signals", the lead single from "Alps", in that they are both love songs. Bridgers described "Kyoto" as based around the concept of dissociation—confusion between surroundings and identity, or as Bridgers put it, "living outside your body when cool shit is happening". The song originated from a trip to Japan in which she felt apathetic and unmotivated to explore, and its lyrics are based on her complex relationship with her father. "Kyoto" has been described as one of the catchier songs on the album; its upbeat tone was requested by Berg, who felt she had written too many slow ballads. The title track derives its name from an in-joke among musicians: a "punisher" is an overzealous fan, one who "lingers at the merch table a little too long". The song examines her longtime love for Elliott Smith, with Bridgers imagining a conversation between them in which she would be the punisher, given her intense devotion to his music. Bridgers thought she might self-title the album but settled on "Punisher" because it seemed cool.


title: Punisher (album)

text: "Halloween" centers on a decaying relationship that is being clung to until the holidays. The song's development took over a year and a half, with Bridgers struggling with a verse. Conor Oberst, who sings in the song's second half, suggested she write about a conversation topic she brought up frequently: murders that have taken place at L.A.'s Dodger Stadium. "Moon Song" romanticizes a lover who hates themselves. Many commentators singled out the couplet "We hate 'Tears in Heaven'/But it's sad his baby died" as particularly memorable: these lines refer to guitarist Eric Clapton's account of his son's tragic death. She wrote the melody to follow-up song "Savior Complex" in a dream, a folk rock and baroque indie pop waltz, which carries on the subject of a difficult relationship. "ICU"—as in intensive care unit—has been called a "devastating breakup song" and recounts Bridgers' breakup with collaborator Marshall Vore, who remains her touring drummer and confidant. It contains the lyric "I hate your mom/I hate it when she opens her mouth," which stemmed from an altercation Bridgers had with an ex's mother, who argued with her about President Donald Trump while grocery shopping. Bridgers briefly re-titled the song "I See You" upon its debut, so as to remain sensitive to those suffering from the coronavirus, but the name was reverted upon the album's release and remains "ICU" on physical editions.


title: Punisher (album)

text: Bridgers penned "Graceland Too"—a country-tinged, lyrical folk, and banjo-led ballad that sonically references her love of bluegrass—on a trip to Nashville to visit her bandmates in boygenius, who later added vocals to the song. The title references a shrine and tourist attraction to Elvis Presley, south of the original Graceland in the U.S. state of Mississippi. To Bridgers, the locale is used as a vehicle and a "cheap" way to express her feelings. "I Know the End" which starts as a folk song, went through several different iterations and was both the first song to be developed and the last to see completion. Bridgers and Vore first developed the song as a depiction of tour-related depression. Its third verse depicts a coastal drive to visit her relatives in northern California where she saw a SpaceX launch that resembled a spaceship. Bridgers sings of passing a highway billboard that reads "the end is near". A chorus of guest vocalists join in and collide in a cacophony of screams.


title: Punisher (album)

text: "Punisher" was highly anticipated. The album's first single, "Garden Song", was released on February 26, 2020, with its follow-up, "Kyoto", seeing release on April 9 of that year. The album's third single "ICU" (retitled "I See You") was released on May 19, 2020.


title: Punisher (album)

text: The LP was scheduled for release on June 19—or Juneteenth, the official end of slavery in the U.S.—but Bridgers opted to release it early on digital services, with an announcement encouraging fans to donate to organizations seeking racial justice. It debuted during a worldwide quarantine related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and amid a period of civil unrest in the U.S., with citizens protesting the murder of George Floyd and others. "I'm not [delaying] the record until things go back to 'normal' because I don't think they should," Bridgers wrote on Twitter. Touring plans for "Punisher" were postponed due to the aforementioned pandemic. Bridgers was scheduled to open for The 1975 on a stadium tour. Bridgers announced a headlining tour set for September and October 2021.


title: Punisher (album)

text: "Punisher" received widespread acclaim from music critics. The album has a score of 90 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 31 reviews.


title: Punisher (album)

text: "Pitchfork"s Sam Sodomsky designated it with the publication's "Best New Music" tag, calling it "marvelous, [...] candid, multi-dimensional, slyly psychedelic, and full of heart. Her music has become a world unto itself." Jonathan Bernstein from "Rolling Stone" called the work visionary, "eleven expertly rendered, largely downcast songs about broken faith, desperate, occasionally self-destructive love, and tenuous recovery." "NME" gave the album a perfect score, writing, "The LA songwriter's ability to paint this lingering feeling of dread so vividly is perhaps the biggest factor in her rapid rise to cultish indie household name; just look at the state of the world right now."


title: Punisher (album)

text: David Sackllah of "Consequence of Sound" gave the album an A−, writing ""Punisher" beams with a restless energy and twisted dream logic that erupts into striking moments of clarity in a way reminiscent of the National's "Boxer". Fred Thomas at AllMusic opined that the LP "reaches new depths [...] It's an album of shockingly self-aware explorations of dark feelings and Bridgers is more willing than ever before to throw herself headlong into the darkness." Alexandra Pollard from "The Independent" felt that Bridgers "sharpened and broadened her songwriting" on the album; "New York Times" contributor Lindsay Zoladz designated it as a "critic's pick".


title: Punisher (album)

text: Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic, highlighting the songs "ICU" and "Graceland Too" while summarizing the album's merits with the following statement: "If articulated depression is what you crave, does she have lyrical and musical detail for you—philosophical solace or melodic relief, no".


title: Unapologetic

text: Unapologetic is the seventh studio album by Barbadian singer Rihanna. It was released on 19 November 2012 by Def Jam Recordings and SRP Records. It was recorded between June and November 2012, during promotion of her sixth studio album, "Talk That Talk" (2011). As executive producer, Rihanna enlisted previous collaborators The-Dream, David Guetta, Chase & Status, and Stargate to work alongside new collaborators such as Parker Ighile, Mike Will Made-It, and Labrinth. "Unapologetic" is primarily a pop, synth-pop, and R&B record that incorporates elements of hip hop, EDM, dubstep and reggae in its production, similar to the sound of her previous albums "Talk That Talk" (2011), "Loud" (2010) and "Rated R" (2009).


title: Unapologetic

text: "Unapologetic" received generally mixed reviews from critics, with some reviewers describing its music as interesting, while others criticized its weak lyrical content and rushed nature. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 2014 ceremony, while "Stay" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. It debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 with first-week sales of 238,000 copies, becoming Rihanna's first number one album on the chart and best-selling debut week of her career. The album also became the singer's third, fourth, and fifth consecutive number one album in the United Kingdom, Norway, and Switzerland, respectively. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), it was the ninth global best-selling album of 2012 with sales of 2.3 million copies. As of December 2014, "Unapologetic" has sold over four million copies worldwide.


title: Unapologetic

text: The album produced seven singles including the international hits "Diamonds" and "Stay". The former peaked at number one on both the UK Singles Chart and the US "Billboard" Hot 100 where it became Rihanna's twelfth number one song, tying her with Madonna and the Supremes for fourth most number one songs in the history of the chart. Prior to its release, Rihanna promoted the album with the 777 Tour which consisted of a seven-date promotional tour in which she performed seven concerts each in a different city in North America and Europe in seven days. To further promote the album, Rihanna embarked on her fourth worldwide concert tour, entitled the Diamonds World Tour.


title: Unapologetic

text: In November 2011, Rihanna released her sixth studio album "Talk That Talk". The album was rooted in pop, dance and R&B but also incorporated a variety of other musical genres such as hip hop, electro house, dancehall, and dubstep, a genre which was prominent on her fourth studio album "Rated R" (2009). "Talk That Talk" received generally positive reviews from contemporary music critics upon its release. It was a commercial success and reached the top ten in over twenty national charts, including number one on the UK Albums Chart and number three on the US "Billboard" 200. The album produced six singles including the worldwide hits "We Found Love" and "Where Have You Been". "We Found Love" topped the charts in over 25 countries and sold over 9 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. In March 2012, Rihanna revealed that although she had not yet begun recording, she started "working on the new sound" for her seventh studio album.


title: Unapologetic

text: On 20 June 2012, Rihanna began recording her seventh studio album, working with Nicky Romero and Burns. Rihanna and Burns booked three days in a studio in London while Rihanna was performing at Radio 1's Hackney Weekend. It was also confirmed that Rihanna worked with Eric Bellinger, Sean Garrett, and Swedish House Mafia for her seventh album. On 6 July 2012, Def Jam executive No I.D. revealed that he had begun working with Rihanna on the album saying "I’m going in next week for about a week". On 10 July 2012, British singer and producer Labrinth revealed to Capital FM that he had been working with Rihanna on the album.


title: Unapologetic

text: On 17 July 2012, it was reported that Rihanna would be working with R&B singer Ne-Yo and N-Dubz member Fazer. In an interview with Capital FM Ne-Yo spoke on working with Rihanna on the album saying: "I just recently went in to do some stuff for Rihanna, you know. She’s the hardest working woman in showbiz right now. She's in the process of putting together a new album as we speak, I got in with Stargate and David Guetta and a few other people for that project.


title: Unapologetic

text: Sean Garrett confirmed in July 2012 that he had been in the studio with French DJ David Guetta working on Rihanna's album saying: "I was in the studio with David doing some stuff for Rihanna recently. He finds inspiration in the things I don't like, and I get excited by the things he doesn't like. He wants to be more urban and I want to be more international, so we push each other, I try to help Rihanna. She works hard and it's cool to write for someone who is so open-minded." On 21 August 2012, American songwriter Claude Kelly said that he had been writing songs for Rihanna while she was performing in London. Kelly spoke on the songs that he had written for Rihanna saying: "Rihanna's a worldwide superstar at this point and she's performing in stadiums and arenas now, so I wanted songs that reflected her audience, when I was in London she was performing at a festival in front of like 30,000 to 40,000 people. So I didn't want small songs that only worked on radio, so I tried to do anthemic big stadium-themed songs."


title: Unapologetic

text: On 16 August 2012, British R&B singer-songwriter Angel stated that he had been writing for Rihanna's album. He said: "I love writing songs and it's good to pitch tracks to other artists. A couple of weeks ago I was doing some writing for Rihanna". In September 2012, Ne-Yo confirmed his involvement the album saying "I did go in the studio with her, I know I got one or two on the album that she's definitely keeping."


title: Unapologetic

text: Rihanna explained her interest in developing new soundscapes, "I love experimenting and I love working with different sounds and putting them together so they’re not one-dimensional." She also added "Right now we're working on collecting and creating the sound first before we even start working on the lyrical direction or melodies. I kind of have an idea though, and it's very rough right now. So I'm very eager to start that." Sean Garrett spoke on the album's sound saying it was "a great mish-mash of genres". Rihanna revealed during an interview with GQ's "Men of the Year" that she wanted her music to be uplifting saying "I want to make music that’s hopeful, uplifting. Nothing corny or supersentimental. I just want it to have the feeling that brings you out of whatever you’re going through. I want it to spark that fire. I want it to be real, authentic, and raw."


title: Unapologetic

text: The album's first half is made up of EDM and "syrupy" Southern hip hop minimalism songs, which feature abrasive sound effects and eccentric beats. Like most of the album, they generally draw on dubstep, a bass-heavy subgenre typified by wobbly synthetic noises and blaring bass drops, as well as dance-pop and chopped and screwed sounds. Jon Caramanica of "The New York Times" characterizes the album's music as "brutish and bruised" with "tough and layered" production, citing David Guetta's "guttural" production on "Phresh Out the Runway" and "Right Now" as an example. Music journalist Jude Rogers characterized the album's music as voluminous "R&B-pop", while "Time" magazine's Melissa Locker said that it has an "urban R&B sound". According to Alexis Petridis, the different producers who worked on "Unapologetic" appeared to make an effort away from Rihanna's previous "pop-dance template ... or at least to rearrange voguish sounds into less familiar shapes". "Unapologetic"s ballad-oriented second half incorporates disco, reggae, and rock styles. According to music critic Greg Kot, "Unapologetic" is "ostensibly" a pop album, while "Vibe" said that it is "on the surface" an assortment of genres such as R&B, dubstep and pop.


title: Unapologetic

text: Up-tempo songs such as "Phresh Out the Runway", "Jump", and "Pour It Up" celebrate carpe diemic hedonism. Much of the album's lyrics are presumably concerned with Rihanna's relationship with Chris Brown, with a second half of lighter songs that have references to a dysfunctional love life. The album's subject matter is reflected by an abundance of minor key sounds throughout its songs. James Reed of "The Boston Globe" called "Unapologetic" "a defiant middle finger to her critics, particularly the ones who don’t approve of her relationship with Brown." Kot observed a "celebrity subtext" throughout the album and characterized the songs' narrators as "troubled, anxiety-ridden, lost ... the characters in these songs linger in a limbo of mixed emotions, emotionally attracted to a lover and yet uneasy about the next step." "Spin" magazine's Caryn Ganz wrote that "Rihanna sings about her unapologetic love of" money, love, and "living in the moment" on the songs "Pour It Up", "Loveeeeeee Song", and "Right Now", respectively.


title: Unapologetic

text: The album's opening track, "Phresh Out the Runway", is a "gritty club banger" that features hip hop and EDM styles. The song is a "noisy, trap-tastic twerker" that is reminiscent of Rihanna's 2012 single "Birthday Cake", and contains "blazin' beats, brags aplenty" and an "unapologetic attitude". The song's lyrical content revolves around Rihanna explaining how if any of her crew does not respect her, then they should no longer remain with her.


title: Unapologetic

text: "Diamonds" is a mid-tempo ballad which incorporates electronic and pop musical genres. It features heavy synthesizers, orchestral sounds and electronic rhythms. The song's lyrical content marks a departure from the recurring themes of unhealthy relationships on the album's other songs, and contains a prominent concept of love.


title: Unapologetic

text: "Numb" is a "slow-grinding, Middle Eastern-flavored party track". Numb's instrumentation consists of an Egyptian flute riff and "a crashing bombastic beat". "Numb" contains a sample of Kanye West's song "Can't Tell Me Nothing", written by West and Aldrin Davis. The song's lyrical content is "controversial" as it is about feeling "numb after taking drugs" and a "homage to getting high". "Pour It Up" is a club song, with a minimal hip hop beat. Lyrically, it finds Rihanna turning a strip-club anthem into a declaration of independence, pulling out her dollar bills at the strip club, getting drunk, and bragging loudly.


title: Unapologetic

text: "Loveeeeeee Song" is a duet with rapper and singer Future, with soft vocals by Rihanna and lyrics that posit love as an adversarial game. "Jump" is a dubstep-influenced dance song that samples Ginuwine's 1996 song "Pony". Lyrically, in "Jump" Rihanna preaches to her former partner that she won't be chasing him. "Right Now" is a "feel-good anthem for the clubs". The song contains electronic and dance music, with a duration of . and the song features a "churning bassline".


title: Unapologetic

text: "What Now", produced by Parker Ighile, is a "vulnerable ballad" containing a "hard chorus". The song is a piano-led mid tempo pop ballad and "builds nicely from its calming verse to its electrified hook."


title: Unapologetic

text: "Stay" is a ballad that has piano and guitar instrumentation. The lyrics revolve around "failing to resist true love", according to Dan Martin for "NME"


title: Unapologetic

text: "Nobody's Business" mixes Chicago stepping and house styles, featuring strings, piano, and a four-on-the-floor kick drum. Rihanna said that the song's lyrics show "basically the way I look at everything regarding my personal life." Lyrically, the couple proclaims their eternal fealty, make out in a Lexus and acknowledge the world that the romantic relationship between them is only their business.


title: Unapologetic

text: "Love Without Tragedy / Mother Mary" represent two electronica and new wave integrated songs, which last for a duration of with lyrics that are deeply personal, two-part song that opens with a somber mood and shifts to confessional subject matter and Rihanna's uplifting vocals.


title: Unapologetic

text: "Get It Over With" is a down-tempo, "chilled-out" song. "No Love Allowed" is a reggae song with a "bubbly, dubbed-out groove". The final track "Lost in Paradise" is a "somber-but-hopeful" mid-tempo ballad with frequent tempo drops. Lyrically, it speaks about a love stronger than a gun shot,


title: Unapologetic

text: "Diamonds" premiered on 26 September 2012, and was released the following day as the lead single from "Unapologetic". Critics were divided on the track; some complimented Rihanna's different musical direction, however, others criticized its production. The cover artwork for the song features Rihanna rolling diamonds on a piece of marijuana paper. The song's music video depicts Rihanna in four environments that represent the elements of earth, air, water and fire. "Diamonds" debuted at number 16 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, eventually reaching number one, giving Rihanna her twelfth number one in the country and tying her with Madonna and the Supremes as the artists with the fifth-most number ones in the chart's history. The song also topped the charts in eighteen other countries worldwide including Austria, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.


title: Unapologetic

text: "Stay", which features guest vocals by American recording artist Mikky Ekko was released as the second international single from the album, first impacting radio stations in France on 13 December 2012. Dan Martin for "NME" thought that the lyrical content of "Stay" puts a "vulnerable spin" on her relationship with Chris Brown. The song's accompanying music video was released on 11 February 2013, via E! and then to Vevo the following day. The song reached the top five of twenty-four countries worldwide including number four in the UK and number three on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming Rihanna's twenty-fourth top ten on the latter chart, thus passing Whitney Houston's tally of 23 top ten songs. Furthermore, it reached number one in Canada, Czech Republic and Denmark, while also topping the US Pop Songs chart.


title: Unapologetic

text: "Pour It Up" was solicited to urban radio as the album's third single in the United States on 8 January 2013. The song debuted on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 90, eventually reaching a top twenty peak of number 19. "Pour It Up" additionally charted on multiple sub-charts in the country including number one and six on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, and number 47 on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart. It also made appearances in other countries such as Canada, France and the UK. A remix of "Pour It Up" was later distributed with rap verses from American rappers Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, Juicy J, and T.I. On 2 October 2013, an accompanying music video was released to Rihanna's official Vevo account after several delays.


title: Unapologetic

text: "Right Now" was released as the fourth single from the album and was sent to contemporary hit radio in the United States on 28 May 2013. Upon the release of "Unapologetic", the song charted at number one on the US "Billboard" Hot Dance Club Songs chart and number seven on the UK Dance Chart.


title: Unapologetic

text: "What Now" was released as the fifth single from the album in selected countries; it has peaked at number 21 and 13 in Australia and New Zealand respectively. The single also appeared on the singles charts of France, United Kingdom and Belgium. On 29 August 2013, a promotional digital remix EP of "What Now" was released exclusively to Beatport. "What Now" officially impacted US rhythmic radio on 24 September 2013, and later impacted on Top 40/Mainstream radio on 1 October 2013. The song's accompanying music video was released to Vevo on 15 November 2013.


title: Unapologetic

text: "Jump" was issued to Australian radio on 24 January 2014, as the fifth single in Australia and sixth overall.


title: Unapologetic

text: On 12 September 2012, Def Jam France announced via Twitter that Rihanna would release a new single the upcoming week while her seventh studio album was scheduled to be released in November 2012. However, the tweet was shortly deleted and replaced with another clarifying that "more information will be made available tomorrow, Thursday, September 13". To further promote the announcement for her seventh upcoming studio album, Rihanna launched a promotional website rihanna7.com. Via her official Twitter account, Rihanna posted series of "teasing" tweets announcing her seventh studio album. On 11 October 2012, she revealed the cover art and title of her new album, "Unapologetic". VH1 ranked the cover at number one on their list of The 30 Hottest Naked Album Covers Ever. Regarding the title of the album, Rihanna explained that she named it because she wanted to express how honest she is, "I named my album 'Unapologetic' because there is only one truth, and you can't apologise for that. It's honest. I'm always evolving, of course, I think the only motto I have is to be true to myself."


title: Unapologetic

text: In August 2012, it was revealed that "Unapologetic" would be released in late November 2012. In early October, it was reported that the album would be released on 19 November 2012. On 2 November 2012, Rihanna released a behind the scenes video of the journey to making "Unapologetic". The first video included a behind-the-scenes view of Rihanna backstage at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards, a shooting range, rehearsing for the iHeartRadio Music Festival and a photoshoot at a studio.


title: Unapologetic

text: On 14 November, Rihanna embarked on a seven-date promotional tour for "Unapologetic" titled the 777 Tour. She performed seven concerts in seven days, each in a different city in North America and Europe. Fans and members of the international press (150 journalists representing 82 countries) were invited aboard a chartered Boeing 777 twinjet to every venue. Beginning on 14 November in Mexico City, the tour visited Toronto (Canada), Stockholm (Sweden), Paris (France), Berlin (Germany), London (UK) and ended on 20 November in New York City (United States). On 6 May 2013, Fox aired a tour documentary, with a documentary DVD being released the following day.


title: Unapologetic

text: Rihanna performed "Diamonds" and "Phresh Out the Runway" at the 2012 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on 7 November 2012, which aired on CBS on 4 December 2012. She performed "Diamonds" and a solo version of "Stay" on "Saturday Night Live" on 10 November 2012. On 25 November 2012, Rihanna performed "Diamonds" on "The X Factor" in the United Kingdom. On 8 December, she performed the song on "Wetten, dass..?" in Germany. On 9 December 2012, Rihanna performed "Stay" in a medley with her 2011 single "We Found Love" on the final of series nine of British "The X Factor". She also performed "Diamonds" on "La Chanson de l'année" (""The song of the Year"") in France, on 10 December 2012, which was broadcast on 29 December 2012.