The members of Emery work hard both on their side hustles and their main gig, and sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between their side hustles and their main gig. Lead singer Toby Morrell and guitarist Matt Carter started a blog with their friend Joey Svendsen, which later became The BadChristian Podcast. They started a record label, BadChristian Music and released Emery records and other artists–mostly Tooth & Nail associated bands–who shared a vision of Christian music that pushes the envelope. And while Emery only has about 172,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, the band has actually migrated their most loyal fans to their own Patreon-style music subscription service. This service used to be under the name Emeryland, but recently the band has merged its production of BadChristian Podcast and Emery’s music and their work with the Labeled Podcastto one subscription-based plan under the moniker Knuckle Breakers.
MAYBE NOT TO AGREE, BUT TO PROCLAIM LOVE. I’m more of a fan of Emery’s business model and their non-Emery projects. I’m a fan of the universe of music they create around them. The reason I started listening to The BadChristian Podcast was their early days of interviewing their friends in bands, hearing Christian Rock bands have honest, often profanity-including conversations about their beliefs, doubts, and the dirtiness of music industry. Matt, Toby, and Joey kept inviting more and more diverse voices to the conversation about Christianity–liberal, conservative, and everything in between–exploring the questions about what is really Christian and who has the right to judge what is and what isn’t. Over the years, the podcast became less about music and less about faith, but those early band associations and the band members that kept coming back on the show kept me interested. In 2020 and 2021, Emery hosted several Sunday Night musical live streams as part of their Emeryland membership. Matt and Toby cross-promoted their Twitch Are You Listening? A Sunday Night Streamo Show on the BadChristian Podcast, playing today’s song as the intro music for one of the BadChristian episodes. Are You Listening? would often have a musical guest jamming along on Emery songs, and Emery would often play one of the guest’s band’s songs as well.
THERE’LL BE ROOM FOR CHANGE, BUT GRADUALLY. Emery produces a lot of music these days and not all of it ends up on streaming platforms. Today’s song, a synth-based cover of Mae‘s “Embers and Envelops” featuring Mae’s singer Dave Elkins is available on YouTube in a playlist of collaborations the band has done for their Are You Listening? show. So that made me think about the songs that I’ve chosen as my featured song of the day that were only publicly available through YouTube, and I decided to make a playlist on my new YouTube channel: NewYearsDayProject. Here it is along with the link to the original post:
1. “Embers and Envelops” by Dave Elkins of Mae ft. Emery. Today’s song.
7. “Part of It/Outro” by Relient K. The band’s 2009 record is now on Spotify. It’s not on AppleMusic. The album version splits “Part of It” and “Outro” into two tracks, but they should be heard together, like in this YouTube video.
Mat Kearney‘s music has changed a lot from when he debuted in 2004 with his first record Bulleton Peter Furler‘s Christian label InPop Records. Kearney’s early work infused acoustic singer-songwriter styles with hip hop, a style the singer mostly abandoned by this third record, City of Black & White. Nine years after that stylistic departure and three records that didn’t seem to move far beyond the folk-pop sound, Kearney released a poppier, more electronic-inspired record, CRAZYTALKin 2018, which produced the single “Better Than I Used to Be.”
MY PLANE LEAVES TOMORROW. Teaming up with Iranian-American electronic artist AFSheeN for the first track on CRAZYTALK, “Better Than I Used to Be,” Kearney expands upon his sound. Although AFSheeN has worked with much bigger artists than Kearney, remixing and producing, AFSheeN’s most streamed song is Kearney’s 2018 hit. The singer-songwriter has written for K-pop acts such as NCT and BoA and American artists Selena Gomez and Madonna. AFSheeN’s LA man-bun adds to the Nashville-bro vibe that Mat Kearney exudes in his discography; this time playing in the higher registers that synthesizers give a song rather than a guitar-based track. While the acoustic version of this track is worth a listen, the original propels CRAZYTALK to sound distinct from Kearney’s previous work. Elsewhere on the record, Kearney collaborates with Filous and RAC, a Portuguese-American remix artist. The neon pink album cover also sets an ultra-modern vibe for a Mat Kearney record. West-coast-born and Nashville-based, Kearney fits into the group of Nashville musicians who rub shoulders with country stars, CCM big-wigs, indie rock bands, and coffee shop singer-songwriters. CRAZYTALK attempts to transcend whatever sound that is.
BUT MY HEART HAS ALREADY LANDED. A strong point in Kearney’s music is his use of nostalgia. The “kids in the back seat” reminds listeners of their own youth. The video for the song, though, shows a youth who was less than ideal, growing up on the poorer side of town in a rough neighborhood. Kearney talks about this song being inspired by his relationship with his wife, actress Annie Kearney, though the lyrics and video hint that it could also be about family members or friends of the singer. But it is the love of someone special that makes Kearney claim that he is “better than [he] used to be.” It’s that love that drives him home from his touring and work. It’s that love that influences him to continue to create art. And while Kearney’s fanbase no longer pushes him up the Billboard Hot 100–the mix of Christians who want an edgier artist who might say hell or damn occasionally out of context and the left-over Grey’s Anatomyfans— the fanbase is still strong. I’ve still yet to try 2021’s January Flower, but I’m pretty sure that I can find something organic and honest on every Mat Kearney record, whether from ’06 or ’21. But is CRAZYTALK better than he used to be back in 2009 with City of Black & White? Not quite. It’s hard to beat an album that’s an artist’s musical awakening record when they shed the silliness of their youthful songwriting quirks and only refine the excellent parts of themselves. Today, adding electronics is kind of a lazy fix to try to keep things relevant. Somehow so many listeners–myself included–fall for those sweet electronic hooks.
In March of 2015, Sufjan Stevensreleased Carrie & Lowell, and the album was praisedby indie music journals and NPR. In May of that year, a study concluded that most of the number one hits from 2005-2014 were written on the reading level of a fifth grader. Maybe that’s the reason I don’t spend too much time wrestling with finding the meaning of the text in most song lyrics. However, whenever I choose a Sufjan Stevens song, I spend quite a bit of time reading the Genius annotations, discovering hidden metaphors and symbolism that don’t appear until quite a few listens. “Should Have Known Better” is the second track on the album, following his invocation of the muse in “Death with Dignity.” Stevens recalls more specific, particularly the jarring details about whenhis mother “left [him and his brother] at that video store” when he was three or four.
WHEN I WAS THREE, THREE, MAYBE FOUR. As Stevens gets more specific on Carrie & Lowell, he still is painting a beautiful scene of Oregon, wrapped with geographical references. He’s painting the scenery he remembers when he went to visit his mother when she was married to Lowell Brams. Sifting through the memories, Stevens feels a pang of guilt for not reaching out to his mother in her later life. He feels like he “should have [written] a letter” to her to reach out to her, but traumatized by his experiences with her, he tries to live his adult life well-adjusted by forgetting his painful memories. However, it was only through Lowell Brams that Sufjan had a chance to know his mother, as she reached out after abandoning Stevens at the age of one. Sufjan visited his mother and Lowell for three summers, but Carrie later succumbed to substance abuse and bipolar/schizophrenic episodes and left Lowell. Years later, Stevens met Brams again and they formed a musical partnership, Brams owning the record label that would release all of Stevens’ music.
THE PAST IS STILL THE PAST, THE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE. As the song picks up, keeps dropping metaphors and symbolism into his grief, but the major key change and the introduction of the synthesizer gives the song some resolve. After all, what do you do with the fact you should have, but you didn’t, and now it’s too late, but if I did I would have been too traumatized to move on? Stevens then throws the information, like talking to his mother’s grave, telling her that his brother had a daughter, and she’s beautiful. He’s telling his mother that even though things could have been better and despite all of the grief, new life is possible because his mother gave them life. Of course, as grief is a process of tricking yourself until it’s time to let the next part of it go, the song doesn’t end on a major note. Like “Death with Dignity,” “Should Have Known Better” ends funereally on minor sustained chords. The black shroud is laid back over his mother, and the listener is given a minute to grieve before the next track begins.
Opening with a the late ’90s pop-rock-sounding “Tides,” Ed Sheeran‘s fourth record =seems to change genres with every track. Back in October of last year, I asked the question about whether or not Ed Sheeran could successfully integrate all the musical styles he’s done in the past and make a cohesive album that would appeal both broadly to all music fans and more specifically to die-hard fans. What I found today was that most of the songs individually are good. But as an album the songs don’t play together save for the common themes of falling in love with his wife Cherry, the death of family members, isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, recovery from addiction, and the birth of his daughter Lyra.
I WANNA DRINK THAT SMILE. The eclectic mix of singles Sheeran released before the album dropped–“Bad Habits” and “Shivers” sounding similar to ÷‘s singles and “Visiting Hours” recalling the more sentimental moods of X(see my post on “Photograph”)-– along with the post-release radio singles “Overpass Graffiti” and the remix of “The Joker and the Queen,” a duet with Taylor Swift, are starting to seem more like a musical flex for Sheeran. Yes, we get it, Ed, you can do anything musically that you want to. Of course, the musical community questions whether it’s pure talent or whether it’s money or famous friends that creates the Ed Sheeran albums of today. Earlier this week, I had a conversation about Sheeran at work. My coworker, about 15 years older than me, said that he finds Ed Sheeran “derivative and boring” and then asked if there were any songs of Ed’s that I liked. I told him that Sheeran had lots of much better songs than “Shape of You,” such as “Photograph,” “Castle on the Hill,” and songs from =. My coworker only knew “Shape of You.” That conversation made me think about Sheeran’s music post-“Shape.” I think that I really like “Shivers” and “Bad Habits,” but I wonder if I would like them if I heard them every time I went past a phone store and heard them blaring? And to be fair, because of the pandemic, I’ve gone to town only a handful of times, so I have no idea what the phone stores are blaring now. Do I like the two new Ed Sheeran dance tracks because they aren’t “Shape of You”?
YOU WANNA DANCE ‘TILL THE SUNLIGHT CRACKS. When I first heard “Shivers” on AppleMusic’s autoplay after listening to Jax Jones‘s Snacksrecord back in early October of last year, I immediately thought, “Ed just wrote a tango.” The pizzicato strings, the 1-2 beat lends itself to living room dancing. However, apparently Sheeran claims he didn’t realize that the song was a tango until he saw EastEndersstar Rose Ayling-Ellis and Giovanni Pernice choreograph a tango for a Halloween-themed episode of Strictly Come Dancing 2021, the British version of Dancing with the Stars. The dance clip from the British television show went viral, continuing to boost Sheeran’s second single around the world. Nothing is subtle about “Shivers.” The music video features big-budget effects rarely seen these days outside of K-pop (check out the version with Sunmi and Jessi). Sheeran channels action heroes, boy band members, and yes, Elton John in the ridiculous situations in the music video. Lyrically, the song examines the early stages of love, the magnetism two people with chemistry feel when they can’t get enough of each other. Feeling that spark when you like someone and they like you back, waiting for them to text you back, the early stages when everything is a production–that’s what this song is all about. The question is if we’re going to hear anymore of these adolescent songs from Sheeran, or are we just going to have Nick JonasSpaceman-style records from here on out?
One of my forgotten New Year’s resolutions was to listen to more Kacey Musgraves this year, and for the most part I’ve neglected that other than watching her music videos for star-crossed back in January. But today when I was watching an old Mic the Snare video in which the host named Golden Houras his top album of 2018, I couldn’t shake “High Horse” out of my head since. Watching that video reminded me that 1) I am a bad music critic and 2) I’m a basic bitch, but 3) there is a lot of music out there and 4) there’s a reason why albums win Grammy’s and finally 5) just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s not worth digging into it.
I THINK WE’VE SEEN ENOUGH. Kacey Musgrave’s third record Golden Hour transitions the singer-songwriter from straight-forward Country music to what Nick Canovas (Mic the Snare) calls Carly Rae Jepsen‘s “Emotionwith banjos.” While I don’t fail to see the comparison, Golden Hour is much more of a laid-back record than Carly Rae’s classic, “High Horse” being one of the more energetic tracks. Golden Hour is classic in its own way, though, blending acoustic instruments with electronic elements seamlessly, giving listeners a new idea of what Country music can do. And speaking of the Grammy’s, Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour started a three-year streak of women winning Album of the Year: Golden Hour won in 2019, Billie Eilish‘s When We Fall Asleep, Where Do Go?won in 2020, and Taylor Swift’sfolklorewon in 2021. Whatever draws listeners to Musgraves, whether its her clever wordplay, her keen ear for a hook, or her medium-ranged ballads, its Kacey herself that keeps her fanbase strong. Her soft, under-pronounced Golden, Texas twang sometimes reminds you that Golden Hour is in fact a country record. But it’s in those twangy moments on Golden Hour, and star-crossedfor that matter, where we see Musgraves as real and vulnerable.
WHY DON’T YOU GIDDY UP, GIDDY UP AND RIDE STRAIGHT OUT OF THIS TOWN? Musgraves talked about writing “High Horse”in a session with two other writers, Tommy English and Trent Dabbs, telling them that she wanted to write a song imagining that The Bee Gees discovered country western. Country music hadn’t been this disco since Dolly Parton sang with Ronnie Milsap back in the ’70s. And while Country music has been masterfully melding with other genres since the turn of the century, the delivery–the country star–is often a barrier to the song and the genre’s success. But Musgraves had been spending two albums building bridges between the Country music scene and other diverse groups, making “High Horse” and the other tracks on Golden Hour crossover well. Musgraves sings in annoyance about an arrogant display of power. The song is more out of an eye-roll than anger. In fact, I can see a “teacher face,” you remember from back in school, the teacher looking bored, eyes narrowing, aimed at this obscene display of overcompensation. It’s always satisfying to see Lord Farquaad get bored and turn his horse to another town where maybe, just maybe the citizens will marvel at his wonder.
When moving to another country, it’s important to try many new things and fully immerse yourself in the culture. The number of new experiences you get within the first months will prove invaluable to your adaptation. That being said, even the most culturally open people will feel a little homesick. In August, I will have lived in South Korea for ten years, and has the time flown! But as the cherry blossoms start to fall, I’m reminded of what made me love this country, and how I had to adapt. It may be best tied to an album by a three-piece pop band of busking young men from a university in Cheonan, South Korea. This is my story with Busker Busker.
TODAY, LET’S WALK ON THIS STREET. Busker Busker formed when singer-songwriter Jang Beom-june and bassist Kim Hyung-tae joined an English instructor teaching at their university, Brad Moore as the band’s drummer. The band previously performed under the moniker Pinky Pinky, but when the band’s drummer went to serve in the country’s compulsory military service, the two band mates continued to play music. The new trio performed shows both in Cheonan and in the burgeoning indie scene in Hongdae, Seoul before joining the talent scouting show Superstar K3, which the band was the runner-up winner. After the band’s appearance on Superstar, they signed a record deal and released their first, self-titled record. The album was a spring-themed record with the lead single “Cherry Blossom Ending” becoming a major hit the spring of 2012. The band released an EP of b-sides and follow-up songs to their self-titled record. The band also released a second record based on the fall; however, they called it quits in 2013 with Jang Beom-june starting a fairly successful solo career. The band has hinted at reuniting over the years, but other than a few one-off concerts, a new record has yet to be confirmed.
DO YOU LIKE THE LULLABY REACHING YOUR EARS AT NIGHT? I first heard Busker Busker a year after “Cherry Blossom Ending” was released. At the time that I heard the song, it was quite different from what I knew as K-pop. It was the early 2010s and electro-pop was king. College had me starting to enjoy the pop music of the late ’00s and early ’10s. Once I got past my judgment of Lady Gaga and saw what she was doing as an ironic pop star, I started to enjoy the worldly sounds of pop music. But when I came to Korea under the impression of being a missionary, I was trying to shed the sounds of the world. My musical diet was still very much alternative rock, and that style seemed to be absent from Korea. Sure, I could find elements of familiarity in SHINEE, Taeyang, and PSY, but nothing really sounded like music that I could listen to for fun on my own. But Busker Busker offered a French-riviera sounding pop-rock that didn’t sound derivative of a band I knew but familiar enough to enjoy as an album experience. One particular aspect that I liked about Busker Busker’s debut was the lack of English in the lyrics. Unlike K-pop groups aiming for international success and even fellow rock bands like NELL, Busker Busker recorded the album purely in Korean. With only one hiccup on the record–“Ideal Type“–Busker Busker became one of my favorite albums that I listened to in 2013 and 2014. And it was that familiar sound in their debut album that fully introduced me to K-pop. I started to get an appreciation for the synthetic sound too. I started to see artistry in the dance pop. And ultimately, I realized that I could enjoy culture for what it is and it doesn’t mean that I have to forsake my own musical style. I can simply supplement it.
Fuel‘s 1998 hit “Shimmer” propelled the band onto the rock charts. This was the post-grunge, Modern Rock era when rock’s sound was cleaner, less gravelly, but still hard. At this time, rock still had crossover pop-chart/ Hot 100 hit-making skills. While Fuel’s follow-up record, Something Like Human would sport two hits that charted higher than “Shimmer,” the band’s first song is still one of their best-known songs.
ALL THAT SHIMMERS IN THIS WORLD IS SURE TO FADE. I’ve included a video below about the career of Fuel. When I think of late ’90s/early ’00s Modern Rock, Fuel is certainly on my shortlist, but I’m not sure that they would make everyone’s. I’d list Third Eye Blind, Semisonic, Tonic, Vertical Horizon, and The Goo Goo Dolls along with Fuel, though Fuel aimed to be a harder rock act than these groups. That may be one reason Fuel may be forgotten. Another reason may be that after Something Like Human, they were scarce on radio play. Their third record, Natural Selection, contained the hit “Won’t Back Down (Give You Hell),” which was featured on the Daredevil Soundtrack, but Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life” obscured the band’s would-be big hit from the movie. The band would then go through changes in their line up including their lead singer–a change that used to be career suicide, and ultimately failed to record or release anything as catchy as their big three hits: “Shimmer,” “Hemorrhage (In My Hands),” and “Bad Day.” Incidentally, the band’s first single tells us that “all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade” and that shimmer is “too far away for [the speaker] to hold.” The subject of this song is a girl who is chasing that shimmer and is delusional because of it. Maybe chasing fame makes us all a little delusional. Maybe it’s chasing any dream.
IT’S TOO FAR AWAY FOR ME TO HOLD. While the song still feels timeless to me, and Boyce Avenue & Tyler Ward‘s cover sounds even more timeless to me, the music video for “Shimmer” certainly is a time capsule with its shifty cinematography and the lead singer’s bleach blonde hair. The cover of the song highlights the delicate without the shifting urgent tone in the second verse when singer Brett Scallions quotes James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Up until this point, the band had played slowly, even with a violin accompaniment. As the shimmer dims, the songs gets more and more urgent, until finally speaker decides: “I guess I’ll let it go.” So many rock stories or music stories are like Fuel’s. But many band’s don’t even have three hits to rub together. Like the music industry, life too doesn’t always work out. We’re promised the world when we’re young, but the older we get the shimmer seems to be a mirage. Sure, the foolish among us live in the “fields of butterflies.” Some of us hope for “strawberry surprise[s],” but we certainly can’t bank on it. When we are growing up we may think that we will hold out for dreams and never settle for less, but as the shimmering starts to fade, ultimately we decide that we have to stick to what is solid. The bouncy light is just a distraction.
Artists often show off their influences when they play a cover. In 2004, Copeland released an EP of covers of songs by singer-songwriters from the ’70s and ’80s. While the band has moved into more experimental territory in recent years, know nothing stays the sameshows the musical education, the melodies, the song structure from which Copeland came. Today’s song was written by Billy Joel and released in 1977, and Billy Joel’s version appears on the Spotify and AppleMusic version of the April 2022 Mixtape because know nothing stays the same is a rare Copeland release. Copeland’s covers EP is worth checking out, though. Hearing the band’s unique take on the soft rock classics gave me a new appreciation for the band when I heard this EP, and I only wish it was more widely available.
THE WORST SHE CAN DO IS THROW SHADOWS AT YOU. Now we come to Under the Covers,Volume 3 (see below), naturally another YouTube Edition to the playlist because the main song on which the playlist is based is unavailable on streaming services. This time, I decided to stick to (mostly) artists I’ve talked about this year, expanding this time to one of the best covers this artist has recorded or the best cover that I’ve found of this artist’s song. I put this list together rather quickly, probably overlooking some artists. I guess there will need to be a Volume 4 at some point. I’ll list the track listing and give a link to the original or best-known version of the song.
1. “She’s Always a Woman” by Copeland, originally by Billy Joel–today’s song.
6. “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Number One Gun (Journeycover). I was curious about this track when I wrote about it last week. Not available on Apple or Spotify. Only on YouTube until someone takes it down.
Released on April 7, 2014, High4‘s debut single cowritten and featuring Korea’s darling singer IU, “Not Spring, Love, or Cherry Blossoms” has been a staple of K-pop for the early spring. Since I’ve been in the Southeastern part of Korea, the cherry blossoms (in Korean 벚꽃, Americans typically know them by their Japanese name sakura) have bloomed at the beginning of April and peaked in the first half of the month. In Korea, cherry blossoms are nature’s first photo-op of the year. School is usually a little more laidback the week the pink and white blossoms peak, as everyone must quickly get photo before the delicate flowers fall.
I HAVE NO ONE TO HOLD HANDS WITH AND WALK. When I was growing up and dreaming about experiencing far away places, I thought about eating my way across Europe, seeing golden temples in Thailand or Cambodia, and experiencing the beauty of a Japanese spring. I haven’t been to Japan in the spring; however, a Korean spring is quite breathtaking. The rain and gloom of mid-March gives way to the blooming of peach and plum trees, then the cherry blossoms. And while it’s sad when the cherry blossoms fall, they are only the beginning of all the flowers that bloom until the cosmos in mid autumn. Before Corona, the country held cherry blossom festivals, where large groups of people gathered to walk and take pictures with the country’s favorite flower. As this song mentions, the cherry blossom time is when couples are more visible, often dressed as twins in the same outfit–a Korean practice that takes place year round. It’s a time when those alone may feel extra lonely, but it’s also a time of realization that the youth doesn’t last forever. Just as these fragile flowers last for a week, life too is pushing us forward.
IT’S JUST TOO MUCH, THIS SWEET SPRING WIND.
Thanks to climate change, every year the cherry blossoms bloom a little earlier. This year Japan’s peak was the “earliest since 812.” Erratic weather patterns in the US threaten the blooming in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. This year, Southeast Korea bloomed earlier, but colder weather in Seoul and Gyeongi and Gangwon provinces delayed the blooming. As I was walking around in the chilly morning to the breezy afternoon, I saw green leaves were starting to dominate some of the cherry trees as not every tree peaks at the same time. It only takes a day of rain or a spring gust to obliterate the pink flowers. The transitional period of soft whitish pink to pale green is not pretty, but the once the flowers do fall the beautiful green on all the trees makes me consider changing my favorite season to spring. Winter always seems long; the snowless time brown earth is depressing. But at long last spring brings energy. It’s no longer time to spend inside depressed and getting fat. No, it’s time to go out and be in love and get things done.
I could have announced that today there would be some awesome secret song of the day, but rather than announcing what it was, I’d make you click a link to a YouTube video, and ultimately you’d be Rickrolled, but I thought that wouldn’t quite work for my playlist format for my April Mix. Instead, I decided to present an additional playlist celebrating the whimsical day that is April Fools. I chose meme-able songs, some quirky tunes, and a few songs about being hurt by lying. I realized when I was preparing this list that I often take my playlist quite seriously and my song choice leaves little room for comedy. So today, let’s have a light-hearted day. Enjoy this kitsch offering a happy April Fools!
Mixtapemotions 