Mixtapemotions

  • “First Love" by Jennifer Lopez, Sunday, July 31, 2022

    Jennifer Lopez A.K.A. J-Lo hasn’t released a full record since 2014. However, with singles, acting, activism, business endeavors, and gracing the red carpet, the now fifty-two year old cultural icon is just as relevant as ever. But in the mid-’00s, Lopez did fail to stay relevant. In 2011, she reemerged with her seventh studio record Love? and as a judge on American Idol. In 2014, she divorced singer and father of her twins Marc Antony and released her latest record, A.K.A

    AND NOW, YOU’RE ON MY SKIN. In 2021, J-Lo broke off her engagement with New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez (a.k.a. Arod) and later started dating old flame, actor Ben Affleck. Affleck certainly wasn’t the singer’s “First Love,” but the two were engaged in 2002, but following the release of their critically-panned film Gigli and the stress of the ever-present lens of the paparazzi, the two called off their engagement. Lopez said of that the end of that relationship was her “first real heartbreak.” Up until this point, Lopez had been married twice, albeit shortly, and had had several high-profile romances. Lopez said of her ten-year marriage with Marc Antony, “a bandaid to the cut” of her breakup with Affleck. But if the goal of learning history is that we don’t make the same mistakes as we do in the past, “Bennifer” is back together. And while the tabloids still have their day with the singer and the actor, the two have determined to not let media be a wedge between the two.  

    MISTAKES, I DON’T WORRY ABOUT THEM NO MORE. “First Love” is one of Max Martin‘s minor hits, reaching only 87 on the Hot 100. The song comes from a conversation between Lopez, Martin, and producer Cory Rooney had a conversation about relationships and how hard relationships are. Somebody said that they wish “the one” was “the first one” because it would save all parties from a lot of pain. Martin soon after presented Lopez the demo during a lunch break filming American Idol. The result was a catchy song capturing a complex feeling in a simple song. The music video for the single features English model David Gandy as Lopez’s love interest. Filmed in the desert, the sweltering black & white video is sexy. Perhaps the stylistic departure for the singer, a electro-pop rather than the usual hip-hop oriented song, is to blame for why “First Love” wasn’t huge. The concept behind the song is as interesting as it is flawed. I tend to not believe in “the one,” despite having been in a seven-year relationship with someone I want to spend the rest of my life with. I think about how I wasn’t ready to meet my current partner when I was younger, still figuring things out. I needed the heartbreak to make me ready to fall in love with the right person. But that’s just me. Rather than dithering between first, second, third, or forth loves, let love happen naturally. 

    Music video:

    Lopez talking about the song:
    Behind the scenes videos:

    American Idol performance: 

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Crazy 8s” by Mae, Saturday, July 30, 2022

    Mae‘s sophomore record, The Everglow, is to this day their most beloved record. The band released the album in 2005 and rereleased it the next year as a deluxe edition with bonus tracks and a read-along booklet designed to enhance the listener’s Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience in 2006. With the band’s releases of demos and two full-length records, Mae fulfilled their contract with Tooth & Nail Records. Later that year, the band signed with Capitol Records and began recording with legendary producer Howard Benson. Singularity was released in the summer of 2007 and was the only Mae record to be released on Capitol.

    SMOKE-FILLED CASINOS, BUT WHAT DO WE KNOW WE’LL TAKE A CHANCE. 

    Singularity is a unique album for Mae as it features a rock and New Wave sound not featured on the prior records. Drummer Jacob Marshall and keyboardist Rob Sweitzer named the album Singularity based on their discussions from a book by physicist Paul Davies. Marshall said of these conversations, “There is so much more for us to learn and understand and these ideas inspired us to question everything.” The lyrical content of Singularity seems to deal with finding meaning out of chaos, which is alluded to in the band’s making-of documentary. In a nutshell, Mae is addressing questions of evolution, theistic or atheistic, but coming to a conclusion that life has a purpose. “Crazy 8s,” the second song on Singularity, builds on the self-doubt in the first song, “Brink of Disaster.” The optimism of being in a band and “making it” flooding the lyrics on Destination: Beautiful and The Everglow are absent in many of the songs on Singularity. Now the band is “chasing heaven as it fades into black.” 

    The infinite symbol looks like an 8
    turned on its side. Photo source.

    WOULD YOU STAY WITH ME TONIGHT?  The gritty bass and guitars contrast with the beautiful musicality of the chorus. The verses of the song detail a kind of useless energy that you can do nothing with all the while avoiding the most important things in life. Bearing in mind the multiple meanings of the song’s title, “Crazy 8s” evokes several kinds of chaos. The song possibly takes its name from a card game, often played by children, in which the goal of the game is to discard all cards. However, the song also seems to allude to a race track in the shape of an 8 or the infinity symbol, hence showing a kind of futility. On The Black Sheep Podcast by HM Magazine, Mae’s singer Dave Elkins, and guitarist Zach Gehring talk about the tension in the band during the recording of Singularity. They talk about the tension in the band that came with the pressure of recording with a major label and the disconnection between the band members due to the recording process. On a recent episode of Aaron Sprinkle and Matthew Schwartz’s podcast Moontraveling with guest Jason Vena of Acceptance, Sprinkle and Vena recalled the aggressive micromanagement from Acceptance’s time on Columbia Records. Mae, too, quickly departed from their major label as they wanted to produce music more experimentally. Today Mae has 104K monthly listeners on Spotify. Experimental bands that question everything rarely have a place on major labels or Christian Indie labels back in the early ’00s. 


    Read “Crazy 8s” by Mae on Genius.
    The band explains why they chose the name Singularity:

    Behind the scenes about “Crazy 8s”:

  • "A Boy Brushed Red Living in Black and White" by Underoath, Friday, July 29, 2022

    They’re Only Chasing Safety is an important album both in Christian music and Emo. The fourth studio record from Underoath was a reinvention of the band. First, the band’s prior lead singer, Dallas Taylor, left the band while the band was on the Vans Warped Tour in 2003, touring for their third record, The Changing of Times. Between the band’s third and fourth records, half of Underoath’s members changed, but since 2004, the band’s lineup hasn’t changed. Frontman Spencer Chamberlain took Taylor’s place on unclean vocals and together with drummer Aaron Gillespie on clean vocals, the two created the band’s first iconic record, an album that set the standard of hard-edged Emo and screamo.
     

    CAN YOU FEEL YOUR HEARTBEAT RACING? I’ve written a lot about Underoath, mostly about who they are now and how everything they are doing now is a reaction to who and what they’ve done. They’re Only Chasing Safety is an album about six Christian young men, straight out of youth group, going into ministry–out into the world–without actually living in it. While some of the edginess of the record very well may have come from lived experience, the immaturity in the lyrics on their fourth album seem to come when they superimpose a Christian message on the issues that flood the record. While lead singer Spencer Chamberlain has said that Underoath actually never wrote Christian songs except for the final track “Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape,”from listening as the other bandmates recalled their experience in Underoath, the band’s culture and lyrics align with the ‘youth group’ culture of the era. Some examples of this youth group culture includes an outward display of piety on Warped Tour, members of Underoath leading worship, drawing other bands to attend. And then there was the accountability–a Christian term for checking in on fellow Christians, often based on a mutual agreement, to keep other Christians from backsliding, or deviating from the path prescribed by one’s own understanding of the Bible. Accountability worked for a while, until the band came to often violent realizations that each member had vastly different beliefs. But that’s getting ahead of the story.

    I NEVER THOUGHT WE’D MAKE IT OUT ALIVE. The second song on They’re Only Chasing Safety, “A Boy Brushed Red Living in Black and White“ became one of Underoath’s biggest songs, despite the fact that 1) they refused to play it in concert for many years and 2) they refused to make a radio edit to reduce the screaming that could have marketed the song to mainstream radio. The song deals with a sexual relationship that is unhealthy for both the speaker and the girl the speaker is sleeping with. It is clear that the unhealthiness of the sexual relationship in this song, though, comes from a deeply rooted belief in purity culture, or the idea that sex outside the confines of marriage is wrong in every case. One management decision that the band did acquiesce to was change the lyric in the bridge. Timothy McTague and Aaron Gillespie talked on the It’s All Over Podcast (formerly BadChristian) about how Tooth & Nail Records‘ A&R manager Chad Johnson strongly suggested changing the lyric from “a sucker for that whore” to “a sucker for that,” the pronoun that referring to a lifestyle of promiscuity rather than a particular person, especially because the song was supposedly written about a real person. The band has gone on to sing the song both ways in concert. But I think Johnson was right to encourage the band to cut the word. From the context of the song, it doesn’t seem that the girl is doing anything worse than the boy. While 40-something Underoath bandmates certainly will have a different view about sex today–no, sex isn’t going to kill you–, too often, both in and out of Christian culture, men make unfair comments on women’s sex drive. She wants it too much, she’s a whore; not enough, she’s a prude. She’s either a temptress or the future mother of your children, and inadvertently, “A Boy Brushed Red” seems to play into that Christian narrative. Today’s song is a relic of the past, but I hope for a little more responsibility with the band’s platform moving forward. In other words, for a band that now chooses to employ the full English language, they should fucking use their words responsibly!

    Labeled Podcast episode about They’re Only Chasing Safety

    Labeled Podcast episode about Underoath’s Define the Great Line

    Audio:
    Acoustic version:
    2020 Live from the Observatory:

  • “Worth It” by Kodaline, Thursday, July 28, 2022

    In 1946 George Orwell wrote in an essay titled “Politics and the English Language“: “In our age, there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.” In my lifetime, there seemed to be a time when we could be ambivalent toward the democratic process. We could sit in our homes on election day in good faith that the majority want the right thing or even stew in our own cynicism that the two candidates were different faces to the same policy. But look at how choice has been effaced. 

    A BEAUTIFUL WAITRESS WHO JUST COULDN’T MAKE IT. The third record by Irish pop-rock band Kodaline titled Politics of Living isn’t an overt political statement, but more of a casual jab at 2018 zeitgeist. Cynical reviewers panned the record as Kodaline’s attempt to enter the U.S. market. The album’s production and song structures do suffer a bit from the “Coldplay effect,” a term that has many definitions that ultimately mean a band imitating Coldplay to the point where their music is indistinguishable from other bands. However, Politics of Living is a bit of a move to the band redefining their sound as their sophomore record Coming Up For Air received the band’s worst reviews, holding a Metacritic rating of 3.9 out of 10. Although the band’s first record In a Perfect World also received mixed reviews, their sound was arguably less derivative. Rather than stepping back into comfortable territory, though, the band pushes forward with EDM and Gospel-inspired tracks. The result is better than the last time, but autotune seems to kill much of the personality in lead singer Steve Garrigan‘s voice.  

    I DON’T KNOW IF IT’S WORTH IT. The fourth promotional single from the record prior to Politics of Living‘s release in September of 2018, “Worth It” is also the fourth track on the record. The band tweeted about the song, how it was originally more of a rock song, and the band decided to pass on it. Producer Jonny Coffer, however, reworked the song, making it fit into the third album’s style. The song is partially inspired by a song by Kygo that featured Kodaline, “Raging.” The anthemic “Worth It,” is a musical contradiction in that most anthemic rock has a positive, definite message. Garrigan, though, brings the energy of an anthem and EDM drop leaving the listener with a question, “Is it worth it?” And Garrigan answers, “I don’t know.” Kodaline’s music is never bleak, but Garrigan also doesn’t shy away from addressing his struggles with mental health in the band’s music. Heck, Chris Martin spent a whole breakup album (Ghost Stories) making their listeners feel better. Listening to Coldplay, OneRepublic, or Imagine Dragons is uplifting. We don’t have to think; we just receive our encouragement like a feel good church service. Kodaline delivers the anthem, but leaves us with a question rather than an answer. 

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

     Official audio: 

    Acoustic live performance:

  • “We’re at the Top of the World” (To the Simple Two) by The Juliana Theory, Wednesday, July 27, 2022

    The Juliana Theory started as a pop-rock side project for Brett Detar, guitarist of the Christian metalcore band Zao. The band’s first record, Understand This Is a Dream, underperformed when it released in 1999 and throughout their career, The Juliana Theory suffered from marketing purgatory due to not wanting to be marketed to the Christian market but being on a predominately Christian label. On the band’s second record, Tooth & Nail‘s founder and CEO Brandon Ebel thought The Juliana Theory had a hit with “We’re at the Top the World,” a short, lyrically dearth song that was pure emotion on the ironically titled album Emotion Is Dead. 


    WE’VE GOT A LOT OF TIME. Twenty–two years have solidified Emotion Is Dead as a cult classic in the Tooth & Nail cannon. Like Understand This Is a Dream, Emotion Is Dead was recorded and co-produced with friend and Zao producer Barry Poynter. While Poynter was most known for heavy records, lead singer Brett Detar talked with Less Than Jake‘s Chris DeMakes about the recording process of the album and particularly today’s song “We’re at the Top of the World” on DeMakes’ podcast. Detar was able to experiment with sounds on the record, calling on a variety of musical influences from The Beach Boys to Journey. The sound of the album is as diverse as the band’s influences from sappy chorus to early a few well placed screams, though nothing sounding remotely like Zao. “We’re at the Top of the World” became The Juliana Theory’s biggest song in their career. The catchy song comes just before the cusp of when pop punk and emo went mainstream and became radio-friendly. And how did this song gain its popularity? It wasn’t radio or MTV. It was a Disney Channel original film called Motorcrossed. 

    WE’RE ON TOP OF THE WORLD. While marketing for the album never provided a music video for any of the songs on Emotion Is Dead, not even the band’s biggest hit “We’re at the Top of the World,” last year the band released A Dream Away, which contained reimagined versions of some of their biggest hits, including today’s song. Detar did film a video for the reimagined version (see below), and it is brilliant. In the video, Detar is dressed as a gothic rocker who just filmed a death metal video; however, when he finishes the video he puts on an uplifting song, “We’re at the Top of the World.” One of the reasons that Emo works is because it is rooted in heavy music. The sappiness contrasts with the heaviness and Emo fans understand that their favorite band has “cred.” Detar, in various interviews, has talked about his journey with the song that he claims took less than thirty minutes to write. Detar’s musical career spans from Metal to Country to film scores. He has influenced the next generation of alternative rockers like Anberlin, whose lead singer Stephen Christian claimed that Detar taught him a vocal technique that Christian uses the band’s concerts. Yet, this simple pop song with a name reminiscent of Carpenters‘ hit “Top of the World” remains The Juliana Theory’s claim to fame. 


    Audio:

    Reimagined Music Video:

    Memories of My Mistakes cover version:

  • "Fake Mona Lisa" by Carly Rae Jepsen, Tuesday, July 26, 2022

    In 2019, Carly Rae Jepsen released her fourth studio record, Dedicated. But the fifteen songs that made it onto the standard edition of the album were nowhere near the amount of songs the surprisingly prolific songwriter wrote for the album. Jepsen revealed that she wrote over 200 songs during the two album cycles of E-M0-TION and Dedicated. In an interview with Vox, Jepsen said that she turns to her friends and family with whom she has listening parties where she “feeds them and gives them copious amounts of wine so that they have opinions about the music.” While many of these songs will never be released, in the tradition Jepsen set with E-MO-TION, she released a B-sides record for Dedicated, titled Dedicated Side B. 

    HE WAS BORN IN VEGAS. Years ago, I was impressed when I heard that a band wrote 70, 100, 200, etc. songs for a record. Years later, through listening to more and more interviews, I found out that the myth was debunked. Several bands have said that they have written 50-200 parts of songs, whether a verse+chorus, a hook, a riff, a bridge, etc, but usually not complete songs. Today’s song “Fake Mona Lisa” feels a little incomplete with a short second verse and an absence of a bridge. I thought maybe the tales of Jepsen’s songwriting were also a myth, but then earlier this summer, I discovered in my YouTube feed a channel which featured tons of leaked complete unreleased CRJ songs. Many of the songs are just as good as the songs that made it to the studio and b-sides records, but they may have not met Jepsen’s standards for the theme of the records. Speaking of themes, Dedicated Side B seems to be more than just a B-sides project. Jepsen talks about in the Vox interview that she had a fake title for Dedicated: “Music to Clean Your House To.” Some of the songs on Dedicated Side B, though, are even more danceable. And while the songs on Dedicated are cute and almost adolescent, the songs on Side B, particularly “Fake Mona Lisa” are more adult, more sexual. 

    Mona Lisa by Leonardo da 
    Vinci. Source.

    EVERY NIGHT I’M WEARING BLACK IN CASE YOU’RE COMIN’ ‘ROUND. I always wondered why Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is often considered the best painting in the world. In a world of brilliant colors, why was this dull painting considered the best. Don’t get me wrong, da Vinci’s symmetry and ambiguity is interesting. I always thought the background was more interesting than the subject. But the most famous painting? Vox made a video explaining why Mona Lisa is so famous in their Almanac series (see below). Drunk History also tells the same story about the art theft that made the painting so popular (see below). When the painting was stolen, it was propelled to international fame due to its likeness being printed in newspapers around the world. The exposure to the painting, in a way, made the painting an international icon, sort of like a pop song about a boy who may or may not call the singer of that song, which spread around the world in 2012! 


    Read the lyrics on Genius.

    Vox: “How the Mona Lisa Became So Overrated”:

    Drunk History “The Theft of Mona Lisa” see 12:54:

     

  • “Feel Good Inc.” by Filous ft. LissA (cover of Gorillaz), Monday, July 25, 2022 (partial repost)

    You might know Filous if you get the bonus tracks of pop singers. He’s an Austrian producer, musician, and remixer, and he’s remixed Selena Gomez, Troye Sivan, Kodaline, and others. For “Feel Good Inc.” Filous teams up with electro-pop singer-songwriter LissA to bring a new interpretation to Gorillaz’s 2005 hit, “Feel Good Inc.” The song has been covered by multiple artists, and while the original is the best, Filous’s cover highlights the melancholy of the song by stripping the song of its bass line and leaning into its minor chord melody. Filous’s “FGI” is laidback. It’s a perfect coffee shop cover of the track because coffee shop tracks often don’t have rapping or words like “ass crack.” While today’s song of the day is by Filous, it’s the artistry of the musicians behind Gorrilaz that makes this song interesting.


    DON’T STOP. GET IT, GET IT! In 2001 Blur frontman Damon Albarn and animator Jamie Hewlett released what would go into the Guinness Book of World Records as the “most successful virtual band,” meaning a band that existed in the studio rather than on the road. Blurring the lines between Rock, Hip-Hop, Electronic, and Pop, Gorillaz were a hit on multiple radio formats. In 2005 when the band released their follow up with the lead single “Feel Good Inc.,” it was a song that was played everywhere. But it was also a misunderstood song. The funky bass and hip-hop contrasting with the emo-style sung lyrics, made it seem like the perfect summer party anthem, similar to their 2001 summer hit “19-2000” (Soulchild Remix), but just as many artists got away with hiding sexual innuendo to their songs, Gorillaz hid an Orwellian dystopia below the bass-line making the minor key “Feel Good” track sound like the direct opposite of the song’s message. And like other tracks, the Gorillaz wrote both for their debut, fellow Demon Days tracks, and their albums thereafter, “Feel Good Inc.” touches social issues. The themes in “Feel Good Inc.” alone of corporate greed, consumerism, and sedating the masses aren’t typical themes in pop music.

    CITY’S BREAKING DOWN ON A CAMEL’S BACK. It was only in a college American History course that I learned about the 1868 novel by Horatio Alger titled Ragged Dick; or Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks. The novel was a popular serialized coming-of-age novel that ultimately sold capitalism and the entrepreneurial spirit as the American Dream. The story follows a young boy who has run away from a drunk father and starts to make a living as a shoe shiner, charging an exorbitant rate of 10 cents. Little by little, Dick can save up enough money, and by a heroic act of saving a drowning child, Dick is rewarded with a new suit and a job at the father of the drowning child’s mercantile. Horatio Alger’s novels have been credited for popularizing the idiom “rags to riches.” But for every one of Horatio Alger’s almost 130 novels, Upton Sinclair or John Steinbeck’s novels are telling the plight of the everyday American who is the victim of big business. Alger’s novels tell us what we can do if we’re tenacious, and yes we have to be tenacious in a cutthroat capitalistic society. But it was Sinclair’s novel that moved people to elect politicians who would pressure the meat industry to improve sanitation and working conditions. Books that show the dark side of that entrepreneurial spirit and push us to elect those who will give us a safety net are probably better, though.


    Live Performance Track:

    Gorillaz: 



     

  • “Really, Really” by Winner, Sunday, July 24, 2022 (Trigger Warning: Suicide)

    Winner is a South Korean boy band signed to YG Entertainment. Debuting in 2014 as a five-piece group, they had several successful singles before group member Taehyun left the group in 2016, citing mental health and personal issues. The next year, in 2017, Winner released two single-records Fate Number For and Our Twenty For, with two new songs on each single record. Besides emphasizing that the band was now only four members, the records played with a spring/summer Tropical Dance vibe. Unlike many K-pop artists, Winner is largely self-produced, with the band members taking active roles in producing their songs, choreographing their dances, and marketing their music. 
    TRUST MY HEART. A lengthy K-pop hiatus over a year between the EP Exit: E and Fate Number For, the band emerged with singer Nam Taehyun. The year 2019 was a bad year for K-Pop. Former f(x) member Sulli committed suicide following only bullying. A few weeks later singer Goo Hara took her life as did former Surprise U singer Cha In-ha. In the wake of Sulli’s suicide, former Winner singer Nam Taehyun spoke out against the pressures put on to celebrities in Korea and the brutal effects that online bullying can have on stars. But these three suicides were in the shadow of another high profile K-pop star who took his life in December of 2017, SHINee‘s leader Jonghyun. At the time SHINee was one of the biggest boy bands in Korea behind EXO and BTS, but the pressures of the industry had precluded his taking care of his mental health. Jonghyun wrote in his suicide note: “I am broken from inside. The depression that gnawed on me slowly has finally engulfed me entirely.” Taehyun’s exit from Winner was truly a brave move. 

    IT TICKLES MY STOMACH JUST THINKING ABOUT IT. Winner’s music is always upbeat and positive. The group has an ear for a hook, and their 2017 releases are no exception. Today’s song “Really, Really” is a fun, tropical-sounding song. Although the song is contrasted by the black-and-white stylized artwork and music video, the band’s next single-album Our Twenty For brings to life the vivid colors reflect in the music by shooting the music videos for “Love Me, Love Me” and “Island” in Hawaii. Though shot in black and white, “Really, Really” shows brilliance early using light and wind. Time seems to pass over the course of the video as the sunlight shines less strong as the video progresses. The dancing in the video gives the song an extra layer of energy, but it’s not the group performing the dance that is most notable but the girls dancing in the video. The bouncing cars at the end of the video, though, seems to feel a little dated in a bad way. But overall, it’s a fun song for a sweaty beginning to a three-week summer vacation. Enjoy!

    Read the English translation on Genius.

    Read the lyrics on Genius (Korean).

    Music video:

    Lyric video:

  • "Escalates" by Falling Up, Saturday, July 23, 2022

    “Escalates” is the second single from Falling Up‘s debut record, Crashings. All three of the band’s singles from Crashings, “Broken Heart,” “Escalates,” “Bittersweet“
     topped Christian Rock Radio charts. Falling Up signed to BEC Recordings because of industry hype from the band Kutless, who came from the same suburb of Portland, Oregon as Falling Up. Working with the same producer, Aaron Sprinkle, Falling Up was set to be the next big Christian Rock band.

    I CAN’T FIND IT, BUT MAYBE I’LL COPE.  I’ve talked about the sonic production on Crashings and how I think that it is perhaps on of Aaron Sprinkle’s best feats of production despite the record never coming up in the podcast conversations I’ve heard with Sprinkle. I’ve speculated that there’s an interesting, perhaps an uncomfortable, story about Falling Up’s tenure in the Tooth & Nail universe. Sprinkle and the band maintain high-tempo sonic energy through most of the record, blending elements of styles of the day, whether nu-metal, pop, electronica, even hip-hop. The scream on “Escalates” muted under a symphonic-sounding synth pad and lead singer  Jessy Ribordy‘s vocalization is just one example of how rock influences pop and vice versa on this record. There is a kind of Northwest rainy forest tone that Sprinkle uses in several records, including the next year’s debut LP by Acceptance, Phantoms. The crystal-clear production on Crashings makes the record a classic–from the synth loops to the driving drumbeat forcing Ribordy to sing fast. 


    LIFE HAS BEEN A PLACE WHERE I’VE WANDERED. Years later, in an interview with the JesusFreaksHideout Podcast, Jessy Ribordy would claim that “Escalates” was written “phonetically” and that it has “a little bit of meaning spiritually, but it’s not what people think. They think it’s a very worshipful song, but it’s not.” Phonetic songwriting is a technique when a singer adds “dummy lyrics” to a melody, often in place of the finished product. Occasionally, phonetic songs make it to the record. Falling Up was called a modern worship band when they debuted, perhaps because of their association with Kutless or perhaps because they were one of the few bands that used “Jesus” and “God” in their lyrics on occasion. The band’s first to records also included a Bible verse to go with each song. “Escalates” has two verses: 1 Peter 2:11 and Philippians 1:21, both of which deal with “the war with the flesh.” The song talks about “finding something that’s missing” and trying to cope without it. In the video, Ribordy tries to enter a rundown Victorian house, but unable to enter finds a box in a crevice beneath the house. The box contains some memorabilia, but by the end of the video, he only takes a blue marble from the box. The Victorian house would be a symbol in the band’s second album Dawn Escapes and there’s probably a world of meaning to it, but to my knowledge Ribordy hasn’t shared its significance. To me, in my late teens and early 20s reminded me of searching through my childhood to find something I overlooked. It’s impossible to go back, but we can revisit parts of our past and take back lessons to help us with a current problem. 

  • “The Man” by The Killers, Friday, July 22, 2022

    In 2017, it had been five years since The Killers released new music, and even longer since they were a “household name.” Lead singer Brandon Flowers talks about starting with the song “Rut,” Wonderful, Wonderful’s third track, which defined the band’s new direction. While The Killers had been on hiatus had released his second solo record, The Desired Effect. Also before recording The Killers’ fifth record, Flowers moved out of his beloved hometown of “The Fabulous Las Vegas” which turned out to be a bad place to raise a family in the ‘10s. Still, digging out of the musical rut wasn’t easy. Flowers found on Wonderful, Wonderful it was ok to write about his family.

    DON’T NEED NO ADVICE, I GOT A PLAN. The first single from Wonderful, Wonderful, though, “The Man,” doesn’t fall into the typical storytelling songs we come to expect from The Killers, rather “The Man” is a bragging song. The song was featured in the Netflix original film The Perfect Date during a montage when Brooks, played by Noah Centineo, dresses up as “the perfect date” for girls who pay him, the song seems completely serious. The “manly brag” song leaves listeners polarized. For every manly man singing along, there’s a commensurate amount of males twiddling their thumbs, saying “Okay, we get it dude. You’re a man.” Some listeners have interpreted “The Man” as the Brandon Flowers of the past–a youthful arrogance and stubbornness prevalent in men in their late teenage to early 20s.  This “piss and vinegar” masculine tenacity can prove useful when starting a band, but what happens when you grow into Tim the Toolman Taylor? While the song is delivered as completely serious, the video shows cracks in the song’s philosophy.

    THEM OTHER BOYS, I DON’T GIVE A DAMN. I haven’t really talked about toxic masculinity in my blog. The issues surrounding gender identity are a very sensitive subject these days. Sexist opinions that “pink is for girls and blue is for boys” and that women belong in the kitchen and men belong in the boardroom are far more popular than they should be. Growing up in a strictly two-gendered Christian culture, masculinity, and femininity were modeled, and kids were expected to grow up to copy that model. Of course, there were always some exceptions, and not every man was super manly and not every woman super feminine, but there was an expectation of ideals. As I began exploring my sexuality, I also started to confront my presuppositions about gender. When we stop dividing the world into the masculine and the feminine, we can enjoy what we like and not have to worry about what other people think of us. Personally, I identify with a lot of masculine tendencies, but I will probably never be able to tell you how an engine works and I’d much rather go to the symphony than to a monster truck rally. My identity isn’t wrapped up in physical strength, but strength of character. But to Tim the Toolman Taylor, I’m a beta male. How do you respond to that? Whatever dude. I’m just gonna live my life. 

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

    Source:
     The Watch Podcast: talking to Brandon Flowers and Ronnie Vannucci in 2017