Mixtapemotions

  • "Somebody That I Used to Know" (Tronicbox '80s Remix) by Gotye ft. Kimbra, Wednesday, March 31, 2021

    A meme is a piece of cultural information that is spread through copying and imitation. These days we know memes mostly as the funny or political pictures people post online. However, by definition, Gotye‘s 2011 hit, “Somebody That I Used to Know” is on the level of musical meme-hood. The mega hit which has charted in the top songs of the decade, has left the artist, though, as a one-hit wonder. Gotye has yet to release a follow up record to Making Mirrors, but somehow no one can forget this song. It’s been covered, remixed, and parodied all over the Internet, and listeners still can’t get enough. Last year, YouTuber Hildegard von Blingin’ released a “bardcore” version of the song. Bardcore is a style of music imitating Medieval/Renaissance music, using older instruments and often adapting lyrics to sound more Chaucerian. While the line “send a wagon for thy minstrel and refuse my letters” didn’t quite beat the synth wave remix by Tronicbox, I’d still encourage my readers to check out that version.

    YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO CUT ME OFF. In the spring and summer of 2012 I did a lot of driving. I had to get my paperwork together to go to Korea, and I couldn’t hack American bureaucracy by using the mail or courier services. Two trips to Johnson City, Tennessee to get stamps from the state in which I graduated college, two trips to Atlanta, and countless trips to around Western North Carolina to get the paperwork together, I listened to a lot of radio. I listened to the radio mostly because I had an old radio-turner device to play my iPod on the stereo. My 2001 Toyota Corolla came with a CD player, that had died some time before. If I drove a long distance, the radio stations would change, and I would have to find a new frequency to broadcast my iPod. However, this got old, so I just listened to the radio. At that time, I remember a few songs would play constantly–Carly Rae Jepsen‘s “Call Me Maybe,” “Lights,” by Ellie Goulding, and “Somebody That I Used to Know.” This song will always remind me of those trips in early summer, before my life changed forever.

    YOU CAN GET ADDICTED TO A CERTAIN KIND OF SADNESS. Last year, the YouTube channel Middle 8 released a video giving the history of this song and a musical breakdown of why it became such an ear worm. The latin guitar and the xylophone which helped to carry the original song, however, are absent on this ’80s remix. Instead, listeners are treated to electronic drums, synths, and a raucous guitar solo–all absent from the original tune. This song might have you looking through the garage for some old VHS tapes beside the lacquered wooden vacuum-tubed TV set. But before you book that perm and change to bigger rims on your glasses, just consider how ridiculous you’ll look. This song brings to mind everything awful about the ’80s, and that’s why it’s so fun.

    Original Music Video:

    Original song by Gotye
    https://genius.com/Gotye-somebody-that-i-used-to-know-tronicbox-80s-remix-lyrics

  • “Make It Up” by Shura, Tuesday, March 30, 2021

    Shura‘s 2016 debut, Nothing’s Real made a splash in the U.K. and Europe, but the electro-pop singer-songwriter didn’t make a huge impact on the American charts, which is a shame. Hits like “What’s It Gonna Be?” and “What Happened to Us?” were perfect hits for the mid-summer of the album’s release, and I find that I come back to it every spring to early fall. But while her contemporaries like Ellie Goulding and Carly Rae Jepsen keep songs pretty light and upbeat, there’s a sadness and introversion that hides the lyrics beneath even the most dance-floor-worthy tracks.

    SMALL CHANGE IN THE UNIVERSE. The daughter of a British documentary filmmaker, Shura uses a documentary-style motif throughout Nothing’s Real, featuring audio of Shura as a child speaking and singing. Also in the vein of a documentary, Shura sings about her breakup in the third person “Make It Up.” Other songs, like “Indecision” and “Kidz ‘n’ Stuff,” on the record talk about this (or another) breakup and preludes to that breakup, like “What’s It Gonna Be?” and “What Happened to Us?” But in “Make It Up,” you feel the breakup that just happened. You’re on the train riding home realizing you’re not going to see that person again. You don’t answer the phone when your friends call because you’re grieving. You release you have the power to change your mind, and so does that other person. But you came to that decision, or they came to it, because of someone’s unhappiness. 

    ONE LINE ACROSS TOWN. A relationship isn’t about the big days but the ordinary ones. So the quieter tracks on a record make it lasting. You come for the hits and stay for the personality. Melancholy doesn’t have to make a downer of a record. This was the case for Paramore‘s After Laughter and the same is true for Nothing’s Real. A breakup can make a damn good record, but it doesn’t have to be bitter. The lyrics of Nothing’s Real argue that Shura is a good person with a lot to offer. She deserves more than to be put on the back burner when “you’re at the beach.” Sometimes you have to break up because you deserve more than the other person can offer. And that’s pretty sad, as a statement on the other person’s ability to love. 

  • "Details" by Nyves, Monday, March 29, 2021

    I‘m not going to go on and on again about how much I admire Ryan Clark‘s talent. I talked about in January and February. I think I’ve touched on the talent of former Project 86 guitarist Randy Torres. Torres left Project 86 to work as an engineer with Aaron Sprinkle making legendary Tooth & Nail albums, then went to work as A & R for the label, toured with Anberlin on their New Surrender tour, and finally landed a job with Microsoft, then doing sound design for films and video games. Somewhere between their busy schedules, Ryan Clark and Randy Torres crowdfunded an album and an EP as a new project, unrelated to Demon Hunter, called Nyves. Rather than being heavy on the guitars and screaming lyrics, the project takes on a dark electronic-meets ’80s progressive metal sound perfect for a gloomy day like today.

    A FIRE OUT OF BREATH. Spring in Korea is both blessed with beautiful flowers and warmer days and cursed with terrible air quality. The 벚꽃 (Cherry blossoms/Sakura) are in full bloom today, but the western winds are the 황사 (Hwangsa, Yellow dust from the Gobi Desert that joined with the industrial pollution of China and South Korea) made the air quality frighteningly bad. Outside you can that the air is thick. On days like this before Corona many people wore masks. The thin air often gives me a headache and one year caused me to be short of breath when exercising. These days it’s best to stay inside and run an air filter if you have one.

    YOU’RE A LIGHT THROUGH A PINHOLE. When choosing my song today, I listened to both Nyves’ projects. I noticed that their 2015 album Anxiety had more positive songs and ended with a positive message on the song “Light.” Pressure, however, ends on this song, building on the cliche, “The devil’s in the details.” The penultimate song “Common Ground” may get its own blog posting this year, as it talks about how polarized the world has become. Some days, weeks, months, and years are covered by the thick clouds of despair. We wonder if the dust will ever lift and what we’ll be left with. Will the winds shift, blowing the dust out to sea? This song warns us from seeking a quick solution, one that offers a thread of “light through a pinhole” but hides its “devil in the details.” Ultimately, isn’t that what a devil does? Takes advantage of weak spots and uses fear to manipulate us? 

    https://genius.com/Nyves-details-annotated

  • “Live Forever” by The Fold, Sunday, March 28, 2021

    We all have to pay the bills, and musicians are certainly no exception. Randy Torres formerly of Project 86 works in sound design. Dan Koch of Sherwood writes music for adverting. Stephen Christian is a music pastor. All of these examples, though, have kept the band separate. The Fold released two records on Tooth & Nail, but never achieved the greatness of their label-mates, save a Grammy nomination for the packaging of their sophomore record. Though having a smaller fanbase than other Tooth & Nail bands, The Fold started partnering with brands, writing theme songs, most notably Lego’s Ninjago, for which they performed exclusively for seven years. 

    I SPENT A LONG TIME BUILDING LADDERS TO THE STARS. The songs this weekend are whimsical stories. Yesterday, the canon story, and today climbing to the stars, meeting a “friendly meteor beside the moon” who tells the speaker to “be yourself and watch the stars come to you.” This fun pop-punk song along with the album art reminding me of Charon sculling his boat on the river Styx, but not in a depressing way. Who wants to live forever? Who wants to outlive their peers? For much of human existence, early death was a reality. Thirty-five was once considered old, but yet we’re living long and longer these days. And now there’s talk of trans-humanism, scientific advancement that will allow us, or the most wealthy of us, to upload our consciousness to the cloud and download it onto a younger body. If this ever happens, people will have to grapple with problems eighty years often cut short.

    THESE BONES DON’T STAND A CHANCE. Being someone who has used the pandemic as a time to catch up, I fear the future every day. I fear poverty. I fear losing my loved ones as I get older. I don’t think a teenager ever thinks they will wake up in a thirty-three year old body, but I’m fearing how fast the calendar pages are turning. I’ve heard people say they think life is long. I don’t remember the last time I was bored. It seems there’s always something to fill up my time. And yet, I wonder, does there come a point when you say, I’ve lived a good life; I’m ready for it to end? On my darkest days when I think I’d rather be dead than face what’s up next, but on the way to work I almost step in front of a bus and I start fighting for my life. Perhaps it’s our mind that wants to live forever, but our bodies protest in the end. 

  • “Pulling Teeth” by Hidden Hospitals, Saturday, March 27, 2021

    When I think of progressive rock, I think of music that hasn’t been refined enough to make it to radio. The lyrics are a little too strange. The instrumentals go off on tangents. Don’t get me wrong, I like long guitar solos, but prog. rock gets a bit pedantic. Then I heard Hidden Hospitals’ 2016 album Liars. The band calls themselves a progressive rock band, and honestly, I haven’t heard anything like it before. Like progressive rock albums, it took me a few listens to get into Liars. But track after track reveals intricate song structures met by lyrics that could be easily passed over, but when they sink in, pack a punch. According to an episode with lead singer Dave Raymond on Matt Carter’s Break It Down podcast, Raymond grew up listening to Hip-Hop, but it was rock shows by bands like Emery and Anberlin that got him interested in performing music that would become Hidden Hospitals.


    FINDING REAL’S LIKE PULLING TEETH. Today’s song tells the whimsical story of a child playing hide and seek. He finds a cannon and crawls in and falls asleep only to be awakened by a bang. Next thing he knows he’s flying in the air. In the air he sees that not everything is as it appears. Mixing the metaphor with the simile: “finding truth is like pulling teeth,” tells us that it’s theoretically easy to find out the truth, but it’s painful. And that’s where today’s sermon begins. I first learned the word deconstruction in literature class at Adventist university. I learned what deconstruction was, but I was taught to be careful with it. You can break down a text to analyze what it doesn’t say. You can turn it on itself. You can point out how the author is flawed in writing it this way. And that’s fine if you’re analyzing Joyce or Shakespeare, but don’t you dare do it to the Bible. However, that being said, of all the required religion classes I took–and a few extras to get a minor in religion–we briefly talked on canonization, how all books of the Bible that we have today were accepted. This is an unspoken article of faith. We can trust that the men at the Council of whatever it was in faith accepted the real Bible and everything else was uninspired.

    I FIND WOLVES IN SHEEPS CLOTHING. Descartes is the father of deconstruction. Descartes first deconstructed and reconstructed the world based on logic, rather than through accepting what others said about it. He accepted only one truth, “I think, therefore I am.” While not everyone can get a masters in engineering before stepping on to a plane to realize that flight is possible, I wonder why Christians who hold the scriptures so dear know so little about the processes of how it came to being what it is today. Why do only pastors read Greek or Hebrew? Why isn’t knowing the original languages important? Why don’t we research the origins of the canon? From my experience working for the church, I learned that your personal belief means very little as long as you sacrifice to keep the system in power. Once I learned that truth, it set me free. But it also made things quite complicated. 

     

  • “Heathens (remix)” by twenty one pilots x MuteMath, Friday, March 26, 2021

     

    If you’re driving through Columbus, Ohio you can tune your radio to 88.7 and find out where music is going. First hitting the airwaves in 1996, the radio station went worldwide via SkyAngel satellite network. RadioU plays Christian Rock and has been home to artists who would otherwise never hit the radio waves. However, bands often disappear from the playlist over time. This can because the band changed their sound or their message. Artists like the Newsboys, Audio Adrenaline, dc talk, Jars of Clay, and Jennifer Knapp were played in the ’90s and first few years of the ’00s, but the listeners didn’t like the direction that those artists took in their later careers. Other groups like Copeland, Mae, and MuteMath started out with RadioU and “got too big,” or at least that was the story. Sometimes they will pick up groups like Thrice, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and Paper Route, in the middle of a successful career. But is it where music is going? Maybe not these days.


    TAKE IT SLOW. Partly because of RadioU many bands sprung out of Columbus. Relient K, House of Heroes, Everyday Sunday, and John Ruben are just a few artists from this part of the Buckeye state. However, none are more successful than twenty one pilots. The duo makes Spotify and record sales lists most musicians only dream of. Their fanbase devoted to the band like K-pop followers. Known as The Clique, many interpret the lyrics of the songs as a direct message to them. Long time fans even bully new fans on social media and call out those who aren’t true fans. As I talked about earlier this month when I wrote about Mae, there are some cults I just could never follow. However, while I don’t agree with many of Mae’s musical choices, when I hear twenty one pilots, I wonder WTF is this? Seriously, what are you kids listening to these days? Emo-Rap? What is going on here? I don’t think I can be friends with anyone who loves Imagine Dragons and twenty one pilots. Maybe, but everyone I’ve met who likes these two groups–we’ve had issues. I do invite the challenge.

    WE DON’T DEAL WITH OUTSIDERS VERY WELL. That being said, “Heathens” is kind of thought provoking. The remix done with another group that has grown up to disappoint me with their mostly banal music. MuteMath deserves a story of their own. After the split of Earthsuit, a short-lived New Orleans-based Christian Rock band, vocalist/rapper Paul Meany took about half of the band to MuteMath. The band’s first EP sounded promising, but their debut record was boring. The follow up featured a song on the Twilight soundtrack and the songs were more interesting, but albums after Armistice were lacking–something. Maybe the vocals of Earthsuit’s Adam LeClave? While at times bland, I can’t doubt the musical talent of MuteMath. They add an interesting edge to the “Heathens” (remix).

    ALL MY FRIENDS ARE HEATHENS. The word heathens is Christian slang for someone who is an outsider from your group. It’s often said in a joking way about when friends are acting too “worldly.” Sometimes it’s meant to be harshly judgmental, like in the original sense of the word. Lyrically, “Heathens” deals with darker sides of humanity. The reality that we don’t know our own friends well enough to know their true intentions, much less a stranger’s. We want to say, “I knew him. He would never would do that.” Yet time and time again we see the news stories of another “murderer sitting next to you.” Netflix is filled with docu-series of people who never suspected the cold-blooded killer who went to their church or worked in the next cubical. Another pastor becomes involved with a sex scandal. Didn’t see that one coming. Rather than deflecting blame and assuming goodness, this song recognizes that “you might be one of us.”
    Original music video:

     Remix:


  • "Forward Motion" by Thousand Foot Krutch, Thursday, March 25, 2021

    The atmosphere is a casual restaurant. You’re enjoying your time with your friends. The food just comes out and everyone is in conversation. The background music was something pop, like Ariana Grande, or something you didn’t notice, but all of a sudden, Thousand Foot Krutch‘s “Welcome to the Masquerade” starts blaring on the speaker overhead. Just when you think you’d never hear your college Christian rock in a foreign country, it comes up at a rather inappropriate time, between talking about something that happened to you at work and the second bite of your taco. 

    IF WE CAN HANG ON WE CAN CROSS THIS OCEAN. Thousand Foot Krutch has an album formula that they used especially from their fourth album to their sixth. The albums start heavy and have a few poppier songs in the middle. “Forward Motion” is one of the poppier moments on this album, almost as if it’s a preview for some of lead singer Trevor McNevan‘s pop-punk project, FM Static. I think of driving back to college to this album. I took a beautiful scenic route one Sunday in autumn, maybe because 1-40 was closed due to a rock slide. I listened to “Forward Motion” driving along the Hiwassee River, windows down. The albums I listened to on the four-hour drive I made each month to college serve the music I really grew up to. No longer was I living under my parents’ roof. I cleared my head from the term paper I had to write when I got back and just enjoyed the music.

    LET’S KEEP IT MOVING IN FORWARD MOTION. Thousand Foot Kruch (TFK or Krutch) was a staple in high school and college. I loved their second album Phenomenon in tenth grade, which was a departure from the Limp Bizkit sounding Set It Off. When the band was touring with their fourth album supporting Skillet on one of the legs of the Comatose tour, I got to see them in Charlotte, for free.* I just put the asterisk because I feel like every time something is for free there should be an asterisk, and this applies to this case as well. My friend had gotten hooked up with someone who needed volunteers to sell band merch on the tour. Because this was the only time I did this, I don’t know if this is normal or if this is a Christian band thing. So we came long before the concert and saw the sound check. A few volunteers were needed for the first opener, Decyfer Down. My friend and I scored selling Krutch merchandise, while a bunch of people sold Skillet merch. We got to see the concert, but we were so busy selling CDs and shirts, exchanging money, and dealing with fans. I’m very sorry to TFK if I miscalculated the price that night. It was so hard to keep track of everything. I didn’t meet Skillet or TFK, but I did meet lead singer, Trevor McNevan’s wife, who was asking which shirts were selling the most. 

  • "High Hopes" by Kodaline, Wednesday, March 24, 2022

    Last week I taught a lesson on Irish music to my students. I played examples of Celtic instrumental music. I showed videos of River Dance. I played sad songs like “The Parting Glass” and “Danny Boy.” Then I played some famous Irish artists like Enya, U2, and The Cranberries. Then I played Kodaline‘s “High Hopes.” When I asked my students which they like the best, they said Kodaline. Well, that’s kind of a stupid question. There are times when I want to listen to Celtic bagpipes and jigs. There are times I want to go out and have fun an Irish pub and hear Celtic-punk rock. There are times I want to listen to U2, and it’s certainly not the same day I want to listen to Enya, but those days happen too. But like my students, I think Kodaline’s first album fits more into my everyday listening habits.

    BROKEN BOTTLES IN THE HOTEL LOBBY. While In A Perfect World is a great everyday listen, you have to be careful watching the music video for “High Hopes.” It’s a beautiful love story between an older man and a somewhat younger woman. The couple meets when she runs away from her wedding and she saves him from trying to kill himself in his car. They begin their relationship when he takes her to his meager cottage.  The two build their relationship, but the tone of the video changes when they are lying in bed and he notices the scars on her back. Then, as the guitar solo starts, the couple is shot by a man carrying a shot gun. The two are in a pool of blood.  The man wakes up in the hospital and sees her bed is empty. At the end of the video, she hugs him from behind.

    I KNOW IT’S CRAZY TO BELIEVE IN STUPID THINGS. Lead singer Steve Garrigan wrote “High Hopes” after a bad breakup. I think the graphic nature of this video is meant to be metaphorical. The woman saves the older man from his destructive ways. They fall in love but when he discovers her scars, the relationship reaches levels of problems that lead to another person/outside factor “shooting”  both partners. And the end of the video could either mean she left him and he’s remembering her, and the embrace is just holding on to memories, or it could be that she left for a while but comes back to him. Either way, the video is a bit shocking, so I didn’t play it for my students. 

  • “Feel Good Drag (Anberlin Cover)” by Jonathan Slack, Tuesday, March 23, 2021

     

    It was Superbowl Sunday of 2005 when I bought Anberlin’s Never Take Friendship Personal.  It was the perfect album for high school. The band’s style took a turn on their sophomore album from a classic or ’90s rock sound to a more emotional, mid-2000s sound. The band would redefine themselves with this album, becoming a lesser-known emo staple. Stephen Christian’s vocals meeting Joseph Milligan’s riffs, Deon Rexroat’s heavy bass, and Nathan Young’s reliance on the cymbals make this one of the band’s heaviest records. The band released two recordings of this song on two different albums and many fans debate which one is better. The original feels grungier and Stephen’s scream was perfectly aligned with the musical trends of the day. The New Surrender version beefs up the guitar intro and the solo has a bend that is quite satisfying. 


    THIS WAS OVER BEFORE IT EVER BEGAN. However, having already chosen an Anberlin song this month, and without cheating, I’m choosing a cover I found on YouTube several years ago when I was searching for Anberlin covers. With only 68 YouTube subscribers and the last video uploaded 3 years ago, this is my most obscure pick yet. From a five-minute research trip of his other social media profiles, the ones linked in his YouTube account, However, Slacks’ vocals and empty bedroom recording is the best acoustic rendition of this song I’ve heard including several released by Anberlin. Unfortunately, the Apple Music Playlist won’t include this version. I can post it on my YouTube playlist. So, I will I have to cheat with the Apple Music playlist and post the Anberlin acoustic version.


    LIKE THE DEVIL’S GOT YOUR HAND. It’s no secret that Anberlin is my favorite group, and “Feel Good Drag” was their biggest hit, reaching #1 on the Alternative Rock chart for one week. On the surface, it’s a song about how cheating dooms the future relationship. However, in interviews with Stephen Christian, right after Anberlin’s hiatus, he talks about it being his failure with premarital sex. That makes Christian’s lyrics, particularly in the second verse, seem condescending. In this sense, this rock hit is a time capsule of Evangelical purity culture. In its original iteration, this song was in the middle of the album I would listen to driving back and forth to Christian High School every day with my sister. We would gossip about people–the relationships that had gone too far, the hypocrites. When it became a radio hit in 2009-2010, I was in Adventist College, doubling down on my conservative values. However, as my mind opened up in Korea (I promise I will get to this story), and I started reevaluating the values that had been instilled in me, I subscribed to The BadChristian Podcast after hearing the interview with Stephen Christian, who started to double down on his conservatism, becoming a music minister in New Mexico and releasing a worship record. At that time, I felt like I was outgrowing Anberlin. I was starting to see God more broadly, and Christian was focusing on the straight and narrow of following the rules. Today I consider “Feel Good Drag” as one of Anberlin’s best songs, but of their catalog, it wouldn’t have been the hit I would have chosen. The band had a much better message–fighting injustice, the complexity of human relationships, dealing with complications in faith and doubt. Why did a simple song about cheating on your significant other become how they’re most remembered?


    Read the lyrics on Genius.


    Never Take Friendship Personal (Original) Version:

    New Surrender (Radio) Version:

    Anberlin Official Acoustic Version:

  • “Little Dark Age” by MGMT, Monday, March 22, 2021

     

    I first started listening to MGMT in the spring of 2009. Their debut album Ocular Spectacular had been released at the end of 2007, but tracks like “Kids” had hit the alternative radio stations by 2009. My roommate in college loved the opening track “Time to Pretend,” which is a fun song about moving to Paris and marrying models, and when things get difficult, just get a divorce. After enjoying OS, the next year the band released their follow up, Congratulations, which boasted more experimental electronica. After reading the review about how the band refused to release radio singles, I never tried the band and felt that they were venturing into a musical realm that wasn’t for me. However, in 2019 when I heard their single, “Me and Michael” in a book store and when I started listening to “Little Dark Age,” I realized that the MGMT that I loved in college was back. 

    THE MORE I STRAIGHTEN OUT, THE LESS IT WANTS TO TRY. The lyrics of “Little Dark Age” refer to two things 1) the political atmosphere, particularly in the United States, starting in 2016, and 2) a period of personal depression that comes from the world imploding. If we think of the Dark Ages in Europe, it was a time following the societal collapse that happened with the fall of the Roman Empire. We have this idea of the “barbarians” ransacking Rome, bringing in less enlightenment, especially as they burned the libraries of the classics. We think of this shift as causing religious superstition to rule over scientific advancement. Fast-forward to 2016 when racist, anti-scientific rhetoric influenced key elections around the world. Conspiracy is given equal footing to data. Fear and hysteria trump every one of the opposition’s answers. And while this is nothing new to history, we can only hope that it was just a little dark age that was sparked.
    Photographs of sunset June 24, 2016, Gyeongsan, South Korea. Photos by Tyler Kent.

    I GRIEVE IN STEREO. I remember the day that I heard that The United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union. That evening I saw one of the most incredible sunsets. The Seventh-day Adventist teachings about the end times came to my mind as I wondered what was in store for the world. One of my American coworkers said that year that Christians should vote for the worst candidates to expedite the end. Whether or not the end of times is close at hand can be debated. On one hand you can say “look at the world we’ve set up. It can’t last much longer with the hatred growing and climate change threatening our existence.” On the other, you could look to the early 20th century and think if it wasn’t then, why now? Regardless, we should be on guard of the turning gyre of history’s feasts and famines, realizing that a second coming and a third coming of hardships and suffering is never far behind times of great prosperity.