When The Killers released their debut 2004 Hot Fuss, it ushered in a new era of New Wave music. According to Alan Cross of the Ongoing History Podcast, New Wave was the commercially viable offspring of Punk Rock, which had been successful in the UK but had failed to translate to the American market. New Wave was a British-inspired sound that touched on themes universal to the late-boomer generation. In the early years of the ’00s, Rock had so many popular iterations, it was hard to keep up with. Nu Metal, post hardcore, pop punk, (scr)e(a)mo, garage rock were just a few styles that gained popularity. However, with a massive record like Hot Fuss, there were sure to be copy-cats–bands that would leech onto The Killers’ model of UK success followed by American success. The Bravery were such a band. The Killers’ frontman, Brandon Flowers, called the band out on the copying their playbook, starting the third-wave of New Wave’s crowning feud, in a similar way to the big Emo feud between Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco.
WE DO OUR TIME LIKE PENNIES IN A JAR. The Bravery is a band from New York that debuted in 2005. Arguably, because of bands like The Killers, rock was ready for fun, uptempo music. The band’s eponymous debut album garnered attention in the UK, but a legal dispute didn’t allow them to release their follow up albums in the UK. Meanwhile, in July of 2006 Brandon Flowers apologized to The Bravery. The Killers changed their sound on the their sophomore record, while The Bravery recorded a stronger New Wave record than their debut. The Sun and the Moongave the group two rock radio singles, “Time Won’t Let Me Go,” peaking at #10 and “Believe” peaking at #4. Unlike their debut, Singer and lyricist Sam Endicott weaves existential crisis into positive-sounding tracks. Meta-critic rates this record with a score of 62, which seems low, considering it’s a fine example of happy-sad 3rd wave new wave. The magic that the band captured on their sophomore record, though was lost on their follow up, Stir the Blood. The album takes the darker side of The Sun and the Moon and amplifies it. The darker lyrics match with darker, less catchy melodies. The band didn’t record a follow-up and announced an indefinite hiatus in 2014, though there is talk of a reunion and they are listed to play a festival in Mexico along with Twenty One Pilots.
I’M HIDING FROM SOME BEAST. In a concert video, Endicott says that “Believe” is a song about drinking too much. The Sun and the Moon really resonated with me in college. It was a time when I was building a biblical worldview, guided by Adventist theology, and I looked to songs like this to prove my point: everyone is looking for something to believe. “Believe” isn’t a declaration of belief–it’s an open invitation for the best offer. This is what the predatory evangelist has been waiting for. Adventists teach that many hungry souls will find the truth as the end of days approach. There’s also a teaching that a majority of those who will be saved are still out in the world. But with conversion comes a process of stripping away the world. The steps it takes to become Adventist set the church apart from most denominations. Whereas most Protestant churches require a declaration of belief, Adventists require a list of practices–rather abstinences. Bible studies leading up to Adventist baptism take the participant through the Twenty-Eight Fundamental Beliefs. And with each belief there is some sacrifice required: keeping the Sabbath holy, not eating unclean meats, not drinking alcohol–and in more conservative churches no caffeine. The basic premise of Adventism is that we are not our own, this life is only a training ground for heaven, and the End is near. One of my earliest criticisms of the church was the high barrier of entry. You’re either all in or all out. College-me, who had been building this hybrid Adventist worldview, was pretty sure the church was wrong about that. And that doubt in the church has only grown since then.
October or November in the northern hemisphere are the coldest times of the year. At least they feel that way. Sure, January or February might have the lowest temperature, but you’ve been training through December for how to dress for those cold months. But these days, the cold and warm shifts are getting more dramatic. That’s what happened last Friday. It was summer weather–sweating at work, wearing shorts in the evening. Then suddenly sweater weather with frigid mornings and chilly evenings after the early sunset. I love this time of year. I love not being covered in sweat. While “In the Cold” is not about those cozy, autumn feelings, the sad look back at failed relationships in this song isn’t depressing to me. The guitar tones add hope to melancholy lyrics, making this song almost empowering.
THE WORDS, THEY TAKE THEIR MEANING. While “In the Cold” is a mid-album track that had very little potential to become a single, I feel that this song best encapsulates the “cooling” of interest Columbia Records had with the band. I’ve talked about the anti-piracy CD recall that took the band’s record from the shelves. But there were more problems. Columbia Records signed Acceptance based on their incredible live energy. For rock bands, though, the label made most of its money through ballads. Hence, Phantoms starts out as a pop-rock album that eventually becomes a rock record. The podcasters on Finding Emo give many examples of rock bands needing a rock radio song before their pop ballad. Even the band Hoobastank’s “The Reason,” whom Columbia was trying to capitalize on, didn’t release that song first. The Fray didn’t lead with “How to Save a Life” or “Look After You.” Yellowcard didn’t lead with “Only One.” Releasing a rock radio single first would establish the core fans of the band. The pop ballad would bring their girlfriends on board. And yes, the song “Different” might have been the biggest money-maker–like “Only One” or “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” the shortcut of skipping straight to the ballad made longterm, local band fans think that the band had completely sold out. On its release, Phantoms would seem like a pop album and would be lost in the anti-piracy/spyware shuffle. Maybe a song like “This Conversation Is Over” or “Permanent” on alternative radio would have helped the band survive. If it were super successful, “In the Cold” could have been a fourth single? Of course that didn’t happen, and Phantoms remains a cult classic.
I REMEMBER THE CHILL THAT CAME OVER. This is the third pick from Phantoms, which is the most I’ve picked from an album this year, but I believe I picked four songs from Mike Mains and the Branches‘ When We Were in Love last year. “In the Cold” is about looking back on a relationship that didn’t work out, but it gives me these autumn memories. I think about the frosty mornings, camping in the mountains over the weekend with my Pathfinder club. Pathfinders is the Seventh-day Adventist alternative to Boy and Girl Scouts. I think about friendships that I had that were everything before we all grew apart. The boys in the tent determined that sleeping in your underwear in the sleeping bag to use your body heat to stay warm through the night and one boy said that he was actually sleeping commando. There was the early morning scramble to put on layer upon layer of clothes and a smokey fleece zip-down sweater. You eitherwere on breakfast duty, which meant getting the water or trying not to burn the pancakes or mess duty, which meant washing the syrupy plates in the warm-to-lukewarm water. Then there was always a fear among the boys about the showering situation. You never knew what the showering situation was at the campground, and the wrong kind of shower situation might make you gay. To avoid this, you had to go at different times of the day, ask a friend to stand guard while you shower at the end, or just not shower. After a clean up of the campsite or a shower, we were ready to start learning orienteering in the woods and other skills that would help us survive the end of times. Mostly, the camping trips were a time of ungodly conversations–making fun of weirder, more conservative kids, rebelling against one particularly tyrannical leader, sex and puberty, and music and movies–all while learning how to tie knots (I failed so many times). Wasn’t our Pathfinder group the worst?
Born in Oregon in 1907, Claudia Louise Lewis was a school teacher and children’s author. However, if you try to find information about her online, you’ll be flooded with information about M83’s 2011 song from Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, an album I talked about a few months ago when I picked their masterpiece, “Midnight City.” Anthony Gonzalez, M83’s only official member, says he came across a couple of Lewis’s space poems, which he said were “pretty bad” but “super moving.” He guessed that she was “super young[,] like 12 or 14.” Gonzalez is off by about 90 years, as I was preparing a class about Lewis’ poem “Blue,” I thought about what it must have been like to experience the rapid technological breakthroughs of the twentieth century first-hand. If M83 is all about nostalgia, let’s go all the way back and imagine seeing the world through Claudia Lewis’ eyes.
ALONE 20 MILLION YEARS FROM MY PLACE. Claudia Lewis died in 2001, ten years before this song was released, at the age of 94. In September, I talked about my great grandfather’s life, born in 1903, imagining the world events happening around him. But as I read Lewis’ somewhat “cheesy” space poem “Blue,” I imagined what she must have been thinking about as the technology increased around her. I can look at a list of inventions of the 20th century, but this doesn’t tell me at what point most U.S. families stopped using horse and buggies or at what point trans-Atlantic ships were less popular than flights. In a day and age we can’t remember what life was like before the smartphone, Lewis would have lived through several technological revolutions: radio, black and white television, color television, dial-up internet, maybe the early days of high(er)-speed internet, early cellphones. Lewis devoted her life to her teaching. A graduate of Reed College in Oregon–the hippy school that Donald Miller writes about in Blue Like Jazz–, Lewis got her start in education helping to start a preschool. She eventually got her Ph.D. from Columbia in 1959 and worked at Bank Street College of Education in New York. As I read about her accomplishments, I have to pause and think about her age and what was happening during those times. She was 45 when she got her Ph.D. I think about Ruth Badder Ginsberg studying law in Columbia in 1959, which was not easy for women at the time. In fact, RBG was among one of the first classes to allow women into the program. I’d imagine that there weren’t many women holding Ph.Ds in the ’50s.
THE SPACE, OH IT’S MINE! What drew Gonzalez to Lewis’ “cheesy poems” is their mutual love of childhood. Hurry Up is an album in which Gonzalez imagines being a kid, growing up in the ’80s, listening to the pop music of the time, enjoying his favorite sci-fi movies. Many of these sci-fi movies were made by kids watching Neil Armstrong on television or remembering the cosmonauts in space. Lewis was the sci-fi nerds’ school teacher. She, at 50 when the first person went to space and 62 when Armstrong stepped on the moon, became fascinated with the idea of watching the earth from above it. Much like Prince Philip in season 3 of The Crown, she writes with an earnest, childlike reverence for space and human achievement. She wrote two books about space, When I Go to the Moon (1961) and Poems for Earth and Space (1967). It takes a lot of digging to find Claudia Lewis online. M83 made it a little harder to find her, but in a way, a song inspired by her poetry is a nice tribute. One reviewer of Hurry Up, criticized the lyrics on the album, saying that ‘Oh, oh’s over climactic music is was overkill. “Claudia Lewis” has a chorus of just “Oh” several times. Sometimes music just needs to live in the emotion. Sometimes poetry for children isn’t super deep. Sometimes we just need Nine Inch Nails’ bassist to slap some bass to tighten up some nonsense lyrics and throw together a John Hughes-inspired music video–a teen drama about a blue-haired alien girl allergic to water who falls in love with a boy only to beam up to a ride a comet off to another world.
The moment the talent scout comes to see your _____ and says, “You could be a star” is the moment many of us dreamed of when we were kids. If you believe everyone gets their 15 minutes, you also should realize that there are degrees of fame. The recognizability of a household name like Tom Cruise or Barak Obama compared to an indie rocker demonstrates this. But now, with adult eyes, look at that talent scout. Whether he’s a football coach or Simon Cowell, he’s certainly not got the best of intentions for your teenage self. And depending on what you’re signing up for, there’s something that the scout won’t tell you. If you put in the work, you may change the world. But it comes at a cost. Your personal life is no longer yours. Your personality, image, and relationships will be a commodity that the press will fight and even pay people for. If you’re successful enough, you’ll be swimming in non-disclosure agreements, hiding you and your loved ones in unmarked cars, and constantly on edge over what you say.
EVEN IF I RUN AWAY, THERE’S NO PARADISE. Today, I’m not really talking about Shinee‘s Kim Ki-bum, better known by his stage name, Key (키), but I’m reading into something that may or may not be there. Key was born in Daegu in 1991 and raised by his grandmother because his mother was sick and his father was busy working. As a middle school student, he entered waterskiing competitions, and at 15 he joined SM entertainment, training to join what would become Shinee. After Shinee went on hiatus for the group’s final member, Taemin, to complete military service, Key released a mini album last month called Bad Love. The mini-album concept uses ’80s and ’90s space/sci-fi movie/television motifs. Key wrote the lyrics for the final two songs of the EP, and the title track was written by SM Entertainment‘s Kenzie. With the exception of Clarence Coffee, Jr.’s “Helium“–the only track in English–, Bad Love is dark-pop, full of retro vibes. The title track reminds listeners of Lady Gaga‘s 2009 hit “Bad Romance,” speaking about the toxicity of a relationship that may have started under good intentions, but devolved into something toxic. The following track, “Yellow Tape,” builds on the theme of entering relationships cautiously. The third track, a duet with Taeyeon, “Hate that…” was also released as a single from the EP. Unlike “Forever Yours,” Taeyeon appears in the video version of the song. One Shinee fan podcast suggested that “Hate that…” was a follow up to “Forever Yours,” which frankly is depressing, showing the end of a love affair.
I PAID FOR MY SINS. The last two songs on the record were written by the singer. “Saturday Night” talks about not being able to go to the same places because of a break up. “Eighteen” (End of My World) is perhaps the most self-aware track on the record. Key describes the song as a letter to his eighteen year old self, just before debuting in Shinee. It’s a rather melancholy track. K-pop stars are shrouded in a high level of image control by their record labels. There are rarely any “Justin–Britney” or “Jennifer Lopez–Ben Affleck” relationships. Key was in one publicized relationship with Nichole from KARA. Rumors suggest that Key is actually closeted, though he has denied these rumors, just as almost all gay K-pop singers have because coming out could be the end of a Korean star’s career. Whatever the singer’s identity, Bad Love suggests that the singer is dealing with the price of fame. The singer’s relationships are carefully hidden away from public scrutiny. In the world of a K-pop star, rarely can they emerge at a red-carpet event with a serious partner or a spouse. So if it’s hidden, toxic relationships can develop easily. If he were to meet an ordinary citizen, that person’s life would have to deal with the grueling schedule of the star, not to mention that it would have to be kept secret from the press. Again, not assuming that Key is a member of the LGBTQ community, but K-pop stars have to keep their relationships discreet like gay stars from Hollywood 40 years ago. A video I watched about actor Paul Lynde made me think about the lives of K-pop stars today. At what point do stars get to be themselves and at what point is their name in the public domain? Are stars just a projection of who we want them to be? What happens when they turn out not be whom we expected? The recruiter tells you you’ll be a star, but he doesn’t tell you that you will have to go into hiding everything you don’t want to share with the public. Proceed with caution.
MUNA is an alternative pop group composed of three friends who studied together at the University of Southern California. The trio self-produced their debut EP and uploaded it to Bandcamp and SoundCloud. The band’s success with their debut EP led to the group signing with RCA records and releasing their 2017 debut record, About U.In May 2021, the band announced that they had signed to Phoebe Bridgers‘ Saddest Factory record label. The group recently released the single “Silk Chiffon” which features Bridgers singing a verse. The song is one of the group’s few singles to chart on Billboard, peaking at #35 on the US Alternative chart.
KEEPIN’ IT LIGHT LIKE SILK CHIFFON. I think I first heard MUNA in the awkward teen comedy Alex Strangelove, a story about a high school senior who is struggling to understand his sexuality. All the members of MUNA identify as queer, though, as a lyricist lead singer Katie Gavin often avoided pronouns in the group’s earlier music to allow all gender and sexual expressions to relate to the band’s music. The group is known for their their dark lyrics. Their latest LP, 2019’s Saves the World, is an addictive break-up record, filled with depressing lyrics, but often using upbeat, deceptive chord progressions. Phoebe Bridgers is known as a “serial collaborator,” which has made the 27-year-old singer quite a versatile star. So many of my music snob podcasts and YouTube channels praise the singer-songwriter. Some even credit her for saving rock music with her two LPs. In addition to collaborations with MUNA this year, she has appeared on Lorde‘s Solar Power, The Killers‘ song “Runaway Horses,” Taylor Swift‘s “Nothing New,” Paul McCartney‘s “Seize the Day,” Julien Baker‘s “Favor” and two songs by Lucy Dacus.
LIFE’S SO FUN. “Silk Chiffon” is a positive anthem about queer love. Gavin sings about a girl dressed in a silky dress, while the singer is wearing a mini skirt and rollerblades. Silk chiffon is not only what the girl is wearing, but the singer draws a comparison between the girl and the luxurious feeling someone has when “trying on” a light fabric. Phoebe Bridgers, who identifies as bi-sexual, sings the second verse of the song. Bridgers’ verse takes the song to another perspective. It is the feeling of someone looking at you “with a ‘you’re on camera’ smile.” You feel flattered and you forget that you’re “feeling anxious” about whatever’s going on with your day. There is only one dark element of the ordinarily dark pop group’s latest single. The video, directed by Ally Pankiw, a writer forSchitt’s Creek‘s final season,develops a love story between a camp counselor (portrayed by Bridgers) at a conversion-therapy camp and a girl who was sent away to the camp (portrayed by Gaven). By the end of the video, some of the camp attendees break free and go to a gay bar. Even some of the counselors (Bridgers included) break free from the restrictive camp. It seems that in recent years, the media has shed light on gay conversion therapy camps. In August, director Ryan Murphy released the Pray Awaydocumentary, which follows the dissolving of Exodus International and about former leaders in gay conversion therapy who have changed their views on the practice and embraced who they are in the LGBT community. The adolescent feeling of “Silk Chiffon” for anyone who is becoming aware of their same-sex attraction may be entangled with religious push-back. Mine certainly was. But eventually you have to jump onto the back of the pick-up truck and ride into town. Staying on the farm leads to a life of misery and constant lying to yourself.
On October 1st this year, signs and wonders and rumors of a fourth album by international superstar Adele appeared around the globe. The singer has been dropping hints of a new record since 2019; however, the recording process was delayed in 2020 due to the pandemic. Adele is a relatively reclusive pop star, taking long breaks between albums and rarely offering fans singles in between. In 2020, she emerged 100 lbs lighter, flexing her acting and comedy muscles hosting Saturday Night Live. Fans were shocked at her acting range as she wasn’t even the musical featured guest. But in true Adele fashion, the British singer kept a low profile after the comedy performance until this Fall. Billboards and holographic writing appeared on the Empire State Building, at the Louvre, and the side of the Colosseum among other landmarks with the number 30. Adele fans around the world began to speculate about the singer’s follow up to her Diamond-certified 2015 masterpiece, 25.
I KNOW THERE’S HOPE IN THESE WATERS. The teaser went like this: a return to social media platforms, a black-and-white video teaser in which Adele gets in the car to the tune of a melancholy piano, she puts a tape in the car’s cassette player, we see that she is moving—the house is sold, her belongings in trucks—then sheet music comes flying out of the moving truck ahead. A few days later, Adele sang the first verse of the song on Instagram Live. Yesterday, Adele released the full-length video and the single on streaming platforms. Adele’s age series means something to the artist. The songs reflect the artist’s perspective at that age. On the artist’s 31st birthday, in 2019, Adele uploaded black and white photos to her Instagram with the caption: “30 will be a drum n bass record to spite you.” Adele had separated from her husband in 2018, and 30 would be the record that she would process the unhappiness she felt in her marriage.
BUT I CAN’T BRING MYSELF TO SWIM. “Hello” was a follow up to “Someone Like You.” Likewise, “Easy on Me” is a follow up to “Hello.” The music videos for “Easy” and “Hello” were both directed by Xavier Dolan, and “Easy on Me,” depicts the singer moving on with her life—full make-up, almost Lana Del Rey style. Adele’s plea is for the press and the people in her life to go easy on her for the mistakes that she’s made. She fell out of love with her partner. The press only wanted more details. But most of all, her now 10 year old son didn’t understand why the couple divorced. Adele’s new single and upcoming album will attempt to explain to her son why she left a relationship that was “going through the motions” in order pursue happiness and the possibility of true love.
I probably wouldn’t pick up an album by a group called “Mischievous Child Musician,” but in 2013, a group by that name, or Akdong Musician, AKMU for short, won the hearts of the Korean people when they won the second season of K-pop Star. AKMU are siblings Lee Chan-hyuk (이찬혁) and Lee Su-hyun (이수현). They began playing music together because they were bored. Their parents were missionaries in Mongolia and their mother homeschooled the children. However, Su-hyun had to return to South Korea to sort out a visa issue, and while she was away, she began auditioning to be singer. Later her brother joined her and the two competed on K-pop Star. The group’s debut album Playwas released in April of 2014 and peaked on the Billboard World Albums at #2. “시간과 낙염” (Time and Fallen Leaves) was released in October of 2014.
TIME PASSES LIKE WATER FLOWS. Originally planed to be part of the group’s debut album, it felt out of place with the energetic, spring-released Play. So the song was left off the album and released later that year in October. The band chose not to film a music video for the single. They would rather their listeners visualize their own story with the song. While not a word of the song is in English, the feeling of the guitar, vocals, and cello tell listeners of any native language that they are in for an autumny, nostalgic song. The harmonies give the song give me a feeling the contrast of the warm sunlight and a crisp breeze in a mid-October day when the leaves are changing. Korean songs can be particularly sentimental when dealing with the four seasons, especially fall. There is a YouTube channel in which classically trained musicians. The young musicians who listen to the song point out the tropes that this song uses effectively. Akdong Musician certainly isn’t Kidz Bop. While some of their songs do border on the juvenile, and why not–they began their careers as teenagers–, they quickly showed their talent on the late winter song “Melted” and on the song of the day, “Time and Fallen Leaves.”
THE FLOWERING TREES OF MY HEART ARE WITHERING. In 2021, Akdong Musician are no longer children. Chan-hyuk completed his military service in 2019, and he is 25 years old (26 Korean age). Su-hyun is 22 (23 Korean age). When they started their career, Chan-hyuk was 17 and Su-hyun was 15. The group signed to YG Entertainment because it was the only contract offered to them that gave them artistic freedom. The group was structured as a duo, but Su-hyun would take main vocal duties. Chan-hyuk would write the duo’s songs, play guitar and contribute secondary vocals. In a genre that is typically saturated by boy and girl groups, Akdong Musician is a duo that spent their early career embracing their musical “childhood.” From their K-pop Star debut, Chan-hyuk embraced a funky, nerdy style that made him look younger than his age, even younger than his sister who is almost three years his junior. Su-hyun, however, dressed older. She continued her career as a solo musician while her brother was serving in the Korean Marine Corps and serving as a regular cast member on the second season of Korean busking show Begin Again. The group has been making music since Chan-hyuk’s discharge and renewed their contract in January with YG Entertainment for five more years. However, we can only wonder how long the group will continue to be called “Mischievous Children.”
Watashi Wa was a band signed to Tooth & Nail Records in the early ’00s. The band had formed in 2000 when the members were still in high school. After releasing two albums on Betty Rocket, a small label, the band signed to Tooth & Nail in 2002. The next year, they released their LP The Love of Life. The band broke up two years later and singer Seth Roberts went on to form the band Eager Seas. Roberts negotiated with the label to fulfill Watashi Wa’s contract with his new band; however, Eager Sea’s debut record undersold the label’s expectations. The label decided to re-release the record as Watashi Wa’s final album titled Eager Seas, including the band’s most recognized song “All of Me” on the record. Roberts went on to form the band Lakes and signed to The Militia Group. Watashi Wa is a forgotten gem in the Tooth & Nail catalogue.
IT WAS WRITTEN IN A LETTER TO ME. Maybe it was an abundance of incredible releases in 2003 that made Watashi Wa’s The Love of Life fall unnoticed from the shelf. I hadn’t even heard of Watashi Wa until I saw the band appear on a Tooth & Nail sampler given away with Further Seems Forever How to Start a Fire, and I bought the album on discount several years after its release. In 2003, Tooth & Nail alone had released Anberlin‘s and Mae‘s debut albums, Beloved, Lucerin Blue, the first FM Static record, Spoken’sA Moment of Imperfect Clarityand Thousand Foot Krutch’s Phenomenon. There were other Christian albums that I bought that year, too, like Skillet’s Collide, Big Dismal‘s only album, Delirious‘s Touch. Then there was Evanescence‘s Fallen, which I also bought in the Family Christian store before it was removed. Maybe also there was a lack of promotion. The band didn’t have a Christian Rock radio single unlike most of the bands listed. Years later, Watashi Wa’s music is fine. They are a mellower Tooth & Nail band in a time when edgier pop-punk was what was making the label sore. Seth Roberts talked about his perspective of how his band fit into the arc of Tooth & Nail’s success on the Labeledpodcast. Roberts talks about how he tried to make music that paid tribute to his musical heroes in Tooth & Nail history, but ultimately failed to produce a record that drew the attention to make a profit for the label. After his stint with Tooth & Nail, though, Roberts would be free to create music without the pressure of sales with his new band, Lakes.
MAYBE IT’S CRAZY. Watashi Wa, Japanese for the pronoun I, featured slower, emo songs that were religious at times. According to a podcast Roberts explained that he got into Tooth & Nail Records in the ’90s when he wasn’t allowed to listen to secular music. The lyrics of “All of Me” read like a bloody love song. The upbeat guitars and Roberts’ upbeat voice make the song sound quite positive. The perspective of the song, though, is a little troubling. First, who is the singer singing to? Is it a girlfriend? Is it God? Whomever he is singing to, his brokeness proves his authenticity. He says, “If I fall, then I’ll bleed and you’ll see it’s all of me.” In youth group, we’re often told, “In your weakness, He is stronger.” When I was growing up, I relied on this friend who gave me strength. But focus on the brokeness, and it will mess up your human relationships. “All of Me” sounds like a young man’s love song. If you go into a relationship broken, expect to find a broken person or no one at all. If “All of Me” is a song about a committed relationship, authenticity, or showing the blood, can be step forward. In 2014, Roberts and Lakes released the album Fire Ahead, in which he processes a “rough marriage” and a “messy divorce.” He told Listen: “Spending years investing your dreams, goals, time, energy, into something is kind of like building a house. So when that ‘house’ burned down, it took a great deal of sacrifice to build a new dream.” Perhaps this “all-in” approach in this song “All of Me” reflects his personal life, though we can only speculate. Regardless, as a person and as a songwriter, Seth Roberts has grown. We all grow. We learn when to give it our all. We learn when we should hold back. We learn to survive.
Before releasing his critically acclaimed third album, Continuum, John Mayer released a live album called Try!The album prepared his listeners for a shift into the blues. Mayer had succeeded in becoming a pop star, but with Continuum he hoped to be taken seriously as a musician. The singer-songwriter wasn’t happy with just MTV calling him a modern-day Eric Clapton or Tom Petty; he wanted to share the stage with his heroes. In 2008, Mayer released a concert film, Where the Light Is, which features Mayer playing acoustic songs and full blues-band arrangements of songs from his discography as well as a cover of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’.” As listeners and critics were taking note of Mayer’s musical credentials, the singer became more controversial for his public relationships and breakups with stars and some unfortunate interviews. These antics, along with a health scare, led him to withdraw from public life from 2010 to 2013.
I TRY TO KEEP AN OPEN MIND, BUT I CAN’T SLEEP ON THIS TONIGHT. “Stop This Train” is a song about getting older. Mayer was 29 when the song was released. In a typical John Mayer fashion, “Stop This Train” features the singer’s laidback voice with a meandering acoustic guitar. On the Continuum record, the guitarist was James Valentine from Maroon 5, but in the live version, it’s just a 31-year-old John Mayer, still with that wistful look in his eye, still lazy-voiced, sitting on a stool, fingerpicking his Martin. As I listened to this song today, I pictured my sister shaking her head at that lazy voice. “It’s as if he grew up with absolutely no ambition in life.” That’s what Mayer’s voice says to her. On a dreary day like today, as I supervise students studying for exams, my mind wanders back to what might have been John Mayer’s high school days. He’s fallen asleep in Geometry class where his short, kind-hearted math teacher stands with her hands on her hips, clearing her throat. A young Mayer wakes up, a small pool of drool next to the Pythagorean theorem on the worksheet, hair matted from a deep sleep. She sees a verse of “Waiting for the World to Change” scribbled in the space where the future pop star should have shown his work. “It’s all well and good to dream of a better world, John, but what are you going to do to change it?” “I don’t know Ms. Wilson.”
I WANT TO GET OFF AND GO HOME AGAIN. Perhaps my sister and I are being a little harsh on Mayer. After all, he’s certainly achieved his music goals: touring with Herbie Hancock, playing with the legends, being a pop superstar, winning Grammys, and dating beautiful women. And yes, we might scream “overrated,” and we may wonder why the spirit of celebrity descended upon John Mayer and not Pete Yorn or Sufjan Stevens. Mayer was able to maintain a high level of publicity in the early ’00s in a way that many other indie musicians never achieved. Still, there’s something about Mayer’s music that sounds, well, effortless. But the singer has actually put a lot of effort into this sound. When the singer was young, he became obsessed with playing music after watching Michael J. Fox play guitar in Back to the Future. His parents were both teachers. His father is a high school principal and his mother is a middle school English teacher. Their marriage was contentious, and Mayer said that he played music for hours to “disappear and create a world [he] could believe in.” His parents even sent him to therapy because of his musical obsession. In his late teen years and early 20s, he had panic attacks which he managed through medication. In songs like “Stop This Train,” with that same lazy voice and puppy-dog eyes, Mayer gives his listener insight into his existential dread. Meanwhile, he took this anxiety into relationships with Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston, Katy Perry, and even a young Taylor Swift. In recent years, he’s improved his image in the press. Hopefully, Mayer has learned from his youthful mistakes and is better at growing old than being a young playboy.
COIN dropped three EPs in early 2021, leading up to their full album, Rainbow Mixtape, released in April. The band wrote and recorded their follow up album after their 2020 supporting tour for Dreamland
was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Singer Chase Lawerence sold his house at the beginning of the pandemic and moved back to his childhood home in Virginia where he began writing music for the next record. The band recorded many songs, yet the songs didn’t seem to have a theme. “We broke it down to its elementary form and felt like colors really represented the lyrical and sonic themes,” Lawerence told American Songwriter.Each song corresponded with a color and were released on three EPs, though the second and third is combined on Apple Music. Red-Orange, Blue-Green, and Indigo-Violet make up the three sections of the band’s fourth studio album
SUNRISE IN ORBIT. Rather than telling a story, like in their 2020 song “Cemetery,” “Sprite” speaks poetically about Lawerence’s feeling of isolation. The song seems to be addressing a romantic relationship, perhaps someone the singer has cast aside in the past. “Sunrise in orbit” seems to be drawing a parallel between being in space and being disconnected from a loved one, or family. As children, many of us dream about growing up to be an astronaut. But what we don’t realize as children is that being an astronaut means long periods of time being unreachable to loved ones. Under normal circumstances, a touring band might have thought about the isolation. “Sunrise in Harlem,” denotes a different city every night, different time zones, a grueling schedule has made many bands quit. However, many around the world knew isolation because of the pandemic. Earlier this year, Nick Jonas released an album titled
Spacemanwhich tackles the metaphor of living on another planet, away from the ones you love. I think that the imagery of looking at the world in space, along with the line “your eyes were never blue,” gives “Sprite” its color in COIN’s spectrum.
THERE’S NO PUDDING, BUT HERE’S THE PROOF. The question, though, is why is the song called “Sprite”? The green-labeled soft drink produced by Coca Cola is the most common usage of the word today. Merriam Webster‘s dictionary lists these as the following definitions: 1a) an elf or fairy b) an elfish person 2a) a disembodied spirit or ghost b) a soul. Other popular usage of the word are a kind of computer graphics, British motorcycle or car, a classification of butterflies, a fairy in the Artemis Fowlseries, a creature in Dungeons and Dragons, a Marvel universecharacter, a term for lighting, or a special melon cultivated in North Carolina. Maybe the song refers to the second definition, a disembodied spirit. Imagining the ghost floating around the earth, watching the sunrise every ninety minutes adds to the loneliness. In the middle of the pandemic, many of us turned to simple hobbies and things that reminded us of a simpler time. We reassessed our relationships. Chase Lawerence found that family and listening to ’70s R&B and George Harrison were exactly what he needed. For me, I revisited music from my teenage years and started to fall in love with modern artists who were incorporating sounds of the early ’90s. Under normal circumstances, I would say that nostalgia isn’t the best way forward. We love nostalgia because it’s a tried and true formula for our entertainment. It’s sweet and we don’t have to challenge ears, eyes, and minds with new material. Nostalgia might be the only thing keeping us from stagnation and fear. But eventually, we’ll see that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And if it’s too sweet, we might just get sick of the nostalgic overload. Luckily, the carbonated, bubbly music of “Sprite” keeps the sweetness quite fresh
Mixtapemotions 