Mixtapemotions

  • “All the Right Moves” by OneRepublic, Tuesday, May 31, 2022

    A band that started their career by being billed as the featured artist to Timbaland, their producer, who merely added a few grunts to a remix of their song “Apologize,” OneRepublic quickly gained popularity on their own terms. Their debut album spawned several other hits including “Stop and Stare.” On top of OneRepublic’s success, lead singer Ryan Tedder quietly became one of the go-to songwriters for pop musicians. In the late ’00s, Tedder began writing songs for Beyoncé and Kelly Clarkson, and began producing tracks for other artists. Then in November 2009, the band released their sophomore album Waking Up.
    BETWEEN THE NOISE YOU HEAR AND THE SOUND YOU LIKE. OneRepublic’s debut record, Dreaming Out Loud, wasn’t particularly innovative. A band coming out of Focus on the Family‘s hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and composed of (mostly) good Christian boys who, much like The Fray, were raised up on ’90s CCM sounds of Steven Curtis Chapman. The multi-instrumentalists in the band incorporated cello, viola, and several instruments uncommon on a pop record and made the band somewhat of a classical crossover. But overseen by the production of Timbaland, the band started to lean into R&B and hip-hop beats that accompany the strings and rock elements in OneRepublic. With all of that said, the tracks on Dreaming Out Loud rarely live up to their potential and leave OneRepublic being somewhat of a little bit hipper coffee shop band at their best. At their worst feel like an anemic version of what a rock band should sound like. The band’s follow up, Waking Up, though, seems to mix all of the elements that the band was trying for on their first record and actually pulls it off–most of the time. Many critics panned the record and its singles did their best in the Adult Contemporary charts, despite “Good Life” being included in tons of TV shows, movies, and commercials. Listening back to Waking Up today, it seems OneRepublic had all the elements in place to have an awesome 2009 pop-rock record, one that could get cred on the Alternative charts. Marketing had other plans, though.

    ALL THE RIGHT FRIENDS IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES. Waking Up opens with the moody, rhythmic “Made for You.” It becomes clear from this track that the snare drum is going to be a big star in this album’s composition, while guitars are either going to keep the beat (acoustic) or simply add noise (electric). By the end of “Made for You,” it sounds as if Tedder has either run out of lyrics for that song or is merely rehearsing for the second track, “All the Right Moves,” as he and an accompaniment of backup singers sing lines from the chorus of the next song. The tune and rhythm is different, but “Made for You” sounds like a bit of an overture for the album. The song ends with a children’s choir singing lines form “All the Right Moves” and then the next song begins with an organ sustaining the notes that will be played as a theme throughout the song. Just like “Made for You,” the snare drum drives the song. Cello plays a major part on the lead single and several songs on the album including the following track “Secrets.” The snare drives the first half of the record and the second half of the album loses momentum, reverting back to a less-rhythmic vision of classical music. Speaking of losing momentum Tedder seems to struggle vocally to keep in tun as the album continues, something unheard of in the age of autotune. While the album was most likely recorded out of sequence, listening to the record today made me think about the contrast between how clean Tedder’s vocals are on the first half, reaching for falsettos in today’s song and “Good Life,” and struggling to sing in his range on albums closing tracks. 

  • “Let It Happen” by Jimmy Eat World, Monday, May 30, 2022

    Today we revisit Jimmy Eat World‘s 2007 album, Chase This Light. Over the span of four records, from Clarity to Chase This Light, Jimmy Eat World showed what a band with a driving punk-rock rhythm can do with modern production. Clarity is a cult-favorite record. It shows the early days of Power Pop and Emo. Bleed American shows what happens if you get the energy of MxPx, an articulate voice, and throw in a few sound effects, you get a few pop hits and and some Alt-rock bangers.


    GOTTA LOVE HOW IT’S SOMEHOW ALL ON ME. The band’s follow up to Bleed American, 2004’s darker Futures was somewhat of a departure from the punk rock origins of the band. The titular opening track had a different driving energy than a punk-rock beat. In fact, the songs that follow on Futures don’t return to punk until track 6, the first single from the album “Pain.” The band’s 2001 Bleed American had paved the way for other punk-rockers to enter the spotlight, whether it were The All-American Rejects or a ton of other pop-up pop-punk bands that hit the pop and rock charts in the mid ’00s. In 2007, Jimmy Eat World returned to form on Chase This Light, a seemingly more pop-punk record than Futures. The band decided to produce the record themselves, but enlisted Butch Vig as their consultant and credited him as their executive producer. The songs on Chase This Light incorporated influences from ’80s rock bands U2 and The Outfield, as well as contemporary acts like The Killers and The Shins. Songs like the second single “Always Be,” “Here It Goes,” “Dizzy,” and today’s song “Let It Happen” offered a pop sensibility, mostly absent on Futures. 
    TALK, TALKING A LOT. The band’s third single, “Let It Happen” wasn’t a hit and didn’t receive a video like the lead single “Big Casino” and its follow up, “Always Be.” Some critics have called Chase This Light gimmicky in its use of stomps, claps, snaps, and other sound effects. Perhaps Chase This Light is a little too poppy for die-hard Jimmy Eat World fans. But Chase This Light is the natural follow up to Bleed American, in which the band had an ear for ballads and pop hooks.  Lyrically, Chase This Light expands upon the themes in the band’s earlier work, with reference to politics being messed up in “Electable (Give It Up)” and relationships struggles. Today’s song is a somewhat slower-paced song that still has that driving punk rock beat, but with a bit of a sadder guitar wailing added as effect. Many of the songs on Chase This Light come from a place of exasperation which makes many of the lines sarcastic. “All the salt in the world couldn’t melt that ice,” lead singer Jim Adkins exclaims in “Big Casino.” “Jesus, is there someone yet who got their wish?” he breaks down in the climactic bridge of “Dizzy.” On today’s song, the irony in his voice is a little more subtle, but listen carefully and you know that the relationship is grating, and it’s only track 2!

  • "Somebody That I Used to Know" (Tronicbox '80s Remix) by Gotye ft. Kimbra, Sunday, May 29, 2022 (partial repost)

    A few years ago, YouTuber Nick Canovas, or Mic the Snare, made a video about the characteristics of meme songs and why some songs go viral. Not all meme songs are created equal. Some annoyingly catchy songs get stuck in enough heads to become a hit. These are so bad that they’re almost good. Then there are old songs that become renewed for the TikTok generation. These songs had a solid presence before taking off on social media. Some of these songs are laughable in a modern context—the swanky sax solo from “Careless Whisper,” Rick Astley’s shoulder dance when he sings “Never Gonna Give You Up.” But some meme songs are what music critics still call legitimately good. A-ha’s “Take On Me,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence,” and today’s song can be legitimately enjoyed with an extra dose of irony once it has soundtracked a meme.

    YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO CUT ME OFF. In the spring and summer of 2012, I did a lot of driving. I had to get my paperwork together to go to Korea, and I couldn’t hack American bureaucracy by using the mail or courier services. Two trips to Johnson City, Tennessee to get stamps from the state in which I graduated college, two trips to Atlanta, and countless trips to around Western North Carolina to get the paperwork together, I listened to a lot of radio. I listened to the radio mostly because I had an old radio-turner device to play my iPod on the stereo. My 2001 Toyota Corolla came with a CD player, that had died some time before. If I drove a long distance, the radio stations would change, and I would have to find a new frequency to broadcast my iPod. However, this got old, so I just listened to the radio. At that time, I remember a few songs that would play constantly–Carly Rae Jepsen‘s “Call Me Maybe,” “Lights,” by Ellie Goulding, and “Somebody That I Used to Know.” This song will always remind me of those trips in early summer, before my life changed forever.

    Old television set with fake wood 
    encasing, popular in the ‘80s
    source: Flickr, photographer Seth Keen    .

    YOU CAN GET ADDICTED TO A CERTAIN KIND OF SADNESS. The YouTube channel Middle 8 released a video giving the history of this “Somebody That I Used to Know” and a musical breakdown of why it became such an ear worm. The Gotye original is built on a 1957 Luis Bonfiá jazz instrumental, “Seville.” The song topped both the Alternate chart and the Hot 100, a rare occurrence as the Alternative chart boasts very few pop songs. But while it may have been the elements of “Seville” that got listeners addicted to this art pop song, remixes and covers that take the song in a completely different musical direction may give us the same enduring effect despite only the lyrics staying mostly intact. Take for example YouTuber Hildegard von Blingin’ “bardcore” version of the song. Bardcore is a style of music imitating Medieval/Renaissance music, using older instruments and often adapting lyrics to sound more Chaucerian. With the line: “send a wagon for thy minstrel and refuse my letters” the spirit of the song is transformed into an earlier time. It’s witty, but there’s enough homage to the original spirit of a break-up song. Today’s song also loses many of the element that made the original great. Instead of the latin guitar and the xylophone which help to carry the original song listeners are treated to electronic drums, synths, and a raucous guitar solo–all absent from the original tune.  Essentially, the Tronicbox remix is a meme of the original song. This song might have you looking through the garage for some old VHS tapes beside the lacquered wooden vacuum-tubed TV set. But before you book that perm and change to bigger rims on your glasses, just consider how ridiculous you’ll look. This song brings to mind everything awful about the ’80s, and that’s why it’s so fun. 

    Tronicbox ‘80s Remix:

     

    Original Music Video:

    Original song by Gotye

  • “Bad Dreams” by Deas Vail, Saturday, May 28, 2022 (repost)

    Eleven years ago, Deas Vail released their self-titled album, and with the exception of a Christmas EP, For Shepherds & Kings, and a B-sides album, this has been their last full-length project. Composed of husband and wife Wesley and Laura Blaylock and three other musicians, Deas Vail is Latin and Old French, meaning “humble servant of God.” As a lighter indie rock band they gained momentum in the Christian Rock and Warped Tour scenes before stopping touring and ultimately disappearing from the scene. Their final, self-titled album is a beautiful collection of songs, produced by Relient K guitarist and self-proclaimed minimalist, Matt Hoopes. Minimalism seems to be a consideration as there is nothing particularly florid in the album or packaging, from the lyrics that don’t stick out at first, to the cover art, to the subdued tones throughout the album. Listening to Deas Vail reminds me that it’s not the grand days that make a lifetime great, but the cumulated moments of sunny afternoon walks.

    I’M CROSSING FINGERS AND HOPING LIFE WORKS OUT. This album was particularly impactful to me in the springs of 2013 and 2014. I was living in Chuncheon at the time and walked everywhere. I learned the city that way. It took me 45 minutes to walk (in the opposite direction) to HomePlus or Emart, Korean department stores similar to Walmart or Target. It would be something I’d do on a Sunday or after work when I needed something. As I walked, I listened to music on my Galaxy S3. Winter, spring, summer, and fall I walked. In the winter I just bundled up and trudged over the snow-covered sidewalks. In the spring I dressed in layers, taking them off as I got hotter, my sweaty hoodie taking up space in my backpack. I’d even walk home with my groceries, my hands so full, I must have looked crazy. The weather only became miserable in late July into August. So a few drippy trips later, I realized that I needed to keep my dignity and started taking the bus. Other times, I figured if I really needed to, at any point, I could catch a bus or a taxi, but I rarely did. I wanted to save money if I could and live as frugally as possible. 

    Lotus Lantern Parade in Seoul. Source: 
    YeonDeungHoe on Flickr.

    I’M CROSSING RIVERS, AND HOPING I DON’T DROWN. This album also reminds me of Saturday afternoon trips to Seoul. After church, I’d often go home and rest, but if I wanted something good to eat or to hang out with someone, I’d take 3 or 4 pm train to Seoul. Chuncheon had a regular subway line which took about an hour and a half to the outskirts or a fast train that took a little over an hour to go to the city center. If you didn’t purchase the tickets in advance, you might be standing, though. This album was a soundtrack to the weekend I attended the Lotus Lantern Parade, a Buddhist festival held on one of the main streets of Seoul a week before Buddha’s birthday as celebrated in South Korea. The two years that I attended this parade, I felt so overwhelmed with a spirit of tranquility. Late April, when the parade is held, has some of the most perfect weather in Korea. Nights are warm and usually it’s not raining at that point. The streets are calm; Seoul is usually sprawling on a Saturday night with people out enjoying their nightlife. As the sun is setting, the parade begins, simple at first with men, woman, and children–many of them with connection to a Buddhist temple–marching and holding up messages and symbols of their religion. The parade has a constant wooden drum and chant that lulls the audience into a peaceful trancelike state. As the parade continues, people start carrying lanterns symbolizing Buddhist traditions and teachings. More and more elaborate lanterns appear as the parade continues. The floats at the end are quite spectacular. After the parade, I caught the train back to Chuncheon, listening again to Deas Vail. The beauty that I saw that day, from the warm afternoon sunlight to the beautiful lanterns shine in my memory and make me contemplate how can I, “alone in a stranger’s bad dream,” become a person who reflects peace on this earth.

  • “Bad Blood” (Taylor Swift cover) by Tiffany Alvord, Friday, May 27, 2022

     

    As a singer-songwriter and YouTube cover artist, Tiffany Alvord has collaborated with other YouTube musicians such as Alex G, Tyler Ward, Megan Nichole, and Boyce Avenue. She released a number of pop covers albums until 2016 and then began releasing singles. She released a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” on her 2016 I’ve Got It Covered, Vol. 6, which includes three other 1989 Swift covers, “Blank Space,” “Wildest Dreams,” and “Out of the Woods.”  The album’s opener, “Blank Space,” falls flat, as Alvord doesn’t add anything to the Swift masterpiece. Tyler Ward adds a masculine perspective to “Wildest Dreams.” But where Alvord shines is on the blander Taylor Swift tracks, “Out of the Woods” and today’s song, “Bad Blood.” While Swift is a good singer, Alvord’s vocal color brings the two seemingly monotonous versions alive.

    TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE. Celebrity feuds aren’t particularly interesting. But when we talk about Taylor Swift, we have to talk about the long-standing, but now resolved, feud between Swift and Katy Perry. There are different accounts about who started it, but each singer took their own jabs whether it was award show snubs or diss-tracks such as Katy Perry’s “Swish Swish” featuring a savage bridge by Nicki Minaj and Taylor’s Kendrick Lamar collaboration, the remix of “Bad Blood.” Slate’s podcast Hit Parade’s episode about the history of remixes points out that Swift learned a lesson about single promotion from Katy Perry’s hit record Teenage Dream, an album that technically tied with Michael Jackson’s Bad for most number one singles from an album. However, critics are divided this accolade. Perry’s fourth #1 from the album, “E.T.,” was propelled to the top of the chart because of the non-album remix featuring Kanye West. Swift scored three number ones from 1989 with the third being propelled by the non-album remix for “Bad Blood” and its big budget music video. The remix keeps the same boring chorus as the song’s main hook, but Lamar takes the verses. 

    STILL GOT SCARS IN MY BACK FROM YOUR KNIVES. Even the energy that Lamar instills into the track can’t save “Bad Blood.”  The auto-tuning renders the chorus soulless and the instruments feel canned. Alvord’s version feels much more authentic. But the worst thing about Swift’s version is how self-obsessed it is. This was the beginning of my love affair with Ms. Swift cooling. From “Bad Blood” we got the plastic hip-hop elements in her follow up, Reputation, especially on the lead single, “Look What You Made Me Do.” Music video effects and auto tune sacrifice the authenticity of a young girl and her guitar. The early singles and most of 1989 gave us a fun look at authenticity in pop music, but just like an enemy can spoil the fun, “Bad Blood” makes Swift much less fun. So as much as fans love Folklore, we cannot blame Reputation for insincere Taylor, but rather the music industry that says the remix of  “Bad Blood” is hit material. The original is much better. And much better than that is Tiffany Alvord’s cover. But even that doesn’t fix the “nah-nah-nah-nah boo boo” sounding rhyme scheme.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

    Tiffany Alvord’s version:

    Taylor Swift album version:

    Remix:

  • “Sine from Above” by Lady Gaga ft. Elton John, Thursday, May 26, 2022

    We’ve been through several emanations of Lady Gaga. Her debut album, The Fame, was both a satire and a full embrace of the decadence of pop music. Critics were quick to draw comparisons to Madonna: both singers celebrate female sexuality and both artists are of Catholic Italian-American families which cause several similarities in themes throughout their discographies, and hence, both singers faced a hell of a lot of controversy. But just when critics said “enough” to Gaga’s avant-garde Artpop, the singer switched things up. She recorded a Country-inspired album Joanne. She recorded with musical legend Tony Bennett, singing mid-twentieth century standards. She won an Oscar for the song “Shallow” from the movie she also received a nomination for her acting, A Star Is Born.

    I LOST MY LOVE AND NO ONE CARED. Lady Gaga’s 2020 record, Chromatica, was originally planned for April, but delayed due to the pandemic. It is the return to Lady Gaga house music that her earliest fans had been waiting for. The album was well reviewed, holding a 79% on Metacritic. It debuted at #1 on Billboard’s 200 album charts. While the album did release singles, Gaga’s intention was to make a cohesive collection of songs that were meant to be listened to in the sequence they were released. The three “Chromatica” interludes divide the album into three distinctive parts. The album was received by many LGBTQ+ fans as the album they hoped to hear in the clubs and at Pride, though lockdowns made gathering impossible. The podcast Switched On Pop points out the lyrical content of the record hinting at Gaga’s personal life, dancing to distract herself from the tears. The album also makes allusions to earlier Lady Gaga albums, but the critics at Switched On Pop argue that Chromatica is in stark contrast to The Fame in that early in Gaga’s career, the singer merely wanted fame but now she is craving “Stupid Love” from someone special. Fame now means little without love.

    Sine wavelength measurement
    source: Wikipedia Commons.

    WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I PRAYED FOR LIGHTNING. Chromatica begins its final act with Lady Gaga’s duet with Elton John in the song “Sine from Above.” This is the third feature on the record, the others being Ariana Grande on the second single “Rain On Me” and K-pop group BLACKPINK on “Sour Candy.” Elton John’s contribution to the record seems perfect to me. It reminds us that Gaga is an heir to the pop-rock extravagance started in the ’60s and ’70s by singers like David Bowie, Elton John, and Freddie Mercury. The inclusion also celebrate the queer energy of decadent pop stars. “Sine from Above” is a pun, playing on the mathematical term for the measurement of the opposite divided by the hypotenuse of a right triangle, if high school math still serves me well. The image on the cover art of Chromatica has a “sine wave.” Someone who receives a “sign from above” receives confirmation that they are on the right path. Gaga prays for “lightning,” which is something that most people want to avoid. Nobody wants to be struck by Zeus’s bolt. Many also attribute lighting to the Judaeo-Christian God, though the Old Testament usually depicts other methods of God exacting vengeance. Some critics have said that Gaga really means to call the song “Sin from Above” meaning that she questions her existence outside of what she has been told is God’s will for humanity. In some ways the song is campy and laughable. Elton John and Lady Gaga can sometimes be a meme of themselves, and Elton John’s over-the-top vocals make some listeners cringe. But I find this song compelling. I was certainly not in the mood from Chromatica when it dropped. I was getting chubby and not thinking at all about getting ready for a “hot boy summer.” I was dealing with depression and existential dread. I didn’t want to dance. I wanted to process my life and my decisions. Now that things feel a little more normal, dance music is okay again. But an introspective dance song potentially about religious trauma from childhood? Sine me up! 

    Audio:

     
    Remix:

  • “We Are Destroyer” by Anberlin, Wednesday, May 25, 2022

     












    In the welter of the ever-changing music industry, Anberlin decided to call it quits in 2013, but not before a final record, Lowborn, and a farewell tour. The band started to feel that they were hitting the glass ceiling of what a rock band could achieve in the 2010s. On the Your Favorite Band podcast, lead singer Stephen Christian revealed that after Universal Republic Records failed to promote radio singles from Vital, the band was able to take their record to an indie label, Big3 Records, re-releasing Vital as Devotion, a massive three-disc deluxe edition of Vital. The band formed a radio team to promote the opening track, “Self-Starter,” as a rock radio hit. But the song didn’t catch on.

    SHUT UP AND ACTUALLY TRY. Stephen Christian often attributes the success that the band had and that he has had in his solo career to a daily “hustle.” I’ve written about the band that debuted and experienced success, but Anberlin worked steadily and experienced growth slowly. The problem was just as they experienced the height of their success, a number one single at the top of the Alternative Rock charts, the music industry stopped promoting rock music. The next album had a #3 single. But the band wouldn’t recapture the radio play and recognition of when harder rock was king. With the rubric for success thrown out the window, personal issues wore on the professional lives of the bandmates, and Stephen informed the group that he wanted to call it quits. The final record, Lowborn, would be all about experimenting with recording techniques the band had never tried before, from the vibey sounds that drummer Nate Young and producer Aaron Marsh came up with to the most heartbreaking breakup song lyrics that Stephen Christian could write–the end of a relationship that took all of his creative energy for over a decade, but ultimately that relationship failed. It was time to walk away.

    IN JUST A MATTER OF MINUTES…WE COULD LOSE IT ALL. “We Are Destroyer” opens Anberlin’s 2014 record. The song was also released as a single in early 2015, just after Anberlin played their final show in December 2014. Most of Anberlin’s records have a similar formula of a fast opening number with speed guitar work by Joseph Milligan, a slower, ambient middle, and an epic or anthemic ending. “We Are Destroyer” sets the album up this way. The gritty guitars sound similar to where guitarist Christian McAlhaney and bassist Deon Rexroat would take their solo project Loose Talk. Unlike other Anberlin records, the band chose not to play many of the album’s tracks live on their farewell tour, instead focusing on fan favorites from previous records. The band didn’t even play the album’s lead radio single “Stranger Ways” live. The exception was “We Are Destroyer” which opened their tour many nights. The band released a video of live footage of the band playing the song to accompany the single. “We Are Destroyer” stays on the album’s theme in explaining why the breakup was imminent. But taking a broader look at the song, we can hear two contrasting truths. The first is that entitlement is destroying the world. The second is that we are much more than our accomplishments which can be taken away from us “in a matter of moments.” The Sisyphean struggle of “us against the tides / And will be until we die” feels exhausting at times. Despite the struggle and the burnout, Stephen Christian has a final burst of energy for what was supposed to be the final Anberlin record.      


    Read the lyrics on Genius.



    Music video:

    Under a Dying Sun livestream version:


  • “Zombie” by Watashi Wa ft. Anberlin, Tuesday, May 24, 2022

    On Friday, Watashi Wa released their latest record People Like People on Tooth & Nail Records. Over the past two decades, lead singer Seth Roberts has had three bands: Watashi Wa, Eager Seas, and Lakes, but in a recent episode of As the Story Grows  podcast, he said that he feels that he will only make music with Watashi Wa from now on because all of the other monikers were basically the same band as Watashi Wa. Roberts is a collaborating force, so when the latest Watashi Wa record was announced a list of bands in the milieu of Tooth & Nail pop-punk, nostalgic listeners got even more excited about the resurrection of the sound of 2003’s The Love of Life.

    PISSED OFF AND BLEEDING. While collaboration is one of the strongest selling points of People Like People, Scott Fryberger from JesusFreakHideOut.com in a review of the album called out the band on their overselling the featured artists. Listeners are often hard-pressed to identify the featured artists. The album, though, in some aspects could stand well on its own, without crediting the featured artist directly. People is punk in its often loose instrumentation, but the melody is strong. Roberts’s vocals are in tune, but it feels like the music is tuning to his vocals rather than the other way around, which is a feature I noticed in earlier pop punk bands like Weezer and Unwritten Law. When Roberts came back on the Labeled podcast two weeks ago, he revealed that today’s song, “Zombie,” was written with Stephen Christian and was intended to be an Anberlin song for their upcoming album; however, Anberlin decided to pass on the track as their album was going in another direction. The song features a bridge sung by Stephen Christian. This is more than most of the collaborators get on the album, as longtime fans of the bands strain to hear their obscure favorite punk rock band sing back-up on the track.

    WHILE THE BUSINESSES ARE BURNING. If you were still enjoying network TV, say Grey’s Anatomy or This Is Us, in 2019 you had to endure a longer hiatus before the beginning of the 2020 season. Then, when the shortened season finally aired, the shows were often re-scripted to address the global pandemic. You realized, you really didn’t miss network TV while you were binging Tiger King and Love Is Blind. In many ways that “back to normal, but not normal” sense that you get when watching television made during COVID feels like this album. Many of the themes Roberts and company explore on this record have been ones that we’ve been thinking about throughout the pandemic, but we’ve also been battered with them so much from whichever political wing you subscribe to. And speaking of politics, songs like “Zombie,” try very hard to push for neutrality. Roberts compares the gloom and doom of the news to the MK-Ultra experiments in the 1950s and ’60s. The real culprit, according to the song, is the media, preying on the detached public trapped in their own private Idahos. Other songs like “Land of the Free” use language more associated with right-wing politics. In some moments on People Like People, it’s hard to see what Roberts is arguing. At the end of “Zombie,” Roberts’ daughter, who speaks throughout the record, gives a touching elementary school-style speech about the ideals of equality. She says, “I believe in equality for all and opportunity for all.” The rhetoric of this album is about peace and depolarization; however, it seems that the album naively ignores the conflict that exists and that smoothing things over will erase the deeper issues. But this is not to say that there’s no merit in a little smoothing.


  • “Your Love” by Caroline Glaser (The Outfield cover), Monday, May 23, 2022

    A coffee-shop singer songwriter and early YouTube music creator, Caroline Glaser (now Caroline Swon)’s breakthrough came when she auditioned and got a place on season 4 of NBC‘s talent show, The Voice. Three performances advanced her to further rounds, but she was cut on the forth round singing Ed Sheeran‘s “The A Team.” After The Voice, Glaser recorded an 8-song self-titled record, from which today’s song, a cover of The Outfield‘s 1985 debut hit single “Your Love,” comes from. 

    YOU KNOW I LIKE MY GIRLS A LITTLE OLDER. Other than a 2018 single, Glaser hasn’t released any recent music under her name, but rather she started releasing music under the moniker Brother Bird and has released their first LP, gardens, last year. Also in 2018, Glaser married fellow The Voice alumni Colton Swon of the country duo The Swon Brothers, a group that had placed third on Season 4. Caroline’s voice has a soft, singer-songwriter characteristic, but it has a lot of personality. Many of her songs are soft acoustic ballads, though for The Voice she performed the upbeat numbers “Tiny Dancer” and “Put Your Records On.” She showed her flair for the Indie by covering Of Monsters and Mens‘ “Little Talks.” On today’s song, she strips down the ’80s anthem to make it an introspective ballad. The Outfield’s original version is built around layered harmonies, and clear instrumental production that gives the song a distinctive ’80s taste. Glaser skips all of the “go big or go home” sound that The Outfield is famous for. Instead, her version feels a bit more desperate. 

    I DON’T WANNA LOSE YOUR LOVE TONIGHT. I’d definitely recommend the original version over the Caroline Glaser version, just because it’s anthemic and it makes more lyrical sense. The podcast Cover Me goes in depth about the original version of this song and looks at several covers of The Outfield’s classic. One version the hosts examine is by a Queer-core  band, The Butchies, an all-female punk band that writes music celebrating queer love. As I was listening to Glaser’s version today, I wondered if she was doing a similar concept with the song. “Your Love,” as sung by The Outfield talks about a hidden relationship. The speaker would “do anything for “his secret love.” He wants to “stay the night but keep it under cover,” possibly meaning to keep the romance hidden or just to keep it sexual. What a jerk. But then I was thinking about how the song could be queer coded if you just change a few details or the genders. And not to justify a jerk, but in times of sexual confusion, people get hurt. The clandestine affair in which the listener is begged to not go, but to remain and be “used,” sounds like abuse, and it is. But it could be a deeper issue.

    Caroline Glaser version:

    The Outfield version: 

  • “You Wanted More” by Tonic, Sunday, May 22, 2022

    In 1996 Tonic scored a number 11 hit with their song “If You Could Only See” from their debut record Lemon Parade. Three years later, the band releases the first single from their follow up record Sugar. “You Wanted More” first appeared on the soundtrack to the 1999 teen sex comedy American Pie. Unlike “If You Could Only See,” “ You Wanted More” failed to crack the Hot 100 but peaked at number 3 on the Modern Rock chart. The band’s sophomore record had several underperforming singles. After their third record, 2002’s Head on Straight, the band went on a lengthy hiatus.

    I DON’T KNOW HOW I GOT BITTER. While many people have probably forgotten about Tonic’s debut single and their less successful follow ups, 1996 is an interesting time for music. Music YouTuber Rick Beato claims that Rock music died in 1996 mainly because Rock started divorcing itself from the blues. He also claims that the rock music of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s popularized “nameless” bands, meaning that nobody actually knows who is in the band, as opposed to the classic rock and grunge-era bands. I find this definition interesting. Rock between 1996-2006 was certainly more about the singer than the guitarist. Many casual music fans can name lead singers like Scott Stapp, Chris Martin, Ryan Tedder, but we can’t name the other band members. Then there’s bands like Fuel, The Fray, and Tonic which we can’t name a single member.I think this is interesting, but it being the music of my childhood to young adulthood, I can’t say that I enjoy late ‘90s/ ‘00s rock less.

    YOU WILL NEVER SAY THAT YOU WERE WRONG. But what I find even more interesting was not particularly sexy rock music used in late ‘90s horny teenage comedies. I was twelve when the first American Pie was released in theaters. Having a strict no PG-13 movies in the house until I was at least 15, it wasn’t until much later that I saw American Pie, but being a teenager in the early ‘00s, the best lines and perverted scenes had already been spoiled. In fact, all of the jokes seemed tame to the stuff my friends talked about at school out of the watchful ears of the Christian school teachers. I was maybe first exposed to “You Wanted More” from another young adult sex comedy, MTV’s Undressed. The trashy dorm-room drama aired late at light on Saturday night syndication a few times that I was lucky enough to catch in my early teens. Like many MTV shows, it features blaring, thematically unconnected songs that as horny college students try to hook up. It’s probably tame stuff looking back on it, and the stories always ended before anything could get graphic in the bedroom—it wasn’t HBO. But the layers of risk—watching MTV, staying up too late, and a show about sex—made my otherwise tame adolescence a little more adventurous. What more could you want than that?

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

    Music video:


    Performance video: 

    Cover by Boyce Avenue: