One of the biggest challenges of writing about music that I often run into is there isn’t always a lot to talk about. Just because it’s a good song, doesn’t mean that it is a conversation piece. New music is particularly hard to write about. It takes a lot of research, and it takes quite a few listens over a period of time to pick up the nuance. Furthermore, I mostly write about old music because I have memories associated with it. These memories are acquired over time, and can’t be forced onto a song every Friday with the new release cycle. But when a song has layers of meaning, or in this case, layers of history, not only is it easier to write about, but also I can connect with the song on a deeper level. I won’t be able to get into all of the layers that I want to in this short post, but I’ll see what I can accomplish.
I’M CAUGHT UP IN YOU. In 2019, Taylor Swift announced that she would be rerecording and releasing new versions of her back catalogue. This was a response to her failed attempt to buy back her masters which Scooter Braun had sold for $300 million. This would allow her music to be used without her consent and without her making money from the appearance of that song. Yesterday, Taylor released the first of these projects, a re-imagination of Fearless, her 2008 multi-platinum sophomore album, which rocked both the Country and pop charts. As we saw last year, Swift now shrugs off music executives’ conventions and takes control of her own musical direction. Taylor’s Version of Fearless is a long album. She released all of the bonus tracks from Fearless: Platinum Edition and some cut tracks from that era that never made it to recording.
YOU’RE UNTOUCHABLE, BURNING BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN. “Untouchable” is a cover of a song by rock band Luna Halo. First appearing on Sparrow Records, the band debuted as a Christian Rock band. Their debut album had the hit “Superman” and the song “Hang On To You,” written by fellow labelmate delirious. The band disappeared and changed members, but reassembled in Nashville to relaunch with their sophomore, self-titled record. The band’s greatest accomplishment, however, was Taylor Swift’s cover of “Untouchable.” Luna Halo never released a follow up album, and “Untouchable” launched guitarist Cary Barlowe’s career as a country music songwriter. Taylor Swift’s version of “Untouchable” highlights the lyrics of the song. While the verses are short, we get the image of a teenage girl in awe of someone she thinks is “untouchable” to her. It’s quite a different meaning when a late-20s Nathan Barlowe sings about a girl who’s out of his league. However, in 2021, very little seems “untouchable” for the superstar Taylor Swift. The star has seen the world, famously dated in Hollywood and the music scene. She’s become the celebrity who goes from hometown hero into her gated mansion. The star herself has become “untouchable” to many, yet you still hear of her doing incredible things for her fans. What’s the untouchable dream for Taylor? Is it justice from the music industry?
I first encountered White Lies in 2009 on an iTunes sampler. The song was “Farewell to the Fairground,” a song from their freshman album To Lose My Life… Their follow up album, Ritual, was unimpressive, and I kind of forgot about this band until I heard their single “There Goes Our Love Again,” from their 2013 album Big TV. The album is certainly their strongest to date and plays like a New Wave album, taking influence from the most venerated post-punk acts of the ‘80s but released thirty years late. The song “Big TV” deals with themes of modern city life in regards to alienation, capitalism, and fleeting trends. Its electronic feel sounds like it’s the kind of music that would be playing late at night, coming from the blue light of a big TV in a studio apartment downtown.
AND YOU CAN GET ME WORK, BUT I CAN’T WORK FOR FREE. A few years ago, CollegeHumor released a video about Zen Buddhist riddles for millennials. The line that I chose for the sub-header reminded me of the CollegeHumor video. You should live in the city you work, but you can’t afford the rent. So why even bother? You’re chasing a dream while borrowing money, hoping that your dreams come to fruition. I often think about how service industries don’t pay workers enough to live in the region that the workers serve, so service workers have to live in subsidized housing or commute long hours. I think about Seoul. Gangnam has so many English academies with native English teachers. Some English teachers want to live there because of the weekend life they can have. However, the rent is so much and the pay is so little that you wonder what kind of life you can have?
YOU CAN RAISE A STAR FROM GARBAGE ON THE STREET. With the advent of social media, anyone can become famous. All it takes is a TikTok video and a few million views, and boom you can become an influencer. Maybe it’s not that simple, but it seems that there are more points of entry now than ever. However, with the explosion of content comes the constant need to maintain attention. It seemed that there was a time when pop stars kept making more and more shocking songs and videos. Katy Perrykissed a girl then posed nude on a cloud. Ke$ha talked about getting freaky downtown in a dirty strip-joint. Gaga was hopping on disco-sticks, Niki Manaj was talking about anacondas. And you may be wondering what’s next after 666 Nikes and WAPing? More shock? What’s going to keep our attention, especially if a star can be raised from garbage on the street? Maybe we shouldn’t build the pop scene on shock, and let the topics come up, perhaps, naturally?
K-pop listeners have watched the once teen star IU grow up. Debuting at the age of 15, the star is turning 30 this year. The soprano singer has been called Korea’s little sister, and her (mostly) squeaky clean image has propelled her to lasting success in Korea’s music scene. Flowers and spring are no unfamiliar topic to this singer, and her sweet, yet powerful voice is perfect for a spring day. My first exposure to the singer was her song “The Meaning of You” (너의 의미) and her feature on HIGH4‘s “Not Spring, Love, or Cherry Blossoms” (봄 사랑 벚꽃 말고) and she’s constantly played in Korea whenever the mood calls for easy listening.
IT’S LIKE THE FALLING PETALS, OUR IVORY COLORED SPRING CLIMAX. Choosing this song marks the end of a week of dreary album covers. IU’s Lilacalbum is a pretty spring album. And it’s no secret I’m a sucker for a good saxophone part in a pop song. Growing up in central New York, I always considered lilacs to be a late summer flower. However, the timeline for the blooming is sped up in the south. This year I completely skipped songs that dealt with cherry blossoms (벚꽃, sakura). This is the earliest they’ve ever bloomed and it has scientists worried about what this says about climate change. Last year I skipped cherry blossom season too, but mostly for fear of Covid. This year, the uneven blooming, the Covid restrictions, and rain to wash them away as soon as they bloomed made celebrating them seem tedious. Stay tuned next year for Korean songs about the cherry blossoms. Meanwhile, IU celebrates the flower of late spring-into-summer.
LIKE THE WARM BREEZE. “Lilac” symbolizes IU growing up, passing her 20s and entering her 30s. The music video is fun in every sense of a K-pop video. We see the singer boarding a train. The timetable at the station is a list of her previous releases. We see several looks for the singer, looking sweet and cute to sexy to tough, showing different eras of her career. The end of the video is a bit terrifying. The singer gets off the train. The cinematography of the video up until that point had been warm. The singer wearing vibrant colors and even the dark scene of the night club doesn’t feel lonely and the night on the train where she is fighting, the singer has a smile on her face. However, the last scene looks lonely. The singer is dressed in dull clothing and the expression on her face looks lost. Then another train arrives bathing the singer’s face in light. She smiles, but I can’t figure out if she is feeling excited or just pretending to be brave. The video ends with the words in English: “Spring is short, but it comes again.” The singer has commented on this album as being a transition to her thirties, so if springtime is a mindset, it can come again. But if it’s an age… Welcome to your thirties, IU. There are certainly benefits to casting off the cares of other people that weigh you down in your twenties.
Ivory Circle is a trio fronted by former middle school choir teacher, Connie Hong along with muti-instrumentalist Chris Beeble, and percussionist/drummer Rob Spradling. I found the band when I went on an Apple Music search to find songs on which Copeland’s Aaron Marsh was featured. Unsurprisingly, Ivory Circle has also toured with Copeland, and this track sounds like it could have been produced Marsh as it sounds like it would be at home on a Copeland record. Chris Beeble, however, produces all of IC’s work. The band has four EPs and today’s song comes from the middle release of their triangle series: Equilateral, Isosceles, and Scalene–the first of which is not available on Apple Music. I foresee a rainy weekend when I will delve into the albums, perhaps even purchasing the albums not available on their bandcamp page. I think it’s so important right now to celebrate and help indie musicians right now as they can’t make money through touring.
YOU CAN SEE MY BRANCHES ON THE GROUND. Some days you just don’t feel like trying. You’re the broken vase on the ground. You don’t want to want to be this pathetic, broken vessel, especially when you think that everyone else has it all figured out. Yet here you are. That’s the scene that Connie Hong’s soft-to-haunting vocals explore. Aaron Marsh serves as an outside perspective when you’re stuck on yourself. He represents the loved one Hong is singing to. He implores her to resist the natural urge to give up. While it may be a big or even impossible ask to reach out to a friend to “put me back together,” who hasn’t been in the circumstance when they are at the end of their rope and they need someone else to fix them?
IT’S WRONG TO FIGHT AGAINST A BEATING HEART. There often comes a mid-semester week when the school year feels overwhelming to me. Four classes in a row, disrespectful, dismissive (tired) students, the shuffle between online and offline classes, teaching-grading-planing-etc, promotional photos–lots of stuff to complain about, but who doesn’t have problems. I can usually keep my cool–shrug off a bad class and hope for a better one, but this morning I couldn’t calm myself down after an awful first period class. And my coworkers were of no help. I didn’t want to hear about their successes. I wanted time to wallow. For me wallowing usually turns to a time of reflection. From reflection I can go on and plan another intervention. However, Wednesday schedule had no time. And there was no place to be alone. What I was able to do was to take a walk in the school to a hallway to wing with few classes and few students/teachers. I could either be on time to the next class and take out my anger on the next class or I could try to calm down. I stared out the window for a good three minutes, focusing on the balding cherry blossom trees, meditating on how temporary emotions are. I thought about how I had been looking on these same trees for seven seasons, seeing children grow up. Ultimately one day is like a blossom in the wind, neither here nor there. That’s what put me back together, so I could finish my day.
When Acceptance released “Cold Air,” last summer, I was immediately taken by the catchy, ’80s New-Wave electronica meets The Outfield-style harmonies sang by lead singer Jason Vena. However, the rest of the album failed to pack the punch that their 2005 debut and 2017 sophomore record had. Acceptance had become known for their lyricism, Vena’s near perfect execution in his mid-to-high range vocals, and often haunting/mysterious guitar parts–all mixed and produced by Aaron Sprinkle. However, what Wild, Free offered was clipped guitars, electronics, and gruffer vocal takes by Vena. There were certainly some highlights, but other than “Cold Air,” there hasn’t been much to come back to–except for a song that got stuck in my head today: “Wasted Nights.”
A FADED MEMORY THAT I STILL KEEP IN MY HEAD. There are two types of people: process people and product people. Product people see task A and complete it right away and take a break until it’s time to solve task B. Then, there’s process people. Process people start many tasks at once and work a little here and there. Both types like their styles. I’m a process person. I often have five things going on at once. I watch TV while cleaning my house, but often miss scenes because I have to go into the other room. I have a planner full of tasks to complete by December, but if I have to move the task to next year because some other goal is important, I’m ok with that. Lately I’m challenging myself to completion, but honestly, for process people, we fear success. We want to constantly be in the process. So what happens when a process person dates a product person. You learn to cool down because it’s the weekend. The task for the other person is finished, and you need to learn to calm your racing mind. You need to learn the virtue of being lazy.
I THINK WE MET AROUND THE FIRST OF MAY. Billy Power had an interesting interview with Jason Vena back in 2015, in which Vena talks about how his first marriage dissolved while he was on the road with Acceptance. Vena explains that the two of them were high school sweethearts, yet distance proved too much for the couple. He spoke fondly about his second wife in the this episode. They met after Acceptance had broken up and Vena had quit music for a day job. Knowing Vena’s history makes me wonder which relationship he’s talking about in this song. To some extent, if you give more in a relationship, you receive more. This is not always true because everyone is different, and of course, this is not taking into account abusive situations. However, any given two people are not necessarily compatible. Relationships take time, and the pay off can be a fairytale romance or a bitter divorce after the seven-year itch. One line from How I Met Your Mother that I think about is when Ted is comparing his break up with Robin to “the emotional equivalent to an English degree.” You’ve learned the other person’s nuances, yet it won’t work on the next relationship. But then I think about if you don’t break up with that person. Wouldn’t it be pretty rewarding to study up for that A? Or should you aim for a C?
Last month I talked about NYVES, the Ryan Clark/Randy Torres electronic project. Today is the day after Easter and from all of the family Facebook posts about Easter, I feel a nostalgia for the holiday, which is not really celebrated in Korea, at least in the few churches I’ve attended here. Unlike holidays like Christmas and Halloween, none of my Korean students know about it, even though I teach in a Christian school. As for Adventists in America, most celebrate or at least acknowledge Easter, and there is often a special service the Saturday before Easter Sunday. Some Adventists also attend other Christian denominations on Easter Sunday for the special services, but we were always told to beware of the pagan traditions that include all of the fun stuff, like egg hunts and chocolate, although my family and many other Adventist families did celebrate Easter in that way.
I BELIEVE IN RESURRECTION. Ryan Clark’s music and artwork consistently deals with darkness. Even the most easy listening pop or CCM album cover he creates incorporates some dark elements. I think that what makes his art especially appealing to the youth group. Growing up in a conservative household, darkness was mostly censored. No movies with supernatural elements—no ghosts, witches or imagery that suggested anything dark, unless it pertained to chocolate. Christian art that touched on the dark elements was also suspect. I had to hide so many CDs from my mom when I was growing up. One that I bought at the Family Christian Book Store (that was later removed on request by the band) was Evanescence’s Fallen album. My mom found it, looked at the cover–Amy Lee looking gothic on the cover– opened the lyrics and read the lyrics to the last song aloud “Fallen angels at feet/ Whispered voices in my ear/ Death before my eyes/ Lying next to me, I fear.” She exclaimed that it was “pornographic,” and through the CD in the trash. Unbroken, we were able to rescue it and hid it away in another case. Skillet, P.O.D., and Demon Hunter, just to name a few, also used dark lyricism and imagery. And because of the repression at home and caused many church kids to devour this content.
WHEN THESE SHADOWS THEY CONSUME MY NARROW PATH. In my college creative writing class, we talked about how Christians could write songs using minor chords, but the song should end on a major chord. Life is full of darkness, but ultimately light will prevail, and the Great Controversy will conclude with God as the victor. I’ve been thinking of that cliche since then, and I realize that it’s certainly an excuse for sub-par art. Feeling restricted to a happy ending can lead to a damaging repression of truth. Sometimes life is just shitty. Some days, weeks, months, years can be shitty. This is true for anyone, even people of faith. Furthermore, some stories end tragically, and by all accounts the people who are looking at it from the earthly perspective we’ve only been granted can’t make sense of the tragedy. Ryan Clark and Randy Torres decided to end this project with “Light,” a track that seems to be a conclusion that is jumped to in the context of the album. However, on their follow up EP, they choose not to do that, ending on “Details.”My question is, how can faith be more than a band-aid? Sometimes in the rush to get to resurrection, we miss the details of the Garden of Gethsemane. And this rushing over the complex and nuance in order to “end on a major chord” ignores the church of the hurting. It ignores the uncertainty we feel about our future. It makes religion seem irrelevant to our lives.
Andrew McMahon has led three successful musical projects over the span of 22 years, starting with the pop-punk band, Something Corporate, the piano-driven band Jack’s Mannequin, and his solo project, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness. I first got to know Jack’s Mannequin in college during a class trip for my Intro to Caving class, a class you take when you need a P.E. credit to fit into your 16 hours of literature, education, and history classes, but it becomes more intrusive because you have to schedule caving trips. The class made me never want to crawl through another cave again, but I still listen to Jack’s Mannequin’s The Glass Passenger fondly. I dug into their first album, Everything in Transit, but my favorite is their final record, People and Things, in which McMahon’s lyricism and the piano/guitar melodies are the strongest.
I FOUND A TIDAL WAVE BEGGING TO TEAR DOWN THE DAWN. The Glass Passenger
was written and released after McMahon’s recovery from acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The record’s title refers to McMahon’s fragile state after his diagnosis. Not all of the songs on the album address this time in the singer’s life, but “Swim” talks about fighting against hopelessness. The music video includes fans and their artwork which contains messages of why they keep “swimming.” The central metaphor in this song reminds us of how big the ocean is that we are up against. It doesn’t let us off easily with platitudes or sugarcoat the battles, or even say that it’s possible to win. We just have to try and hope that the small efforts we make will keep us alive. We hope that the small strokes we make in the ocean through our struggles, others will join with us to offset the injustices done in the world.
I SWIM FOR BRIGHTER DAYS, DESPITE THE ABSENCE OF SUN. In some ways, last year seemed to be a finale of 5 bad years, starting with 2016. But when one problem comes to a close, we find five more to take its place. And yet, I think about today, being Easter, and what that really means to those who believe in the hope of Resurrection. Metaphorically, the resurrection of Christ takes place in the spring, a time when life is renewed after a season of death in fall and burial in winter. Belief in the resurrection of Jesus propelled his followers to make a religion that claims a third of the world’s population by some estimates. The significance around the belief in Christ’s resurrection has been the source of joy and freedom to many, but also used as power to enslave and weaponize against others. But no matter your belief–in God, in Buddha, in man, in family, in money–everyone believes in something. And that something doesn’t come easily. You have to work for it. You’ve gotta swim for it.
Early last year, Taylor Swift released a documentary titled Miss Americanawhich talked about her music up to the release of 2019’s Lover. While Swift’s country music past and her latest ventures with Folkloreand Evermore certainly can touch on Americana, if you placed Taylor Swift’s CD leaflets on a table next to Lana Del Rey‘s and asked anyone on the street to which lyricist better embodied the dictionary.com definition of “things associated with the culture and history of America,” Lana Del Rey would probably be crowned the real “Miss Americana.” But being the real, unrecognized “Miss Americana” can be just as problematic as the tainted past of the great country. Lana Del Rey is no stranger to controversy or acclaim. She is a polarizing star on the pop charts (when she chooses to release a hit) and pop culture. Sometimes called regressive to feminism, Lana Del Rey has been cancelled more times than most celebrities. Yet there is something about her words that many cling to satirically.
THE ONLY THING WE’LL TURN IS THE PAGES OF ALL OF THE POEMS WE BURNED. My first encounter with Lana Del Rey was the 2013 TheGreat Gatsbysoundtrack with her song “Young and Beautiful.” The anachronistic soundtrack added modern interpretations to the 1925 novel that I would have never made from my several readings of the book, and “Young and Beautiful” deepened Daisy’s seemingly shallow character to me. After hearing “Young and Beautiful,” I delved into Born to Die and discovered a dusty old closet, filled with elegant gowns, talk of old films and books, tales of yesteryear, hiphop beats and sixties style vocals. It was like meeting your grandmother as a teenager. I couldn’t get into her follow up Ultraviolence, although many fans consider it her best album. By her third record, Honeymoon, Del Rey settled into a not-so-Top-40 style of ’60s dream pop, losing the hip-hop catchiness, but keeping up with the lyrical intensity. LP number 6, Chemtrails Over the Country Club sees the singer become a California folk singer and adding higher registers to her normally alto voice.
TELEVISION STATIC WAS QUITE OVERWHELMING. Bruce Springsteen has called Del Rey one of the best songwriters today. However, as a listener she is not always accessible. Just like you need to sit down to watch a movie, you need time to listen to a Lana Del Rey album. And 2021 is not a year with long flights or car rides. Furthermore, what’s the pay off? One listen may not do it, particularly with the experimental direction the singer takes. And with all that time sitting and listening to these lyrics that could be satire or serious, glorifying the old-timey pop culture built on racism and misogyny that is best left in the past. Having not gone too deep on Chemtrails “Yosemite” is a pretty good song, featuring some interesting drumming, a folk guitar, interesting production, and a stunning music video. If you do spend some time with this album, I would like to know–genius or pretentious?
Between their debut album Destination: Beautiful and their fan-favorite sophomore record The Everglow,Mae released Destination: B-Sides, which includes live and acoustic renderings of some of the standout tracks, songs that didn’t make it to the record, and demos that would make it onto The Everglow. The chorus of “Sun” contains the the lyrics “Destination Beautiful,” making “Sun” like the title track of the album, and one of the the most memorable tracks in the middle of the album, and it has one of the finest melodies on the album after “Embers and Envelops” and “All Deliberate Speed.”
IF YOU’RE WILLING, LET IT GO. In a 2018 two-part episode of Labeled(now available only to Patreon subscribers), Mae’s lead singer Dave Elkins talked about the inspiration for the songs on Destination: Beautiful. Many of the tracks had to do with a disagreement between Elkins and members at his church. Elkins wrote many of the songs, including the first track “Embers and Envelops” in hopes to repair the broken relationship. “Sun” also talks about this misunderstanding. The lyrics on the band’s debut album are vague and arguably immature compared to the subject matter in their more recent efforts, sticking to lines like “something happened.” No one is incriminated, and the song can be applied to the listeners’ own lives and is problems. Mae would eventually reject Christian marketing, and their recent efforts deal with band members’ deconstruction journeys and explorations into art and science.
WAITING FOR THE RAIN TO STOP. The moody weather of April showers, when days start out clear, only to cloud up and surprise us with showers, or a cloudy morning that clears for a windy afternoon before a weekend of rain, it’s a month of transitions. When the weather and life is in flux, it’s tempting to think of the time as a waiting period—waiting for things to settle down. You’re waiting for “Destination beautiful.” But you go through enough of these waiting periods and you start to realize that this is your life. What’s the ultimate destination of the weather? It’s best to just try to enjoy whatever it brings. What’s the ultimate destination of a life but the grave? Best to make the moments count and enjoy the rainy weekend around the corner.
In the summer of ’99 I was 12 years old. I spent the first half of the summer with my dad, a truck driver, as he crossed the U.S. delivering camper chassis and steel. A lot of kids would get bored looking at the Interstate for hours, but I always loved the journey. I loved maps and geography, and I was getting a firsthand experience of seeing what America looked like. Of course there were some boring parts. But what was best about the miles of cornfields was that the radio stations lasted quite a while– a lot longer than they lasted in the foothills of North Carolina. With my dad, I got to experience new (old) music that my mom didn’t approve of at the time. On the road I first listened to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd‘s Dark Side of the Moon, Steve Miller Band, George Thorogood, America, and so many others I could fill a whole blog post listing. We also listened to new music–Red Hot Chili Peppers, Goo Goo Dolls, and Sugar Ray.
IMPAIRED BY MY TRIBAL LUNAR SPEAK. One of the songs that was fun to hear on the radio stations across America was Len‘s summer hit “Steal My Sunshine.” Surfer-dude meets baby doll singing, with strange lyrics, and happy, vibey instrumentation that sound like it would make a dog happy, this song became quite an infection radio gem. Listening to this song again, it reminds me of a time when the radio was fun. You didn’t know what style of music you were going to hear next. The ’90s were a time when alternative rock had a place on the Top 40 along with Hip Hop and bubblegum pop. In the late ’90s rock started flirting more with Hip Hop and electronica, hence making unique tracks like this one. As the Canadian brother-sister fronted band failed to release a follow-up album to their 1999 hit You Can’t Stop the Bum Rush, the band and their style remains a kind of time capsule of the summer before Y2K. It would have been interesting to see where they could have taken pop-rock, though, into the new millennium.
I KNOW IT’S UP FOR ME. If you just take the song on the first listen, along with the embarrassingly awesome music video, you might conclude that it’s just a feel good song with some strange lyrics. However, on a deeper listen/read, you can see that the lyrics are about dealing with depression. The song talks about how other people can “steal [our] sunshine.” It also talks about feeling down when others are enjoying themselves. This is another example of a music/lyric paradox used in songs like “Rose-Colored Boy” and to a lesser extent “Float On.” “Steal My Sunshine,” is a pretty good pre-curser to Emo pop. As for how this song relates to me today, I’ll claim the weather. It was a beautiful day with the cherry blossoms in full bloom, only to get windy and cold. It’s like the sunshine was stolen. Well, and also this week has been long and the students have been crazy, which is another thing that can steal my sunshine. What about 80-100% chance of rain this weekend? Oh well. Other than that, things are pretty good.
Mixtapemotions 