Mixtapemotions

  • “Feel It All Around” by Washed Out, Monday, October 11, 2021

    You wouldn’t expect it, but the musical master of bedroom pop, the so-called “godfather of chillwave,” has a faint southern accent when you hear him in interviews. Hearing “Feel It All Around” as the theme to Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s surrealist parody of the hipster town on the West Coast, made me think that Ernest Weatherly Green, Jr., the creative force behind Washed Out, was from a more secular part of the country. I talked about the rise of the Perry, Georgia native earlier this year when I discussed Washed Out’s song, “Burn Out Blues.” But today we return to where it all started in the summer of 2009 and the September 17-minute EP Life of Leisure. 


    YOU FEEL THE THOUGHT OF LOVE AGAIN. On the cover of Life of Leisure, there is a picture of Greene’s wife, Blair, who is part of the touring band accompanying Greene. The album cover captures a feeling: swimming in the early evening sun. Besides being interested in electronic music, Greene enjoys the visual arts, taking photographs and taking an active roll in the band’s videos. Several album covers have captured a similar feeling in recent years. Linkin Park’s One More Light, has similar colors, depicting several people walking into the ocean, toward the light. Last year, Acceptance’s Wild, Free gave Northwestern Washed Out vibes on the monochrome album cover, showing a woman swimming in somewhat deeper, more foreboding waters. Washed Out’s album cover, though, helps the listener relax. There are no twists, though there is certainly elements in the music that pull the subconscious into deeper relaxation. The Guardian gives the best description of Washed Out’s genre: “Conjured up largely by shy young men in their bedrooms, chillwave has all the hallmarks of ambient, post-clubbing fodder, yet it is frequently far smarter than that. At its best, the genre plays tricks with our emotions, using sounds that evoke nostalgia for a period that the listener has never lived through.”

    YOU KNOW IT’S YOURS AND NO ONE ELSE. But chillwave isn’t the only kind of lo-fi, bedroom music. Washed Out relies heavily on sampling. “Feel It All Around” is based on a 1983 Italian disco song, “I Want You” by Gary Low. Sampling is a fun concept for making music. Some songs and albums are composed completely of samples taken from previously recorded artists. Dan Koch, the drummer of the band Sherwood-turned commercial jingle composer/podcaster released an album based purely on samples earlier this year called Havana Swim Club, many of the songs sound chill-wave. The same year as Washed Out’s debut, Owl City’s hit “Fireflies” hit the top 40. While Owl City isn’t usually classified as chillwave, there are similarities between Adam Young and Ernest Greene-both primarily electronic, millennial one-man-bands, producing music in their parents’ homes. This was also the year of David Guetta’s breakthrough album, One Love. It was a time when DJs were taking more spots in the Hot 100. A few years later, M83 and Gotye broke through to the pop charts. Sure, solo artists had been a thing since the inception of popular music and rock ‘n’ roll, but bedroom pop, lo-fi music, and a number of growing genres, plus technology getting cheaper, created an era of music that could be created on the Internet and didn’t even have to tour. Musical purists–instrumentalists–might ask if it’s real music. I have to say, I’m fascinated watching videos of M83, Sylvan Esso, Linkin Park, and so many others playing around with their electronic gear. It’s a brave new world out there.
    Gary Low’s “I Want You”:

    Official Music Video:

    Extended version:

    Pitchfork Live:

    Live Performance 2:

    Portlandia Theme:
     

  • “Absolute” by The Fray, Sunday, October 10, 2021

    If it wasn’t for Grey’s Anatomy, we probably would have forgotten The Fray. The massive number-three hit “How to Save a Life” surpassed the band’s first single “Cable Car” (Over My Head). But the band of Denver-area former worship leaders failed to keep the listeners of the top 40 interested with their ‘90s-piano-driven coffee shop rock. The reviews were fairly negative when the band released their sophomore self-titled record. Rolling Stone said the album was “nothing new.” Entertainment Weekly commented that the album was “all blah, all the time, minor-key melodies and more dreary tempos. But Christian radio play for the single “You Found Me” and record sales kept the band going for two more album cycles. The Fray may not be the most exciting group, but there is something about beautiful about the insights that can spark from their ordinary songs.

    IS THIS ALL WE GET? The Fray started when childhood friends Isaac Slade and Joe King played music together in Christian high school. Slade was a son of missionaries and spent part of his childhood in Guatemala and learned piano at the age of 11. Eventually they would recruit drummer Dave Welsh and lead guitarist Ben Wysocki. The core of the band remained the writing talents of Slade and King. Slade sang most of the songs and King added back up vocals on many of the band tracks. King got married at the age of 19, but divorced in 2011. He wrote the song “Never Say Never” about his marriage. The song is about two people “Pulling apart and then coming together.” Perhaps these were the marital problems that were alluded to in the song. It’s a pretty common story in the evangelical world. The church gives young people an ultimatum: young marriage or celibacy. And most people don’t know who they are at 19. 

    IT’S A KISS THAT SITS UPON HER LIPS. “Absolute” is the second song on the album, which tells an all-too familiar story of romantic incompatibility. It sounds similar to the album opener by the time it gets started, but rather than opening on piano, the song starts with guitar. Like “Never Say Never,” the song is based on relationship incompatibilities. “She wants to be a dancer.” He’s always away, presumably in the military, but it could be a metaphor for the touring life of a musician. The moment hinges as woman in the song “waits to tell [her partner] who she is.” The song asks the question: “Is this all we get to be absolute?” The question is a strange one. To be absolute means “free of imperfection.” Usually we ask, “Are you absolute?” after asking, “Are you sure?” So is this the only chance to be absolutely sure? Do I pursue a dream that will make me happy or a relationship with someone who isn’t on the same page as me? I often wonder about at what point I’m going to feel I’m living. We often think in terms of the dream life. It’s the dream job and the dream toys we buy for ourselves. We long for the moment we arrive. At the same time, we may look back at the glory days. That time in college or high school when you didn’t have much but friends to fool around with. You lived in the future back then, you live in it now. Maybe you wake up one morning and realize, it’s not going to get any better than the number 3 spot on the Hot 100. You realize that maybe what I’m doing now is really all I’ll get. Of course, if we think this way, we will certainly always be looking at when we peaked and never reaching new heights. Still, it’s nice to appreciate that life is happening now. The opportunities we have today and tomorrow might be it for us. Take that moment and have that uncomfortable conversation.
    Studio album version:

    Acoustic sessions version:

    Live version:

     

  • “Should You Return” by Copeland, Saturday, October 9, 2021

    On the first season of labeled, Aaron Marsh talked about his writing process for Copeland‘s debut album, Beneath Medicine Tree. In early 2019, he returned to the podcast to talk about the band’s latest album, Blushing. If most listeners casually picked up the two records, forgivably, they’d assume that they were listening to different bands. Beneath is a guitar-driven product of late ’90s/early ’00 emo rock. The album has mostly an optimistic tone. Blushing is a dark electronic-influenced album with darker lyrics. Marsh told Labeled host Matt Carter that rather than writing lyrics that are easily pinned to real people, like his ex girlfriend Paula (in the song “When Paula Sparks“) he doesn’t “want to write songs about [his] private life.” He says, instead, “I want to write poetic songs about my private life.” The band’s fourth album, You Are My Sunshine, does just that. Listeners don’t know the deep sense of loss, if there is one, that inspired this album. Instead, we are invited to think about how we are left to interpret the band’s lyrics, which is what I wrote about in January when I talked about the album. Today, we’re going to take a second look at Copeland’s masterpiece, discussing the neediness in the opening track, “Should You Return.”


    THERE’S NOTHING LEFT TO DO BUT WASTE MY TIME. A Copeland song isn’t merely recorded. It’s a composed piece of music that has layers of production. Production is overseen by the frontman, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, Aaron Marsh. Copeland’s fourth album seems to be the biggest shift in the band’s sound. Bryan Laurenson‘s lead guitars are a layer to the band’s keyboard/synthesizer sound. Listeners won’t find the 1940 Jimmie Davis/Charlie Mitchell song on the album. The song does appear on their Grey Man EP, however. The theme of the lyrics of “You Are My Sunshine,” though–“you make me happy when skies are grey” and “please don’t take my sunshine away”–can be felt at times throughout Copeland’s fourth album, as if the short old-time country song is a ghost haunting the album. “Should You Return,” like every track on the album, has a hypnotizing effect, pulling the listener into their own thoughts rather than thinking about the music itself. I had to focus very hard to read the lyrics of “Should You Return” because my mind wandered, and I couldn’t help but hum the song. But, the experience of reading only the lyrics (after a few attempts), left me sad. The question posed by the song is left unanswered.

    BUT IF YOU’RE UNHAPPY STILL, I WILL BE WAITING ON A LINE. Copeland released official music videos for most of the songs on You Are My Sunshine. Most of them are as banal as the mood you have to be in to enjoy this album. The video for “Should You Return” focuses on guitarist Bryan Laurenson. In the video, he has lost his girlfriend, and the story is told using stop-motion animation with photographs as well as with actual video. At the end of the video, Laurenson falls off a cliff only to wake up to discover that it’s actually the ex-girlfriend who is looking at an old photo album. She sees Laurenson reaching for her, but she promptly shuts the cover and walks away. The lyrics depict loss. The singer is complete but for one piece he’s missing, the one he loves. Yet, the one he loves is toxic for him: “a love to make it hurt.” The song finds the singer at a point of loss in which he wishes for something new to have and then to lose, as if to feel the pain even deeper. Yet, the song ends “hanging on a line, should [the listener] return.” The music makes us believe that maybe there will be a Hollywood ending. Maybe, like Scarlet from Gone with the Wind, we can say, “After all, tomorrow is another day.” The music of Copeland often deals with the bleak. But, other than Blushing and parts of Eat, Sleep, Repeat, the band is able to make us leave the record feeling rejuvenated. Ultimately, we have to heal from our loses. We can’t hang on the line forever. But “Should You Return” is a song to wallow in the pain for a bit.

  • "I'm on Fire," by Bruce Springsteen, Friday, October 8, 2021
























    Born in the U.S.A. was Bruce Springsteen‘s biggest album. Seven of the twelve tracks shot to the top 10 of the Billboard’s Hot 100. It made the 35-year-old once uncool-thus-commercially-unviable frontman of the E Street Band a pop star. An excellent two-part series by Slate‘s Hit Parade analyzes what made this album a hit in the summer of 1984. It was Springsteen retaining hits, rather than giving away his potential number ones to fellow pop artists. It was Reagan’s America fueled with patriotic conservatives who only read the title and didn’t listen to the verses. It was disenfranchised Vietnam veterans who came home to hard economic times. It was Springsteen listening to his producers, realizing that rockabilly can have synthesizers from time to time. And there was certainly some sex appeal. Perhaps Springsteen’s ass in his tight, straight-leg Levi’s is the most famous album cover posterior, pre-hip hop. 


    I’VE GOT A BAD DESIRE. “I’m on Fire” is a middle track on the 30x platinum album. It was released as a single in time for Valentine’s Day in 1985, and the video received heavy rotation on MTV. The video imagines Springsteen working as a mechanic, contemplating an affair with a wealthy married woman. “I’m on Fire” proves that a song doesn’t need to be heavy or dynamic to convey its meaning. This calm, adult-oriented rock song describes lust in such a graphic way without ever sinking to poor taste. Well, that might not be entirely true. There are wars on Reddit and blogs if the song is pedophilic. After all, the opening lines to the song sound like they were written for a Stranger-Danger PSA for school children. “Hey, little girl is your daddy home? Did he go and leave you all alone? I’ve got a bad desire” sounds pretty predatory. The video depicts someone of age, and the song is probably not a literal, “little girl,” just as how some songs call girls “mama,” or some men are referred to as “daddy.” And of course, the more you talk about it, the weirder it gets. So assuming that everyone’s of age, which we always can’t when listening to old songs, the song is quite universal: desire for someone out of your league. Desire for someone you shouldn’t be with because that person is with someone else. When you “wake up with sheets soakin’ wet,” you might have a problem. 

    ONLY YOU CAN COOL MY DESIRE. Born in the U.S.A. was Springsteen’s heyday. Before the album, he had fans. After the album, he became a legend. But as I pay more attention to pop and rock music history, there is usually one album that you can pinpoint as that artist’s prominence. Even though the artist may continue to produce hits for years after that point of prominence, little by little, you’ll start to see the star fade. That’s what happened to The Boss after Born in the U.S.A. Sure, his next project, a live boxset of his prior works, defied expectation, as no boxset had even charted before. Springsteen’s debuted at number 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 album charts. His much-anticipated follow-up to U.S.A., Tunnel of Love, produced five singles, and each subsequent album became less commercially competitive. Tunnel of Love detailed the problems in his marriage to actress Julianne Phillips, a woman he had married in 1985 and who was 11 years younger than the singer. During the touring cycle of Tunnel, Bruce fell in love with his backup singer, Patricia Scialfa, eventually divorcing Julianne in 1988. Springsteen and Scialfa married in 1991 and are still married to this day. “I’m on Fire” is an anthem of young lust. It’s the fantasy of the working-class boy marrying the actress. And if the fantasy does happen, like it did to the real Springsteen, not the mechanic, the flames might get out of control. Or they might just burn out.
    Official Music Video:
    Live:

     

  • "(Simply) The Best" by Tina Turner, Thursday, October 7, 2021

    The 1989 anthem “The Best” with its electric guitars and keyboard production is one of Tina Turner’s most recognizable songs. Born in 1939, the rock ‘n’ roll legend would turn 50 with the song’s release, yet she still could rock a mini skirt. The song was first a minor hit the prior year for Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler, whose musical career in the U.S. had declined. Tina Turner brought new life into the song, adding a bridge and a saxophone solo by Edgar Winter. The simple music video draws a subliminal comparison to Turner’s energy with the horse she ends up riding. Today Turner has just signed a deal with BMG for $50 Million for her entire catalogue as well as her name, image, and likeness. The 81-year-old singer has survived abuse, drugs, cancer, and other health scares in recent years. Earlier this year, HBO released a documentary titled Tina, as a “farewell to fans.” Today her catchy 1989 hit ended the news program I listen to every morning, so how could it not be the song of the day?


    I CALL YOU WHEN I NEED YOU. MY HEART’S ON FIRE. I don’t know when I first heard this song. My upbringing had very little secular music in it, but I remember humming this song when I was seven or eight. I thought the lyrics were, “something possessed.” When my mom heard me singing about “demon possession,” she freaked out. I don’t have much memory of the song impacting my life after that until a few years ago. There was the parody on SNL‘s 40 year anniversary that was pretty forgettable. But in season 4 of Schitt’s Creek, singer/actor Noah Reid, portraying Patrick, arranged and performed an acoustic cover of the song, serenading his on-screen boyfriend, David Rose, played by Dan Levy. The song quickly became one of the fans’ most beloved moments in the series. The power of the Tina Turner hit helped to further develop Patrick’s character as the sweet, fiercely devoted anchor to David’s impractical, often superficial, whims. It also helped to establish one of the most positive portrayals of LGBTQ representation on television. Noah Reid’s vocals nowhere match Turner’s. But through the power of a popular song, viewers see that love is love. Schitt’s Creek joins the ranks of shows like All in the Family, Northern Exposure, and Modern Family that introduce lovable queer characters, to varying degrees of importance. Schitt’s Creek is different, though, as writer/creator/actor Dan Levy told the Los Angeles Times that the creators “made a choice early on not to show homophobia in the series.” He went on to say, “There was something fascinating in projecting a version of our world that was kinder and more empathetic.” In other words, simply the best version of our world.



    BETTER THAN ALL THE REST. Patrick and David are just two examples of the power of this song. Turner’s solo career is probably best remembered in two songs, the latter is “The Best,” which had preceded a string of hits and was followed by several more including 1995’s James Bond theme song for Golden Eye. Turner worked for every accolade. A Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame Inductee (along with ex-husband, Ike Turner), a former Guinness World Record holder for the largest concert attendance by a solo act, the first black woman on the cover of Rolling Stone, multiple Grammys including a lifetime achievement award, and the title of “The Queen of Rock ‘n Roll,” Tina Turner was born to a mother who didn’t want her and endured an abusive marriage before getting divorced and becoming a solo act. However, despite being a well known rock and RnB singer with Ike,

    record labels passed on her solo work for years, until 1984 when she released her other most iconic song “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” Billboard said that Turner reemerging on the charts was “one of the greatest comebacks of all time.” In an interview in 1984, Turner talked about wanting “to be the first black rock ‘n’ roll singer to pack places like the Stones, David Bowie, or [Rod] Stewart.” And Turner did all of that. In her later years, turning to Buddhism, she embraced the power of forgiving her abusive husband. She doesn’t excuse what he did, but she told Oprah Winfrey in 2018 that she was trying to understand why Ike did what he did in the light of his own childhood trauma. Speaking to The Sun Herald, Turner stated: “I don’t look back. I don’t dwell. I wouldn’t change anything because every experience, good or bad, has made me the person I am today. Buddhism has taught me that life is a process.”
    Official Music Video:
    Live performance:
    Schitt’s Creek acoustic version by Noah Reid:

     

  • "There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back" by Shawn Mendes, Wednesday, October 6, 2021

    There was a video I watched that made the case that Britney Spears created the arc of the former teenage pop star. The sweet-to sexy-to diva (minus the conservatorship) has been followed by both female and male stars. We can see a little Britney in Ariana Grande, Lindsay Lohan, and Selena Gomez. You could argue that  Justin Bieber or (minus the sexy) Disney stars like Shia LaBeouf might fit into that arc. At 18 years of age, Shawn Mendes was one of the biggest teen stars. His second album, Illuminate, became his second album to top the Billboard Hot 100. Yet, as of 2021, the 23-year-old star has yet to pull a Britney. In 2016, Brendan Dazen in an article for Her Campus described Mendes as “A naïve 18-year-old who happens to look an Abercrombie model.” The author notes that when Mendes turned 18, he became a sex symbol, striking provocative poses in magazines and filming shirtless music videos, but unlike Grande and Spears, Mendes’ lyrics aren’t overtly sexual. Mendes balances the innocent and the sexual. Even at 23, he’s still the boy next door.

    SHE PULLS ME IN ENOUGH TO KEEP ME GUESSING. Upon its release, Illuminate opened with the “Ruin” track, which some critics compared to a John Mayer style. Illuminate is full of slow to mid-tempo teenage love songs. In 2017, Mendes released a deluxe edition of several new songs and an acoustic version of “Mercy.” Rather than putting all the new tracks at the end of the album, “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back” opened the record. Critics praised the catchy hook, in which listeners can hear Mendes’s vocal chords scratch together at times. The song is about a girlfriend who represents the polar opposite of the shy protagonist. She brings him out of his shell, but she plays coy with him when he finally shows his interest in her. The music video features British actress Ellie Bamber and was filmed in Amsterdam, The UK, and Paris. Though somewhat contradictory in lyrics, the song deals with the theme of young love. A fresh-faced Mendes talking about Europe with a pretty girl makes listeners think that Mendes completely enjoyed this stage of his life. However, he stated that he felt lonely because he was too high profile to date. Some speculation arose that the singer was gay, which he flatly denied. Other than a relationship with Hailey Baldwin, before she married Justin Bieber, the singer’s dating life was not publicized until he started dating his Camilla Cabello after collaborating on their duet “Señorita.” When Mendes reflected on his status as a sex symbol, he said, “Being a sex symbol isn’t cool unless you’re in love with a girl, and she calls you a sex symbol.”

    NOT REALLY INTO HESITATION. “Keep your nose clean.” This is the advice my music teacher gave me when she told me the greatest key to building a successful career in music. Of course, this was a time when the popular music industry was dirty. When wasn’t that time? It wasn’t bad advice, but it didn’t pan out either. Shawn Mendes is perhaps an excellent example of a star who “kept his nose clean” as he rose to fame. In the early 2010s, it seemed like pop music was all about who could have the most shocking hit. Ke$ha was singing about the wild, drunk nightlife, Lady Gaga was begging to “take a ride on [the listener’s] disco stick,” and Katy Perry was covering up her breasts with cupcakes. And if a song was too clean, Niki Minaj was featured to make it a little nastier. Then there were artists who built careers not exclusively on making the next shock hit. Stars like Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift were known for their bubblegum pop and mostly good girl images. This isn’t to say that artists with “good girl” or “boy next door” vibes never got provocative. It’s just that they never aimed at making the next shock-pop hit. In 2019, Mendes continued his sexy brand, joining the #MyCalvins ad campaign, along with Noah Centineo, A$AP Rocky, and Kendall Jenner (which was hilariously parodied by James Corden) to the tune of New Order’s “True Faith.” Mendes follows in a tradition set by Bieber, Nick Jonas, and Mark Wahlberg. Mendes might be the star of rewriting what it means to be “clean-cut.” The singer is practically the embodiment of a grown-up Boy Scout, free of scandal and rumors of being a bad person. But this definition of clean cut also allows the singer to show off his six-pack, without worrying about destroying his reputation. 

     

  • "Impatience" by Sam Tsui, Tuesday, October 5, 2021

    Sam Tsui may not be a household name like other some former YouTube stars, but he has put in the work. Time took notice of Tsui back in 2009, when the young singer posted videos on his childhood friend Kurt Schneider’s channel. He went on to form his own YouTube channel in 2011. Also in 2011, Tsui graduated from Yale, majoring in Greek Classics. Tsui had participated in promotional video titled “That’s Why I Toured Yale,” prompting Tom Hanks to mention Sam by name as he gave the commencement speech at Tsui’s graduation. In Tsui’s musical career, he has performed for the cast of Glee and performed with Kurt Schneider on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen Degeneres Show. He released his first album of original songs, Make It Up, in 2013, crowdfunding the record. “Impatience” comes from Tsui’s second album, Trust, released in 2018. “Impatience” was the second single from the album, released on November 21, 2017. 

    NEVER THOUGHT I WAS THE RESTLESS KIND. In 2016, Tsui came out as gay and announced his engagement to fellow YouTube musician, Casey Breves in a YouTube video. The two had collaborated previously and had met at Yale. Writer Claude Summers for The New Civil Rights Movement wrote compared Sam Tsui’s coming out in April with former Christian Rocker Trey Pearson‘s coming out in June of 2016, noting the difference in the singers’ tones. Summers writes that Pearson’s coming out was “tortured and dramatic,” whereas Tsui’s was “confident and casual.” Many of Tsui’s fans praised his coming out video for its tone. One commenter said that Sam “didn’t go into some teary emotional hysterical crying speech,” another commenter said “I’m not surprised about Sam coming out[;] I’m more surprised that he’s not dating [Kurt Hugo Schneider].” Kurt Schneider was supportive of his childhood friend’s coming out. Sam and Casey married in April of 2016 and continue to make music together and are raising a daughter. Summers writes about Tsui’s coming out that the singer “had the luxury of being able to assume that his fan-base would be mostly supportive.” In his coming out video, Sam apologized to fans that he wasn’t completely transparent throughout his career. He addressed his prior belief that his music and his personal life were separate entities. But as time went on, he felt he needed to be more honest with his fans. 
    DAYDREAMING ABOUT YOU… The video for “Impatience” sees Sam all by himself, waiting for somebody in a number of scenarios. We see the singer in bed, at the laundromat, and at a fancy dinner sipping wine at a table set for two. Despite being happily married, Tsui’s sophomore album, Trust, is a collection of songs about love and loneliness. None of the songs are gender-specific. Perhaps the songs come from personal experience. Perhaps they come from writing techniques Tsui picked up as a songwriter from the hundreds of covers he’s recorded. “Impatience” makes me think about what’s my next step in my life. I think about Sam Tsui’s online persona and influencer culture, how he has built a career out of making music online and how he, along with Kurt Schneider, has built a community around that music. Then I think about the rest of us, those without a major online following. I think about how the successful online spark jealousy and feelings of inadequacy in some subscribers. A few years ago, my friend became extremely depressed when she saw engagement photos on Instagram. She lamented about her relationship with her boyfriend who was hesitating in proposing. Seeing others’ happiness offline can make us impatient about our own lives. But the problem is that when we log on, we can become absorbed in it. It floods our feeds. Why can’t we just log off and live. Still, I’m envious of Sam Tsui’s coming out. Of course, a YouTube video doesn’t give us the full gravity of the situation. I only wish that mine could go as smoothly as Sam’s, but I’m afraid that the way I’ve built my life is more like Trey Pearson than Sam Tsui.

     

  • “Death of Me” by Pvris, Monday, October 4, 2021

    A group of friends from Lowell, Massachusetts, formed the metalcore band Operation Guillotine while they were in high school. With the addition of singer Lyndsey Gunnulfsen, stage name Lynn Gunn, the group grew into Paris, later Pvris–spelling changed for copyright purposes. The band’s first EP was described as post hardcore. But by the time the band released their first album, they had begun to incorporate pop elements including electronics. In 2019 the band worked with Paper Route‘s JT Daly to produce their EP Hallucinations, their major label debut on Warner/Reprise Records. The band incorporated more elements of EDM into their sound. Three songs from Hallucinations made it onto the band’s third studio album, Use Me. Two days prior to the release of the album, the two remaining members of Pvris ousted their guitarist for sexual misconduct allegations. With only Gunn and bassist Brian Macdonald left in the group, Pvris seems like a pop group that incorporates rock elements, rather than the other way around. Gunn works her vocals seamlessly between the electronic rhythms on Use Me in a genre bending feat. 


    ONE MAN’S HELL IS ANOTHER’S GOD. Lynn Gunn grew up fascinated with the occult, graveyards and all things macabre, which make their way into the band’s music, which makes sense growing up in the Puritan state of Massachusetts, which boasts plenty of haunted places as well as the state where the mass hysteria about witches took place. The video for “Death of Me” taps into the macabre. A snake wraps itself around Gunn’s barely clad body. Gunn also uses serpentine imagery in the opening track of Use Me, “Gimme a Minute,” which features the lyrics: “Just cut off the head of a snake / Wanted venom, got a taste.” Gunn doesn’t shy away from writing about religion. On the band’s first album, she wrote the song “Holy” in response to her friend’s mother’s reaction to when Gunn came out as gay. According to an interview Gunn gave with Shane Told of Lead Singer Syndrome, the song has further reaching implications in a Trump-driven Evangelical America. When Gunn declares in “Holy,” “Simply calling out sins don’t bring you closer to God,” she is declaring for this generation that witch-burning still has no place in our society. But fast forward to 2019’s “Death of Me,” and we see the singer is still trying to justify her love. 

    IF IT GETS INTO THE WRONG HANDS…In “Death of Me,” Gunn acknowledges that love can be dangerous. This song marks the third song in a row of provocative songs or videos. In “Bad Habits,” Sheeran regrets how the party lifestyle may be destroying him, though autobiographically, he succeeded in breaking free of it. In “Take My Breath,” The Weeknd examines the connections between kink, love, and death. Today’s song seems nonetheless toxic. “This love looks like a loaded gun” verse one begins. Gunn makes several more comparisons “a noose,” “sweet poison,” “a cold-blooded killer,” all of which aren’t the warm fuzzies of a sonnet. There’s certainly a precedent for rock stars with the taste for wilder, less-Leave It to Beaver relationships, Gunn said that this song is “about the risk you take when you are connecting with somebody and putting it all out there.” If you take the lyrics as just metaphor, even the most vanilla of relationships have their risks. There’s no guarantee that falling in love with Bob in accounting won’t shield you from the fact that he’s got a dark secret. Certainly snakes crawling over your body, a group of hands touching you, or playing the knife game is certainly more a brighter red flag than dating Bob. Some of us will always gravitate to the riskier. But whether we travel by motorcycle, car, or plane, every means of transportation has the potential to kill us. After weighing the odds, Gunn realizes that we’re never safe going all in. But that’s when things get interesting.

    Live performance:

    Performing for BBC music:

    Official Music Video: 




     

  • "Take My Breath" by The Weeknd, Sunday, October 3, 2021 [Trigger Warning: Discussion of a potentially dangerous practice]

     

    Berlin‘s 1986 light rock hit “Take My Breath Away” in its somewhat cheesy ascending scaled-note chorus speaks to the common human experience of falling in love with someone. The old aphorism, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away,” speaks to the times when life surprises us so much that if the shock of the good surprise were to kill us, we would have died happy. In other words, I may feel “so happy that I could die.” We can say that these moments are breath-taking, like when you see a Van Gogh in person, see a beautiful woman, or experience new life.  Perhaps this is what The Weeknd intended for his latest single “Take My Breath,” but in typical Weeknd fashion, the video and the lyrics hint at a darker side of those breathtaking moments.


    YOU’RE OFFERING YOURSELF TO ME LIKE SACRIFICE. Since Beauty Behind the Madness brought The Weeknd to the forefront of popular music back in 2015 with songs like “Can’t Feel My Face” and “The Hills,” Abel Makkonen Tesfaye has been disguising adult themes as catchy pop tunes, talking about substance abuse like it were a love song. Growing up in Toronto as the child of two separated Ethiopian immigrants, Abel started smoking pot at the age of 11 and turned to harder drugs, shoplifting in his teens to support his habit. In the past he claimed that he couldn’t write music without drugs. His masterpieces came from the inner turmoil of broken relationships and his love for mind-altering substances. However, in August this year, he claimed that he was “sober-lite,” meaning that he would no longer use hard drugs, calling them “a crutch.” If Abel relied on drugs to process his pain and create art and he’s gone mostly sober, what then did he draw inspiration from for his upcoming album? The Weeknd has tweeted several hints about the new album, presumably called Dawn. And on August 6th, he released the single and video for “Take My Breath.” The video depicts a dark club in which the attendants are involved with erotic asphyxiation, a practice that is potentially deadly, yet is said to produce a euphoria by those who practice it. Just as in “Can’t Feel My Face,” listeners question where is the line between healthy and toxic. Viewers question the line between reality and metaphor. Whenever I listen to The Weeknd, I have many questions: at what point does it turn from fun to tragic?At what point does the binge become less about fun and more about dependence? And are listeners part of the problem? Do we have front-row seats to a train wreck–a potential Amy Winehouse situation? Are we enabling young Abel’s downfall by funding him as he produces messed up, devilishly divine art?

    MAKE IT LAST FOREVER. “How do you end up in the backroom of a BDSM club?” daytime Ed Sheeran might ask. It might sound judgmental, but it’s a valid question. Why do people get into kink? From housewives reading Fifty Shades of Grey wondering what it would be like to be tied up to underground sex clubs in New York City to whatever is on the dark web to something as mild as foot or sock fetish (see Honest Trailer’s “Every Tarantino Movie”)  many people experience a cold sweat from something those who don’t share the attraction would deem abnormal, unnatural, immoral, or hilarious. There’s little funnier than the punchline of someone’s sexual fantasy being misread, like this scene from the movie Horrible Bosses, when the crew think that they have hired a hitman, but instead the man is a professional urinator. And you better believe that there’s a whole category of humiliation fantasies. But on a serious note, “Take My Breath” uses imagery from erotic asphyxiation, which brings up questions about 1) the practice 2) the dangers 3) the line between euphoria and suicide 4) metaphorical implications, like trust, vulnerability, a person’s mental state when being in love/lust, suicidal tendencies, the line between partying and breaking down, etc. The practice of erotic asphyxiation is dangerous. In the case of autoeroticism, many times it’s misruled as a suicide rather than an accidental death. Sometimes partners can be charged with murder if something goes wrong. Wikipedia lists several notable examples of death by erotic asphyxiation, though I didn’t recognize any examples: an 18th century Czech composer, a geisha, a conservative British MP in the 1994. In 1983, a mother sued Hustler after her 14-year-old son died from the practice. She claimed that he learned about it from the magazine. Autoerotic asphyxiation was the shocking death to a recurring character on Bojack Horseman season 2, and it was even one of the ways that Kenny dies in a South Park episode. The Weeknd wakes up on the club floor at the end of the video, gasping for life-giving air. We breath a sigh of relief. That could have been an embarrassing way to die. Undoubtably it would be a shameful death. Then again, SNL’s Halloween skit with Chance the Rapper has an erotic asphyxiation death beat. Stay safe everyone!

  • “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran, Saturday, October 2, 2021

     

    If you make a list of the most iconic singer-songwriters, the list would include all of Ed Sheeran‘s influences. In fact, many would have had no problem putting Ed Sheeran on that list, if it weren’t for his huge mainstream pop hit “Shape of You.” If it weren’t for the 2017 song, Ed Sheeran would still have been a driving force in the music industry, penning verses for pop artists and singing semi-acoustic ballads and rapping a few bars here and there. Some listeners are still scarred from the repetitive chorus with its contrived masculine rhyme, so much so that they would prefer not to hear the song’s follow up. It’s unfortunate enough that I couldn’t take songs like “Perfect” or “Castle on the Hill” seriously. And when Ed Sheeran announced that he was back on June 25th, I was less than thrilled. But last week thanks to musical algorithms, AppleMusic played “Shivers” when playing similar songs to Jax Jones ft. Years & Years‘ “Play.” Time heals all wounds I guess.

    EVERY TIME YOU COME AROUND, YOU KNOW I CAN’T SAY NO. Between projects, Ed Sheeran has been known to go on social media breaks. In December 2019, he announced that he would be taking a year off to write his next album and spend time with his family and welcome his new daughter into the world. The timing of his hiatus was perfect, not only because the singer had come off of his most successful album cycle but also because of the pandemic which paralyzed the music industry. Starting at the end of June, listeners have a taste of the next Sheeran project with the three singles the singer has dropped. The lead single, “Bad Habits” quickly rose to number 1 for 11 weeks in the UK. Sheeran told James Cordon that he originally wanted to release a slow song as the lead single, but decided on the upbeat “Bad Habits.” He said, “I don’t know if the world needs a depressing sad, slow acoustic song when it’s all opening up.” The second single “Visiting Hours” is a throwback to the singer’s roots on  + and X. The third single “Shivers,” written at the end of the singer’s Divide tour, sounds dancey, like “Bad Habits.” “Shivers” replaced “Bad Habits” atop the UK charts upon its release. Will = be an album that seamlessly incorporates the two styles that Ed Sheeran has become known for?  Or will it be an album aimed at everyone and pleases no one? We’ll have to wait until October 29th to find out.  

    MY BAD HABITS LEAD TO WIDE EYES STARE INTO SPACE. Everyone has a bad habit. When Sheeran talked with Mario Lopez, the singer didn’t get explicit about wild drug addictions or alcohol binges. Instead, the thirty-year-old singer said that he wanted to adjust to becoming a father. “I don’t want anyone else to drive [my wife] to the hospital,” he said. The single cryptically alludes to addiction. The listener can assume that a pop star like Ed Sheeran has had some experiences, but ultimately, listeners are left staring into the maws of their own beastly habit. Is it that one too many drinks you take when out with your friends? Is it sleeping with that person you shouldn’t? Is it staying up all night watching something when you really should get a good night of sleep? Is it saying, “I really shouldn’t, but what if I just eat this block of cheese?” Sheeran and Lopez talked about the compounding effect of bad habits and how they can get out of control with friends. The song’s music video explores bad habits with the metaphor of vampires. Sheeran said that his love for old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer inspired the video. Like vampires, bad habits come out at night and they disappear when the sun rises. The “bad crew” whom Sheeran hangs with in the video disappear when the sun comes up. One runs into the shadows, another runs into a building, another jumps under a parked car, and one is dissolved by the light. Sheeran, however, transforms into his usual less-than-kempt persona. The face paint fades; the fangs disappear; the pink suit turns into a casual sweatshirt and jeans. The singer ends the video playing an acoustic guitar, seemingly unaffected by his nightlife. But as anyone with a bad habit knows, he only appears normal in the light. “Bad Habits” is a fun shame anthem, whether you’re trying to quit or shamelessly indulging. 
    Music video:

    Lyric Videoes: 

    Performance video:

    With Bring Me the Horizon: