Mixtapemotions

  • “The Boys of Summer” by The Ataris, Tuesday, August 31, 2021

    In the summer of 2003, a rock station in LA started playing an inside cut from The Ataris‘ So Long, Astoria, an album built on the late ’70s and early ’80s nostalgia. The band’s first single, “In This Diary” reached number 11 on the Modern Rock chart. They were set to release the second single, “My Reply,” but the accidental hit “The Boys of Summer” overshadowed anything the band would produce in their twenty-five-year career. A cover of Don Henley‘s 1984 number 1 hit, The Ataris’ punk-rock reworking took the single to number 20 on the Hot 100 and number 2 on the Modern Rock chart, unable to beat Linkin Park‘s “Faint.” Eighteen or thirty-seven summers later, “The Boys of Summer” remains a melancholy reminder that summer is over and that we all are getting older.    

    I SAW A BLACK FLAG STICKER ON A CADILLAC. Written by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers‘ guitarist, Mike Campbell, “The Boys of Summer” was intended for a Tom Petty album, but Petty felt it didn’t match their current sound. Former Eagles singer/guitarist Don Henley was recording his second album, working with Campbell, who offered him “Boys.” Henley took the music and crafted words that painted a vivid picture of the end of summer and that clearly symbolized getting older and longing for the past. In the third verse, Henley gives an interesting juxtaposition. The original line, “a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” was inspired by something Henley had actually seen. He says: “I was driving down the San Diego Freeway and got passed by a $21,000 Cadillac Seville, the status symbol of the Right-wing upper-middle-class American bourgeoisie – all the guys with the blue blazers with the crests and the grey pants – and there was this Grateful Dead ‘Deadhead’ bumper sticker on it!” Henley is the hypocrisy of the Baby Boomer generation, who went from hippies who protested the corporate-structured life to those who participated in it and later propitiated it. The Ataris’ Kris Roe updated this reference–“a Blackflag sticker on a Cadillac.” Black Flag is a punk rock band that, like the Grateful Dead, protested materialism. The punk rock of the ’80s, in some ways, was a resurgence of Hippy culture, and a new generation’s “Boys of Summer” gets an updated band to remind listeners that rock ‘n’ roll–despite Creed’s video budget–is really not all about money. The biggest mystery of the song, though, is who are the “boys of summer”? In the context of the song, they could be the other boys who love the listener for a time. The song borrows the title of a book about the Brooklyn Dodgers, which borrowed the title from the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas’s poem “I See the Boys of Summer.” Thomas’s poem, too, captures the death of summer, although this poem is much frostier than the subtle change in summer to fall captured by Henley. 

    AFTER THE BOYS OF SUMMER HAVE GONE. “Mom, I’m going to the magazine aisle,” Josh said every time he had to go with his mom to the grocery store. At first, it was car magazines or collectibles, but one day, something caught his eye. Men’s fitness. Somewhere between the car magazines and the magazines with girls in bikinis and right next to the steroid body-builder magazines, there was a genre of magazines that featured men with chiseled abs, waxed, muscular pecs, five-o’clock shadows, and pearly white smiles. A chill would go down his spine as he got the courage to pick up one of those magazines. A side glance. But little by little he rationalized, “There’s no harm in learning some exercises.” Besides Mad for Muscle, the too-big, steroid men’s magazine, which repulsed Josh, there were three other fitness magazines. Josh picked up Men’s Health from time to time, the most innocuous of the health magazines. Still, he worried that the “sex tips” always marked on the front cover, usually bearing a shirtless Hollywood actor whom Josh often found unattractive, might earn him a scolding from his mother if she caught him. If Men’s Health wasn’t interesting, he would look at one of the other magazines, Men’s Exercise and Lifestyle, which was like Men’s Health, but with slightly more provocative photos of better-looking, more muscular men. The magazine had more detailed exercise photos. There were photos of men with sweat glistening their baby-oiled muscles, but it was also easy to find a whey protein recommendation or a Q&A about what you should eat before a workout. In other words, pages to quickly turn to in case of an incoming threat to his reputation. He braced for the situation, “Hi, Allan! What are you looking at?” “I’m, uhh, getting interested in exercise. I’m looking for, um, tips.” The cover of Men’s Gym Magazine always tempted Josh the most. On the few occasions he had the courage to open an issue, he found very few workout tips and even fewer “safe pages.” Inside the magazine, men posed more provocatively than in any of the other magazines. On one page, he saw a man putting a water hose down the front of his short shorts, the water rushing down his thick, muscular thigh. On another page, a man was showing off his glute muscles, his white briefs just below his buttocks. On yet another page, three bulky men were in a kiddy pool, splashing, all of them wearing tiny speedos. At first glance, these images shocked Josh. He hated himself for looking at them. The fear that someone from church would see him, or worse, his mom would catch him and he’d have to explain what he was doing. And he didn’t even know what he was doing. So he watched like a gazelle lapping up water from a river full of crocodiles and predators waiting in the forest of the surrounding aisles. Between the pages of sexy hunks, there were advertisements for fitness supplements and underwear, and there was one advertisement for a video series titled The Boys of Summer. Josh wondered what was on that tape, and if Don Henley’s song had anything to do with that rush he felt in the magazine aisle of the grocery store?

    The Ataris’ cover:

  • "Git It Up" (투자) by H.O.T, Monday, August 30, 2021

    Many credit the formation of Seo Taiji and the Boys in 1992 as the birth of K-pop. Singer Seo Taiji had been a member of a heavy metal group in ’80s but decided to experiment with electronic music and choreography. Seo, in essence, started the ripple, whereas, today’s boy band was part part of a forming Korean wave, or Hallyu (한류) that seems turning into more and more of a tsunami every year. The boy bands and girl groups of early ’00s were known by Korean enthusiasts. Korean cinema was known by film buffs. But in 2012 when Psy’s “Gangnam Style” hit the Internet, the wave officially hit everywhere. In the late ’10s, BTS and other K-pop groups started placing well on Billboard’s Hot 100, performing on American television shows, and featuring on American pop albums. Then in 2020, Korean director Bong Joon-ho cleaned up the Oscars with his film Parasite (기생충). Korean dramas, too, are part of the wave. While they haven’t broken through in their original language to the same extent that Parasite or BTS has, they are extremely popular in Asia and growing more popular in other places thanks to platforms such as Netflix.


    EVERYONE CAN’T IGNORE IT NOW THAT THEY USED TO THEIR SPOILED GREED. Going back before the wave crested, the drama Reply 1997 (응답하라 1997) takes viewers to the late ’90s to the time of Japanese digital pets, Dance Dance Revolution, dial-up internet, and a time when K-pop was ruled by two rival boy bands: H.O.T and Sechs Kies. Besides being an excellent character-driven drama, Reply 1997 gives viewers a feel of what K-pop fandom was at its inception. We meet directionless Shi-won (played by Apink’s Jeong Eun-ji), whose only teenage ambition is to become the wife of H.O.T member Tony Ahn (cameoed in the drama by the real Tony Ahn). As the drama goes on, she has a falling out with her friend Yoo-jung, when Shi-won realizes that Yoo-jung is actually a Sechs Kies fan. There are so many nods to early K-pop, including Ji-won’s eventual boyfriend, played by none other than Sech Kies’s Eun Ji-won–the oldest member of the cast trying to pass as a teenager–Glee? Smallville?  The drama follows the high school years of Shi-won and her friends. While the others are studying for the 수능 or CSAT, the college entrance exam that determines if or where you can attend university, Shi-won is sneaking off on a bus to Daegu for an H.O.T concert. 

    IN THAT INCURABLE SADNESS, THEY ARE ONCE AGAIN INSIDE US. Korean boy band music has been the soundtrack of teenagers since the ’90s, but Korean boy bands didn’t always sound like BTS, nor did they sound like the American/Swedish-produced equivalents. While some of the songs of High-Five of Teenagers (or H.O.T for short) are called bubblegum pop, the band was always more rap-heavy. Some complained that their lead single from 1998’s Resurrection  “Line Up!” plagiarized Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of.” Whether or not that was the case, H.O.T showed a much more aggressive sound than the Backstreet Boys or other ’90s American boy bands. In June of 1999, the band shared the stage with Michael Jackson, who was doing a benefit concert in Seoul. In September, they released their fourth album. The second single from 1999’s I Yah! “Git It Up!” sounds like hardcore rap and comes just short of screaming like the harder rock/hip-hop acts of the day. The boy band, too, took on a gothic aesthetic in their imagery and costumes. The lead single and title track of the album were a reference to a fire that killed elementary school students earlier that year. The music video for “Git It Up” includes scary imagery of a grim reaper standing over a baby in the nursery. It’s not quite Marylin Manson, but there is a sense of the ironic and grotesque the band is trying to convey with their message. The band broke up in 2001, when they couldn’t agree on a the terms of renewing their contract with SM Entertainment. While many say that ’90s pop or K-pop doesn’t hold up, Reply 1997 helped to give a resurgence to the old boy bands. And for non-Koreans, the drama introduced a world we never knew existed. 
    H.O.T concert scene from Reply 1997:
    “Git It Up” music video:

  • “Heading Up High" by Armin van Buuren ft. Kensington, Sunday, August 29, 2021

    Dutch DJ Armin van Buuren‘s sixth studio album Embrace was released in 2015. The album topped the Dutch charts and reached number 4 on the Billboard US Dance/ Electronica charts. “Heading Up High” was released as a single in February 2016. The song featured Dutch rock band Kensington. The band had formed in 2005 and had modest success in the Netherlands and Belgium. Like groups like A-ha, Scorpions, and Blindside, Kensington prefers to record songs in English rather than their native tongue. “Heading Up High” reached number 40 on the Dutch charts. It’s a pop song, but it also has clear rock origins. These days, EDM has mostly ignores rock, yet ‘rock bands’ such as Imagine Dragons and Coldplay have incorporated more and more electronic elements to stay relevant. The smokey, rock-vocal style of Eloi Youssef makes for an interesting dance track along with the the synthetic sounding electric guitar. 


    WHEN YOU’RE HOLDING ONTO ALL THAT YOU CAN’T BE. After months of neglecting his physical health, Allan decided to start spending his lunch break at the health club in his apartment complex. The grueling 7-10 gave him a lengthy lunch break which he had spent preparing lessons and waiting for the next class to start. But a lot was going to change for Allan. First, he would start treating his workplace as a job rather than a mission. He had known that the head office was all about profit for quite some time, but he had placed his hope in the local. He loved the city he had spent two years in. He had bonded with his students, church members, and staff at the institute. However, the local was letting him down too. Pastor Shim had made it clear: he was interested in money. The spiritual component was a gimmick. Allan understood this as self preservation. He too would start practicing self-preservation. He was young and well dressed. He was collecting a paycheck he had no time to spend, so most of it was going to student loans. He lived on convenience store breakfasts after his 7 am class finished and rushed dinners–kimbap, ddukpoki, or something he could scarf down during one of his ten-minute breaks in the evening. Lunch was usually the meal he enjoyed, but he would cut that time short for exercise. After his class ended at 11, he walked home and changed. The summer was ending, so that meant he could wear the same shirt for the afternoon classes.

    IT’S A LONG WAY DOWN. Unbuttoning his checkered green shirt, he looked at his body in the mirror. He had only ever kept a doddering workout routine. Those sticky-paged magazines he had in high school with the men who were jacked had given him tips and he started to work out. He threw them away, though, when he the pang of spiritual guilt told him to remove all stumbling blocks. “If your right hand causes you to sin,” though Josh was left handed, and come to think of it many had become left handed in since the Internet had gotten faster. Josh thought that even if he plucked out his eyes and cut off both hands, he would find a way to sin. Those images would be forever burned into his brain and he could recall them whenever he wanted. Health, for Adventists, was practical, never sexy. It was supposed to make you live like his great-grandfather had until 100, expecting to see the return of Jesus. As a young man, you were supposed to be humble like Jesus and look humble too. Jesus “had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2 NIV). Josh’s priorities had been achievements, first his music, his degree, and then his teaching. A trip to the gym was too time consuming, too selfish. But in the mirror he saw his skinny-fat body was was nothing to be desired. A patch of chest hair, acne scaring on his back, hunched shoulders. He thought about his great-grandfather, what he looked like before he died. The smell of the green smoothies he drank daily and the drool coming from his chin convinced Josh that he didn’t want to give up everything fun and watch his friends die as he approached the 22nd century. He changed into a pair of shorts that almost covered his knees and a loose t-shirt and headed off to the gym, hoping to see the man in the tight squat shorts. 
     

  • “Many Funerals” by Eisley, Saturday, August 28, 2021

    Last month I talked about Eisley, the named-for-Star-Wars sister-cousin band from Tyler, Texas. Their major label debut garnered indie cred, but due to some issues in the music industry, the band’s label de-prioritized their sophomore release, delaying it almost a year from its recording and mastering. As for promotion, the record label pulled radio support as they weren’t sure which format to market the band and canceled plans for a second music video to the band’s only non-radio single “Invasions” and never released the video for today’s song, “Many Funerals.” Eisely can be added to the list of Christian-adjacent bands, such as MuteMath, Copeland, Mae, The Juliana Theory, and Anberlin, that were failed by major labels. Some of these groups saw initial success, whether radio, video, or touring, but ultimately they were left abandoned by the major label. Although RadioU plays some of their latest singles, by the end the Room Noises cycle, Eisley’s creative path didn’t have them marketed to the Christian rock format, which is what happened to groups like Mae, Copeland, and the Juliana Theory.


    YOUNG AND AGILE, SEASIDE BORN. The lyrics of “Many Funerals” make the listener imagine a dark sea-side setting, that perhaps is set in the past. The sentence structure has an old-timey feel. The lyrical content is fictional. The Dupree parents are still alive (and active on Instagram), and the Dupree children were born in a landlocked county in Northeast Texas. There’s not much information online about Eisley’s comments on the song, so listeners are left to guess what it’s about. The listener, the person the song seems to be addressing, seems also to have died by suicide. Sherri sings, “How could you have left us here? You had your friends, you had us, goodbye.” It could also be blaming the person for a sickness or accident that person had no control over, which sometimes happens when someone dies. No matter the cause of death, “Many Funerals” is a gloomy album opener. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s On Death and Dying categorizes stages of grief humans had been unconsciously practicing for millennia. Art–be it literature, painting, song, or dramatization–helps us a species reconcile with our own mortality. We can see others in their grieving processes. However, we cannot weigh the grief of individuals in the past, when death was much more prevalent, nor can we weigh the grief of others in the present, in a time when statistically we are living longer, despite the cancers, heart disease, car accidents, and gun violence. One funeral is one too many. Eventually one day, the funeral will be yours if it’s not mine first. 

    I’M CONTENT TO LIE PEACEFULLY. “I’ve seen so many missionaries come and go,” Kelly said turning her eyes back to Allan. The wooden interior of the emptying restaurant made her voice sound far away. “Some of them I’ve kept in contact with. But there was one man, you kind of reminded me of him, at least you have the same blue eyes, a similar openness to learning about this country, and the same unwavering faith.” She looked out the window again. The soft end of summer breeze blew through the trees at the dessert cafe’s court yard, and the lack of. Allan unwrapped a chocolate served to him with his coffee. “Do you want the other one.” Ignoring the question, she turned back to Allan. “He was at our institute for three years. He was my English teacher for several terms. I learned so much from him. When we went out for the tea times with the other students, the ajumma would ask ‘What kind of girl are you looking for?’ and he’d reply that he was looking for a girl who didn’t speak any English,” she unwrapped the chocolate offered to her. “Wait, what?” Kelly turned her head as if the motion were melting the chocolate on her tongue. Her eyes danced as she looked at Allan. When the chocolate had melted, she said, “He wanted to teach her everything. He didn’t want her to have any mistakes embedded in her foundation. He wanted purity.” “I don’t know how I feel about that.” “Me too.” Kelly let out a sigh through her nose. “Eventually he did meet someone, Mi-young. She didn’t speak a lick of English, and he did teach her.” “Was she happy?” “I don’t know. Maybe. For a time. Anyway, they moved to America. Texas. I wrote to him, just to keep in touch, like I do with the other missionaries who were impactful in my life. I even visited them in the late ’90s. But one day, he stopped returning my letters. Mi-young wrote me back about a year and a half later, saying that he had died. Melanoma. He was too young, maybe thirty-four.” “That’s very sad you lost your friend that way.” “He was so much more than a friend,” the silence hung in the empty cafe. “He was a mentor, a spiritual adviser, a good man. I hope I can see him again someday.” She glanced at her watch. “Goodness,” she said grabbing her keys, “we have to get back to work!”

  • One Way Love (너 밖에 몰아) by Hyolyn, Friday, August 27, 2021

     

    In 2013, vocalist Hyolin from the K-pop girl group Sistar released her debut solo record. Sistar had debuted just three years earlier and only lasted until 2017. Songs like “Push, Push,” “Touch My Body,” and “Shake It” made them some of the sexiest K-pop songs of the time. On 2013’s Love & Hate, Hyolyn worked with Korean Hip-hop producers and featured several Korean Hip-hop acts. Listeners can draw comparisons between Hyolyn and Ariana Grande. Both singers are light lyric sopranos with a whistle range. But singers introduce a light femininity to a hip-hop backdrop. Both singers’ performances are permeated with an overt, proud sexuality.

    YOU’RE A SELFISH GUY WHO ONLY THINKS ABOUT HIMSELF. “One Way Love” talks about a rather toxic relationship, that sadly, often turns into a toxic marriage. While, the intro, confusingly and in English, is spoken by the male perspective, the rest of the song is the female perspective. Hyolyn accuses her partner of never letting her meet her friends, while he is “out drinking all night long.” He chooses the restaurants and makes all the decisions without consulting her. The most damning accusation is that he “only know[s himself].” The video shows the ambivalence of this kind of relationship. Hyolin both complains and ingratiates her partner. She won’t leave him, but she will complain in this song. Released in November 2013, “One Way Love” reached number one on the K-pop charts and is Hyolin’s biggest song to date. In 2014, it was still widely played in Korea, and it was one of the songs played at the small sandwich shop across from the institute where Allan often ate his lunch. Sometimes, for a short time, his class schedule coincided with Kelly and he often asked her to lunch. During these lunches the two got very close and shared about their pasts. Their conversations were not as if they were twenty years apart. But under scrutiny, from outsiders, Allan was informed appeared a certain way. “She’s really into you,” Abram said, shaking his head and chuckling. “No, it’s not like that at all,” Allan said with his heart sinking. “She’s old enough to be my mother. We just have great conversation.” But feelings were confusing. Love shouldn’t look this way, should it? He had this welling feeling in his heart.

    MY THOUGHTS AREN’T THAT IMPORTANT TO YOU. Lunch was not often the sandwich shop for the short time in the spring of 2014 that they met for lunch. Kelly had been a vegetarian since the ’80s when she was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist church. “The missionaries were a lot stricter back then. Not very fun like today,” she said with a breezy laugh. So instead, they ate a lot of Korean temple food, consisting mostly of rice and side dishes. Sometimes some of her ajumma friends would join them, and they would eat at a place that served meat or fish. Kelly’s friends were impressed with how Allan enjoyed soybean-paste stew and complimented his chopstick skills. He told them about how in college, when he thought that he might come to Korea, he forced himself to learn how to eat with chopsticks by watching YouTube videos and being drilled by his friends who knew how to use them. Kelly seemed amused by everything Allan said. When it was time to stand up, they laughed as Allan’s legs had fallen asleep. But during the intimate lunches, just the two of them, they shared fragments of their pasts. Allan talked about college and his family and growing up Adventist. Kelly talked about her family, about her 20s after college serving as a missionary Taiwan and Japan. She talked about her trips to the U.S. and her connections at Mission College where she studied theology for two months. They talked about Korean culture and the expectations on men and women by society. “I would never marry a Korean man,” she said over a cup of barley tea, “particularly if he’s Adventist.” “What do you mean?” “Korean men, at least my age, are very traditional. They want women to do everything for them.” “And if he’s Adventist?” “He uses the Bible to justify it,” she set her cup down a little harder than she intended. “So, just foreigners in your past?” She gave a knowing laugh and her eyes turned to the window on the opposite side of Allan.

  • "Diamonds" (Rihanna cover) by Josef Salvat, Thursday, August 26, 2021

    Written by Sia, recorded and popularized by Rihanna, and today covered by Australian singer Josef Salvat, “Diamonds” is a powerful song, no matter the version. When Sia sang the song in James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke, I thought it would have been a great pre-“Chandelier” mainstream introduction to Sia. But Rihanna took the song to number one, something that a less popular Sia may have not been able to do in 2012. Two years later, Josef Salvat released a slower piano-ballad version. The piano makes the song sound urgent and more desperate than Rihanna’s version. The song was used for a Sony commercial, helping the singer gain international recognition. “Diamonds” borrows the metaphor from “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Lyrically, the song sounds both happy and sad. On one hand, the singer is talking about shining and reflecting light; however, the distances between two bodies in space makes me think about loneliness. When Rihanna “chose [sic] to be happy” it might mean putting distance between a loved one. Particularly if the “moonshine and molly” gets out of control. 

    YOU’RE A SHOOTING STAR I SEE, A VISION OF ECSTASY. At 9:30 everyone crammed into the StarEx van. Allan tried to sit in the very back with his music, but Kelly got in beside him. “How are you doing, Allan?” After the door light went out all he could see the silhouette of her long hair. “It’s been a long day.” “Yes. You didn’t hear the half of it. Pastor Shim was talking for hours about the Institute and how we need to reform and how we need to sacrifice and a little bit about how we need to pray. It seems that central office really has it out for this place, but somehow our student numbers always bounce back just when they’re about to shut us down, and that’s of course because of our great teachers.” “But central office still isn’t happy.” Kelly was silent for a moment. The van was speeding one the mountain road. “No. They want baptisms.” “It’s funny. In orientation, they spent four days on their English curriculum, and an hour on the missionary work. Some of the institutes don’t even have missionaries.” “You know, Korean is a very implied language. There are grammatical structures to make the language less and less direct. The problem is, the less direct language the pastor uses, he intends to push church members to do something. “What, then, was the implied meaning of tonight’s message?” Kelly sighed. “I’m very sorry that you came today. I’m sorry that I came. As you know, the gossip surrounding Pastor Shim’s dishonesty is growing. You know that I’m just translating a message, right?” “Kelly, I trust you. We’ve been friends since I’ve been in Korea.” “Well, the implied meaning is that all church members are not doing enough to keep the institute alive. And that you should be persuading the students much stronger to come to the events.” “But I’m not permanent. What are the church members doing to foster new believers? A foreign English teacher can’t be the only one bringing in new people.” 
    WHEN YOU HOLD ME, I’M ALIVE. Allan felt sick in the pit of his stomach. All of the relationships he built with his students had expectations attached to them. He felt he had done a good job, being the only missionary at the institution, during a transitional time when the company was filling teaching positions rather than missionary posts. He thought of the opportunities he had missed to bring students from Marley and Lily’s classes to church. Then he got angry. Why was it all on him? Wasn’t he allowed to be his introverted self? When could he be him. Kelly’s expression softened in the dark, like a sympathetic colleague that had always thought of her. “There’s a lot of things really not going right right now. Pastor Shim isn’t doing what he can. Head office certainly isn’t doing what they can. And the church members are just sitting around waiting for some miracle to happen. And one thing’s for sure, church members always love to complain. They complained about the talent shows that Jay put on last year. Said it was too worldly. Yet, it was an opportunity to show interest in the students.” As they approached the city, street lights danced on Allan and Kelly’s faces, revealing a sadder, tireder continence on Allan’s face, his five o’clock shadow and loosened tie, Kelly’s age defying makeup covering the fact that she was old enough to be his mother. Smushed close together, his tight khakis, her sundress. Abram said something about when Kelly is with Allan, it’s like they’re the only two in the world.
    Josef Salvat version: 
    Original:

  • "Head over Heels" by Tears for Fears, Wednesday, August 25, 2021

    No ’80s New Wave playlist is complete without a song from Tears for Fears. The band was a huge hit producer on a few of their albums; however, like Third Eye Blind in the late ’90s, Tears for Fears peaked early in their career in the mid-‘80s. Their second #1 hit, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” is their “grocery store classic,” meaning it’s so popular they play it in the grocery store. “Head Over Heels” is a song about falling in love getting older and not meeting the expectations others set out for you. Sinit ger Roland Orzabel said of the song “It is a romance song that goes a bit perverse at the end.” One does wonder why there’s a gun and who the second verse is about. Is it him or her? Two memories are strongly connected to this song. First was the cover by Christian band Kids in the Way. Second was the opening montage of 2001’s Donnie Darko.


    ONE LITTLE BOY, ONE LITTLE MAN, FUNNY HOW TIME FLIES. Roland Orzabel and Curt Smith were part of a ska-influenced, mod-rock band called Graduate. The group toured across Europe, but Roland and Curt felt more at home in the studio. They began playing with new toys, the latest studio technology to come into recording–new synthesizers and drum loops. With these new effects, the new duo only needed to add their voices, a guitar, and a bass. Under the moniker Tears for Fears, the duo’s single “Mad World” started growing in popularity in the U.K. and abroad, and the studio band took to touring again. The band’s second album, 1985’s Songs from the Big Chair released 5 of the 7 tracks as singles. The album had two #1 Hot 100 hits “Shout” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” The duo has talked about their writing process, writing songs that were very personal to them. They never shy away from introspection or writing emotional lyrics. It’s no wonder why the Emo acts of the early ’00s oven site Tears for Fears as their post-punk ancestors. Tears for Fears’ music videos haven’t aged well. The image of ’80s music videos like Tears for Fears and A Flock of Seagulls put me off of ’80s music for years. The video for “Head Over Heels” is set in a library in which the “hot librarian” is hushing the band as the are performing in the library. By the end of the video, we see that Roland has married the librarian, and they are an old married couple. Roland is in his personal residence which has a sizable library. Recently, Tears for Fears announced a new record coming out in February 2022. The interview cycle now sees the duo, video chatting from their very English homes, complete with extensive libraries.
    I MADE A FIRE, I’M WATCHING IT BURN. “Head over Heels” is the opening montage which introduces us to most of the main characters in Donnie Darko. We’re introduced to the students and teachers at a Catholic school on the first day of school. You may have never heard of this movie staring Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal and Drew Barrymore. The film had a limited theatrical release in October 2001 after the advertisement was pulled from TV due to its depiction of a plane crash. I’ve talked about how 9/11 had affected music, like how Jimmy Eat World changed the title of their album Bleed American and about Squad 5-0’s Bombs over Broadway hindered the band’s breakout success. Unfortunately, Donnie Darko suffered from 9/11 trauma censorship as well. While the film didn’t make much in the theaters, it did become a cult classic. And why wouldn’t it? The movie tells a science fiction story about time travel or schizophrenia, set in a not-so-strict Catholic family who sends their kids to a conservative Catholic school. There’s the cool literature teacher, Drew Barrymore, the backdrop of the 1988 Bush-Dukakis election, and an awesome ’80s soundtrack. The movie explored the themes of predestination, faith/doubt, conservatism, mental health, and fundamentalism. Besides being a perfect Halloween psychological thriller, the themes are pertinent today as they were back in 2001. 
    Music Video:

    Donnie Darko opening scene:

    Kids in the Way cover:

  • "Midnight City" by M83, Tuesday, August 24, 2021

    “Midnight City” is perhaps the only song that most listeners know of French musician Anthony Gonzalez‘s project, M83. Originally a duo with Nicolas Fromageau, producing shoegazer electronica, Gonzalez took over the group and Fromageau went on to form the band Team Ghost after M83‘s sophomore record, Dead Cities, Red Cities & Lost Ghosts. M83’s best known record is Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming for it’s roots in ’80s nostalgia, hitting 2011 right when older and middle-aged millennials were missing their childhoods. Over the course of Gonzalez’s tenure, M83 albums hit and miss. Hurry Up was definitely a hit. I also hope to devote some time this year to Saturdays= Youth, which is arguably the act’s best record. But today’s song comes from an album made with the synth from Thriller and the drum machine from “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

    WAITING IN THE CAR. Los Angelos is the “Midnight City” Gonzalez is referring to. After relocating from Antibes, France to LA, Gonzalez began to feel at home when he looked over the skyline from the Mohave Desert. Listening to Hurry Up is a bit of an effort. The hit comes first and it’s a double album, lasting over 75 minutes. Gonzalez was inspired by The Smashing Pumpkin‘s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and like Mellon Collie, the standout tracks on Hurry Up take a bit of effort to get to past the atmospheric, ambient Before the Dawn Heals Us -styled tracks. But songs like “Reunion” are a future reflection of rock: one musician composing and producing, rather than a full-band effort–but that’s a story for another day. “Midnight City,” is simple lyrically and structurally. The lines build a scene of being in a city at night. The city at night is not scary, but it’s not safe either. Structurally, this one of the few songs in pop music without a chorus, though it only placed #72 on the Hot 100. Musically, the song builds until it crescendos with the saxophone outro. Gonzalez said of the outro “You know this element [the saxophone] has been overused in the past and is considered cliched or cheesy, but the song needs it.” The video for “Midnight City” starts a trilogy, telling a story similar to Village of the Damned and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The videos for “Reunion” and “Wait” conclude this trilogy.

    DRINKING IN THE LIGHTS. FOLLOWING THE NEON SIGNS. Allan’s Galaxy S3 read 10:26. “Can we even make it back to C at this time?” “Not with all the transferring,” Andrew said. “I suggest gentlemen, that we pick a spot where it’s happening to spend the night. We can take the first train. “I suggest Itaewon,” Jay said, looking up from his phone. “Ah, hell no,” Andrew said shaking his head. “If you really want to navigate the drunken U.S. soldier fights, be my guest. I suggest Hongdae.” “There’s a good cl–,” Jay caught himself, “coffee shop there.” Andrew looked at Jay with a condescending smile. “Now, we ain’t goin’ to no club.” “You know there’s no shame in dancing with a few girls.” “Well, do what you like, but I’m a missionary.” When the three arrived at Hongdae, Allan saw a sea of college students flooding in and out of the metro. Allan got separated from his friends. They were normally easy to spot, an Middle Easterner and African American walking together, but in Hongdae there were more foreigners–white, black, and Asian–than most places he had been in Korea. After he emerged from the exit a disorienting flood of neon lights, people pushing, and EDM blaring. Was he lost in the city? He wandered past the shops and restaurants down an alley which opened up to another road of shops and restaurants and cafes. This street was slightly less busy, but as he walked down the street, he saw signs for “Live music inside” and “Fun! Fun! Drink! Drink!” Outside one of the clubs was a group of college boys–they couldn’t be older than sophomores– dressed as the Avengers, saying in English “Come inside! Come inside! Party! Party!” Allan took a longing glance at the line. What was inside? It had to be innocent, enough. He looked at the Korean Captain America. His costume was tight on his muscular body. 들어와! 들어와! It would certainly be an experience to talk about, wandering into an off season halloween party. He scanned the line. Drunk college boys in groups, girls in short skirts. “Hey, do you speak English?” a boy with a big smile and Harry Potter glasses said to Allan. “Uh-yes.” “Oh, you look like you want to go in, but you don’t have anyone to hang out with. Do you want to hang out with me?” “Um.” “We could just get a drink and meet some girls.” He coughed. “Do you like Korean girls?” “Um….Sure. That sounds–” Allan’s phone buzzed. “Hey man, where did you get to? You should check out this busking group. They’re incredible,” Andrew yelled over the sound of acoustic guitars and cheering.” 


    Official Music Video:

    It’s fun to watch the performance:



    Source for much of my information: 

  • "Clean" by Ryan Adams, Monday, August 23, 2021

     

    When you take an aging hipster singer-songwriter who isn’t bound to a genre, you get a bunch of weird albums. Ryan Adams is that kind of musician. His breakthrough song, “New York, New York” could place him comfortably with the likes of John Mayer. With a career that included punk, metal, and folk experimentation, he decided in 2015 to cover Taylor Swift‘s latest record 1989 in its entirety. Most of the album sounds like a 41-year-old trying to sing a 25 year old’s tunes. Where Swift shines, especially the three major hits: “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” and “Style,” Adams falls flat. However, a few of the duller tracks, like “Out of the Woods” and “Wildest Dreams” as well as the often forgotten tracks like “All You Had to Do Was Stay,” “This Love,” and of course, today’s song, the album closer “Clean,” Adams reinvents the tunes in an interesting way. It’s as if Adams’ pays homage to country Taylor Swift playing her pop tunes acoustically. And maybe, just maybe, listeners could foretaste what Folklore and Evermore might sound like.

    AND THE RAIN CAME POURING DOWN. In a quintessential Taylor Swift manner, 1989 chronicles falling in love, breaking up, and a few flings in between. Swift especially eludes to details of her romantic arc with Harry Styles. Meanwhile, in 2015, Ryan Adams’ relationship with pop singer/actress Mandy Moore was ending in divorce. In 2019, she and six other women claimed that Adams offered mentorship before pursuing them romantically. Perhaps Adams’ recording and releasing a cover of a pop album is parasitic on Swift’s fame and musicianship, but with Adams’ folk rock cred, with fans ranging from musicians to Stephen King, is a gentle nod to where music is heading. The final track, “Clean” coherently interweaves several metaphors: a drought that is broken by drowning rain (apathy v. tears), “a wine stained shirt,” or dress in Taylor’s version, and being “ten months sober” (indulgence v. temperance), flowers and butterflies, once a symbol of early love, turn to dust in his/her bedroom (being choked by the past). Water washes clean “any trace” of the love that the two shared. In the moment one realizes that the love is gone it is both relieving and traumatic. Emotions are ambivalent, and the certainty of not being in love has to be greater than the certainty of being in love. It can be decided in a dusty bedroom, but delayed after receiving a new bouquet in a one-off occasion. Still, the clouds gather, and only true love can weather the storm.

    GONE WAS ANY TRACE OF YOU. “You’re really quiet,” Philip said. “You’ve barely touched your pajeon.” “I guess I’m just tired,” Allan’s gaze broke from the grey ocean, meeting his friend’s eyes. “I slept kind of awful last night. I’m trying to ignore my KakaoTalk messages right now, but I feel like it’s rude.” “Listen, you did what you had to do. You made it clear you’re not going to date your adult students. It’s unethical.” “I’m completely not attracted to her. But I wonder if it’s my fate. Like God’s joke. You can have anything I place in front of you, but there’s a catch.” “What’s the catch?” “There’s always a catch,” Allan took a sip of barley tea and looked back out at the sea. “If I meet the most beautiful woman she’ll be unattainable. She’ll be in one of my classes. She won’t take an interest in me. She won’t be…spiritual.” Philip stabbed a piece of kimchi with his chopsticks, picking it up absently and setting it down again in the bowl. “This year has been challenging. For both of us. But I’m sure that God has a plan, and it might not be what you think. But there’s certainly no wrong in taking a minute to breathe after everything that’s happened. We certainly can’t know all of the answers at once.” When they paid the check and headed out, the rain began to fall. The cold December wind lashed out on beach town which had once been thriving four months before. Allan and Philip walked to check into their Airbnb, which overlooked the ocean from the 14th floor. Allan longed to tell Philip what his true thoughts were, for they were the center of his doubt. After achieving the New Year’s Resolution, he could pretend it never happened–a secret between him and God. He could repent and wait for God to bestow upon him a gift he didn’t deserve: to be normal. And yet, as the waves crashed on the beach and the silence of the afternoon wore on, memories of the night before in the Seoul hotel and snowstorm flooded his mind. Did he end up alone in every scenario. Would even his best friend walk away if he knew the truth? “Oh!” Philip broke Allan’s hypnotism. “Newsflash, an AsianAir plan just crashed into the sea.”
    Read the lyrics on Genius.
    Ryan Adams’ cover:
    Taylor Swift’s original:

  • "Silver Horizon" by Trey Pearson, Sunday, August 22, 2021

    Everyday Sunday was a Christian Rock band from Ohio that grew in popularity thanks to RadioU and TVU, which aired their played their independent music alongside other major Christian rock acts. The band signed to Flicker Records in 2002 before the label folded and then signed to Peter Furler‘s Inpop Records before going independent in 2013. The band was mostly forgotten with the countless Christian Rock bands of the early ’00s, until lead singer Trey Pearson made headlines in May 2016. Pearson had recently divorced his wife of seven and half years. The couple had two children and the divorce was amicable, but Pearson came out to his wife and his family as gay. In May 2016, he came out publicly–career suicide for almost everyone hoping to stay in the Christian music industry. But with a changing music climate in which independent artists have a larger platform and with a broader LGBTQ community and allies both in and out of the church and in and out of the ex-vengelical movement, Trey Pearson makes music authentic to himself, with or without the Everyday Sunday folks.

    I MADE IT TO THE OTHER SIDE/ AND I SAW YOU. Following his coming out, Trey Pearson released an EP titled Love Is Love. The EP produced three singles, including the song “Silver Horizon,” for which he filmed a video. Musically, Pearson strays from the post-grunge Christian Rock sounds of Everyday Sunday in favor of ’80s inspired synth-based music. Thematically, Pearson draws on his coming out experience as well as his faith on Love Is Love. Faith is still important to Trey, which can be seen in the lyrics of Love Is Love and in the single “Silver Horizon.” Without the context of Pearson’s life story, the song is vague and could be about a number of struggles, and the person whom Trey finds could be God or a partner. However, the music video interprets the song. At the beginning of the song, Pearson walks into a large, traditional looking church to watch a young man lip-syncing to “Silver Horizon.” As the song goes on, the young man starts dancing more confidently, and the camera focuses on another young man smiling at him. The video flashes back to Pearson singing the song in his room. The climax of the video is when the boy in the congregation runs to the front of the sanctuary to kiss the singer. The congregation is shocked, but then erupts into applause, including the pastor. Pearson watches proudly from the back of the church. Of course, not all of the LGBTQ community will embrace this message. It was, after all, oppressive Evangelical Christian rock scene that kept Pearson in the closet, had him deny his sexuality, and marry a woman he could not truly love. But as churches become more and more divided on LGBTQ affirmation, Trey Pearson’s video shows that churches can be places where gay people belong. 

    TRYING TO BREAK THAT CHAIN/ PULLING ALL THAT WEIGHT/ WELL, IT JUST MAKES YOU STRONGER.  Sunday afternoon, Abram was sitting on the old pleather couch in Allan’s apartment. The sunlight bathed the third-story apartment. His bag was packed beside him. Allan came into the room and Andrew looked up from his laptop, “What time do your roommates come back?” “Not sure. Marley usually back by dinner on Sunday. Trey gets back late, sometimes barely making it on Monday morning.” “Damn. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a real weekend? If we were more rested we could do our jobs better. Then there’d be no comparison between us and the non-Adventist teachers. Where are they even off to this weekend?” “Marley and Lily said something about hanging out with Ethan and Chase. I think there’s a birthday party or something.” “You know Chase was at my institute. When I transferred there, I replaced him. He wanted to be in Seoul, closer to his boyfriend. Well, I was teaching on of his old classes, and one of the little boys in class drew a picture of Chase and Ethan holding hands,” “Are you kidding?” “No. It’s disgusting. What is the institute doing hiring the unchurched? What’s worse is the Adventists and non-Adventists are spending more time together. Probably Jay was probably at that birthday party. They’ll be out late into the night, drinking and having a foolish time, and that’s fine for people of the world–but nah, people of the church, we have to be sober-minded. Not falling trap to things of this world.”