Technically speaking, The Great Gatsbyis a satire of a wealthy society. But F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third novel is often enjoyed as a time capsule to the Jazz Age, and the parts that Fitzgerald criticizes are what the reads indulge in. But Fitzgerald certainly isn’t the only artist to have toed the line between criticism and indulgence. In 2002, two freshmen music majors, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, formed a band at Wesleyan University, this band would eventually be called The Management, and the band wrote several songs which they never took too seriously because they felt that their pop sound was secondary for their love of old psychedelic electronic music.
THIS IS WHAT THE WORLD IS FOR. The Management’s hipster approach to pop made the group famous on campus, and despite never caring for pop music, the group’s most catchy songs eventually caught the ear of Columbia Records. The band prepared their debut record Oracular Spectacularand shortened their name to MGMT. The opening track “Time to Pretend” paints the duo as arrivistes, bent on living the rock ‘n’ roll life style. This single was the irony of the band–ultimately what got them signed as a gateway for them to make the rest of the record. “Time to Pretend” and the band’s follow up single, today’s song “Electric Feel,” and the band’s third single “Kids” were the band’s first pop songs and the only singles from the record. The rest of the record sounds much like b-sides and typical album tracks on a three-single record. It’s a fun record with several songs sticking out as other potential singles, most notably the eighth track “Of Moons, Birds & Monsters.” But instead of riding the wave to indie pop stardom, the band decided to embrace their indie roots and drop all pretensions by their sophomore record, Congratulationsand with the band’s third self-titled release, the band receded into obscurity. But then came Little Dark Age.
I WAS STANDING THERE WITH NOTHING ON. “Electric Feel” is a song about sex, drugs, and electricity. It’s a fun club melody and the lyrics seem to be packed with symbolism. The song imagines being “taught how to swim” in the “Amazon” with the speaker and the woman at the “eastern shore” of the Amazon standing naked. Drugs, particularly Molly (MDMA), alter the narrator’s state, creating a new reality for the song. The video furthers the experience of the “Electric Feel,” showing the band looking like sexy rock stars dancing with barely-clad babes in a tropical setting. But the natural starts to blur as colors in the video heighten and animations appear. By the end of the video, the hallucinations seem to get less tasteful and more gratuitous, like early website animations. Overall, “Electric Feel” is a positive trip as is the entirety of the record. The band’s middle works, not so much, and Little Dark Age is a bit of a freak out if it were a trip, but that record’s somber title track is a reality check. Still, for a sweltering summer night, why not dip into the pool of “Electric Feel”? It’s a shocking “Oh-ah!”
If you play by the rules, you can win the game. At least that’s what kids are told when they’re growing up. But somewhere along the way, the tales of how it’s supposed to be don’t seem to match what’s actually happening. The prophets who have gone before you have foretold of a golden age when life was easy. Just follow the formula. Of course, there is no formula for being in a rock band, and success is never a guarantee. But in the mid-’00s it seemed that being signed to Tooth & Nail Records was a guarantee into both Christian and mainstream markets. Tooth & Nail was a sure-shot, until it wasn’t.
WE’LL START A FIRE SO BIG THE HEAVENS CAN SEE IT. Search the City in 2004 formed when two Michigan high school friends decided to make a band. Guitarist Alex Sheldon and drummer Adam McMillion were eventually joined by singer Josh Frost, guitarist James Czech, and bassist Eli Clark. After recording the EP Ghostsin 2008, the band signed to Tooth & Nail Records. Two songs from Ghosts ended up on the band’s debut LP, A Fire So Big the Heavens Can See It, “Clocks and Timepieces” and “The Streetlight Diaries.” A Fire So Big was a more refined version of the band’s EP. Throughout the band’s career, they made sugary power-pop songs. Taking inspiration from the overly clever wordsmiths of the genre like Relient K and Blink-182, the lyrics on A Fire So Big tend to be on the cheesy side. As the Labeled Podcast has pointed out on multiple occasions, Tooth & Nail bands at that time, particularly of the non-screaming persuasion, pop-punk bands looked to Anberlin as a rubric for success in the music business, and this often caused bands like Search the City to sound like imitators of Anberlin, and sometimes the reviews from sites like Jesusfreakshideout.comand Alternative Presscould be brutal on music at the time. But the songs on the album still make me happy, even though they don’t push musical boundaries.
THE REASON I’M HOLDING MY BREATH EVERY NIGHT. The formula used to be simple: sell CDs, get plays on the radio, and sell tickets and merchandise on tour. No Meta/ByteDance/Spotify streaming numbers counted, but MySpace did help get the word out about a band’s new album and tour dates. I saw Search the City at Cornerstone for Tooth & Nail Day, the day before the official festival began, in 2007 or 2008. It was an average show with the music not sounding in tune with Frost’s vocals. I’m sure that there’s a story to be told on Labeled, but there’s still quite a few gaps in the information I could find on the band. The band disappeared from Tooth & Nail’s roaster, but reemerged with a new lead singer, Travis Bobier, though that iteration of the band was also doomed (see yesterday’s post). Today’s song, “The Rescue” is the namesake of the band’s debut album. The speaker in the song seems be talking to a person who is a victim of their bad decisions, hence he is “praying for the mistakes [that person] made.” Somehow the singer is also in need of a rescue from something too, so he “hold[s his] breath every night.” And it is with that hope that I leave you, a hope for rescue. Hopefully, we don’t have to build a fire so big the heavens can see it!
The lead single and opening song from Shape & Color‘s sophomore EP, Love / Sex / War, “Drifting” sets the tone of the mid-teens power pop quintet. Fronted by the former lead sing of Search the City, Travis Bobier, the band shows their penchant for pop melodies in many of their songs, but “Drifting” is an excellent point of entry into the band’s short discography. Almost foregoing a chorus with a “millennial whoop” in its place for the first verse, the song serves as a kind of unguent for a dull or bad day, giving energy as it addresses the mid-twenties crisis the lyrics suggest.
WE’VE BEEN LIVING IN A TECHNICOLOR BLUR. The lyrics of “Drifting” talk about getting off course from where you thought your life was supposed to go. Singer Travis Bobier was about 24 when this song was released. At the age of 21, Bobier had been recruited to sing in the band Search the City after their original lead singer Josh Frost had left the group. Search the City was hoping to build on their success after leaving Tooth & Nail Records as a true Indie band, but several legal issues arose when the band’s manager claimed the rights to their sophomore record Flight. This lawsuit ultimately lead to the band’s break up. One of the offshoots of Search the City was Bobier’s new band, Shapes & Colors. The band started releasing singles in 2014, but by 2018, Shapes & Colors, too, called it quits. In 2020, Bobier’s new band CXMPASS released a single, yet they have yet to release a follow up. Back to 2016’s release of “Drifting.” In your mid-twenties, you start to realize that the dreams you had when you were a kid start to become less and less possible. It feels like we drift from our purpose.
I’VE GOT TOO MUCH PRIDE TO SIT BACK AND WATCH IT ALL DIE. But this feeling isn’t exclusive to the mid-twenties. Sometimes the day-to-day monotony makes you question if you’re living up to your purpose. If you add layers of religious upbringing, being told that your sole purpose in live is to please God and if you ever start to question that purpose, you can also feel like you’re drifting. Then for the goalposts move thanks to economic crisis. The template we’ve been working for has changed. The American dream changed. Now we just have to survive. We’re pretty set on not taking care of our future, but then a song like “Drifting” reminds us of what we’re doing. We question how to get back on track. What are the steps we need to take “to get back to you”? Or do we just let tomorrow come, wake up, drink some coffee, and go back to work like it never happened?
New Order formed in 1980 after the three remaining members of the post-punk band Joy Division lost their lead singer Ian Curtis to suicide. Success wasn’t instant for New Order with the start of the new band. New Order’s sound was distinct from Joy Division’s with the inclusion of keyboardist Gillian Gilbert and a growing penchant for synthesizers and electronic dance music. The band’s breakthrough success came prior to the release of their second record, Power, Lies & Corruptionwith the release of their long-play (12″) single “Blue Monday,” which took dance clubs around the world by storm, and even helped to fund the band’s own dance club in Manchester called The Haçienda, a dance club named after the word for a Spanish plantation.
I SEE A SHIP IN THE HARBOUR. New Order spent time in the clubs in New York listening to the latest disco prior to recording their Power, Lies & Corruption. According to lead singer Bernard Sumner, the music in those clubs produced tones he had never heard before. The band then set a new goal: they wanted to produce a hit that could be heard in the dance halls. So the band got to work back in England at one of Pink Floyd‘s studios using outdated ’70s recording technology to produce their ultramodern 1983 classics. “Blue Monday” was a feat of layering rhythms and synthesizers. The band felt that the song didn’t fit musically or thematically on their second record, so they decided to release the song as a 12″ single prior to the LP’s release. “Blue Monday” was a smash hit and became the biggest selling 12″ single of all time. The band received mainstream success in the UK, even performing on Top of the Pops. But because “Blue Monday” relied so much on programming, it wasn’t a very interesting song to watch live. “Blue Monday” uses repetition and slight variance in that repetition to keep the audience in a trance like state. The 7:29 song was a barrier for listening for me at first, but now I barely notice that the time has passed!
I THOUGHT I WAS MISTAKEN. Like most of New Order’s songs, the lyrics are only a distant second to the importance of the music. The lyrics about a narcissistic listener who gaslights the speaker starts to become clear with more listens. Sumner said that the title comes from Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, but the lyrics don’t seem to match the book’s themes. Blue Monday is a day, according to pop psychology, on which many suicides take place. Blue Monday is the third Monday of the year, and after the excitements and disappointments from the holiday season coming to an end, may people experience a sadness or depression strong on that day. Of course, being Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, that prevents me from covering “Blue Monday” on that day. But learning today how the song’s bequest on electronic music make it worth breaking my usual convention of covering songs on the most appropriate day. The song that was created by a band composed of heterosexuals inspired by the music of gay clubs. The track becomes a huge hit in clubs both gay and straight, and establishes New Order, not as hit making machine, but a creditable dance/rock band nonetheless. “Blue Monday” becomes the standard for DJs from the ’80s to today, influencing Pet Shop Boys to Skrillex. In a way, the song helped to define the EDM music of multiple eras and has been interloped in songs such as Britney Spears‘ “Work Bitch” and more notably in Rihanna‘s “Shut Up and Drive.” I guess with beats like this, it’s not an average Monday after all!
Live:
Single version (1983):
1988 music video:
Symphonic version from Wonder Woman 1984:
Trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 featuring symphonic version of “Blue Monday”:
The story behind “Blue Monday” Transmissions Episode 8: “Blue Monday”:
After a hugely successful album cycle with X, Ed Sheeran began writing his follow up. On X, many of Sheeran’s lyrics focused on the lifestyle a pop star falls into when he comes to fame. Personal songs about life on the road, drugs and alcohol, and relationships and flings with other stars were mostly absent on the singer’s story-centric first record +. As far as relationships, X offers us an insight into his long-distance relationship with Nina Nesbitt in “Photograph” and heartbreak with who is rumored to be Ellie Goulding in “Don’t.” Then there was the ballad “Thinking Out Loud,” a song about his girlfriend at the time, Athina Andrelos. The song shows a Sheeran thinking about the days after his youthful fame and the person he would share that post-fame world with.
WE WERE JUST KIDS WHEN WE FELL IN LOVE. But when Ed Sheeran found love, it wasn’t with a movie star or a fellow singer-songwriter. The first track that Sheeran wrote for his third record ÷, “Perfect,” is a song about falling in love with his future wife, Cherry Seaborn. The two had gone to school together, Seaborn had moved to New York. Sheeran reconnected with Seaborn and in 2015, they started dating. After the whirlwind success of ÷, Sheeran and Seaborn married in 2019. “Perfect” is a sweet wedding song, which, like “Shape of You” hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, unlike the album’s lead single, “Perfect” is overshadowed by “Shape of You,” which is ranked as the #1 song of the decade on Billboard’s Mainstream Top 40 chart. “Perfect” has two famous remixes (see below), today’s version “Perfect Duet,” a duet with Beyoncé and “Perfect Symphony,” a duet with Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli. Beyoncé adds a female perspective on Sheeran’s song. Even though the lyrics remain the same as the original, listeners can recall the ups and downs of Beyoncé and Jay-Z‘s relationship and how they have made it work. It doesn’t hurt when you’re trying to write a love song that will be remembered with the likes of Elton John to have a blessing from the modern goddess herself.
DARLING, YOU LOOK PERFECT TONIGHT. I didn’t like love songs before I was in love. There were a few exceptions like the NoiseTrade Valentine’s Day Sampler and the songs of Copeland. Love always seemed out of reach until I realized that I was worthy of love. Before I found love, though, it felt like the people who wrote love songs were just flaunting their relationships. But I realized something today. In 2014, when I finally accepted my sexuality and started dating, I remember an awkward early date. The guy was a bit older and it was pretty clear from the only time we met that we were in completely different places: he was looking for something that would turn into something more serious, I didn’t know what I wanted other than to experiment and find a way for my faith and my sexuality to coexist. Over Thai food, I asked him what he was looking for. “Honestly, I just want someone who I can eat chips in bed with.” Today, my partner and I were hungry between lunch and dinner so he brought some potato chips and we ate them in bed. No, it’s not the same guy. No, I wasn’t ready for that in 2014. I realize that writing this flaunts my relationship, and to me and others like me in the past, present, and future, I’m sorry. But love should be celebrated.
Stephen Christian under the appellation of Anchor & Braille released their third record, in February of 2016. Stephen Christian said in an interview that he imagines a movie scene for his Anchor & Braille projects, and the title Songs for the Late Night Drive Homeis descriptive of that movie scene. The electronic sounds imagine an urban setting–New York’s “Lower East Side,” Los Angelo’s’ Silver Lake, Orlando–anywhere that, during the day cars would fill the streets. But the late night drive home is peaceful. You’re in your car driving past the empty office buildings for 34:23 seconds past midnight.
KISS ME LIKE YOU STILL BELIEVE. Songs for the Late Night Drive Home is a kind of closing of the Stephen Christian electronic era, which started with Anberlin‘s Vitalin 2012. In some ways, Vital was like the band had just discovered synthesizers. The band had scarcely used keys or synthesizers on their five records prior to Vital. Christian cited M83 and Washed Out as influences on Vital and Beach House and Washed Out as influences on the more chillwave Songs for the Late Night Drive. The band’s sixth record Vital and its expanded edition Devotionoffered a wide range of songs, from the electronic auto-tuned adventure of “Self Starter” and the lead single “Someone Anyone” to the dancey “Intentions” to the etherial “Other Side.” Then there was the experimental one-take improvised vocals on Devotion’s “IJSW.” The song was recorded and produced by Paper Route‘s Chad Howat. Paper Route had opened on The Tour de Vital in 2013 and both Howat and Paper Route’s lead vocalist JT Daly worked with Anberlin on their repackaging of Vital, Devotion. Howat’s contribution was the most chillwave version of Anberlin, a song that showed off Stephen Christian’s skills as a pop singer. Daly’s contribution were two remixes on Vital: The Remixes, a record in which Anberlin even dabbled with dubstep.
I KNOW IT’S HARD BUT YOU’VE GOTTA HOLD ON TO SOMETHING. Butwhile Anberlin and Anchor & Braille may have experimented with electronics and fully committed with Vital, Devotion, and Songs for the Late Night Drive Home, it seems that the electronic-based music is out but electronic elements is in. By Anchor & Braille’s Tension record, Christian chooses the organic sounds of guitar and piano. By Anberlin’s Lowborn, the band blends electronics into the mix. From the band’s latest singles, “Two Graves” and “Circles,” it seems that electronics are still a big part of a now heavier sounding band. But unlike the seriousness and heaviness of post-Vital Anberlin, the mood of most of the songs on Songs for the Late Night Drive Home, with the exception of “Detroit Stab” and “Fatal Flaw,”are uplifting. Today’s song, “Nightfall,” is a love song, in a sense. Closing the first half of the record, the song is about holding onto someone. The speaker comes to the realize “how lost we are when we find that no one’s found.” Coming to realize that everything is kind of messed up, the speaker finds that holding onto a loved one will restore his belief.
Formed when the lead singer of Korean rock band Eastern Sidekick‘s lead singer Oh Ju Hwan (오주환) started working with Zee (지) of From the Airport to produce a synth-based solo project, ADOY the project quickly turned into band with drummer Zozo (조조 or Cho Sang Yeon/ 조상연) and Ju Hwan’s high school friend Jang Da Young (장다영) joining the band. In an interview with Arirang (see below), Ju Hwan explains that the band got the name for the band by reversing the letters of his cat Yoda’s name, hence ADOY is simply Yoda backwards. He goes on to explain that Yoda played a pivotal role in determining the band’s sound.
ALL THE COLORS LOOK BACK. ADOY formed in 2016 and their debut EP Catnipwas released in 2017. The album’s name relates to the role that Yoda played in helping the band determine their sound. When the band wrote their first songs, they determined which songs would go on the album by how Ju Hwan’s cat Yoda responded to those songs. If Yoda liked the songs, they put them on Catnip. The band determined that the songs that Yoda didn’t like would be scrapped. The result is a six-track EP of ebullient synth-pop. From the chill, melancholy guitars on “Grace,” the radio-ready anthem “Don’t Stop,” the psychedelic guitar on “Laika,” and finally to today’s song, the early-’90s sax solo “San Francisco,” cats won’t be the only creatures addicted to Catnip. A self-proclaimed “commercial indie” band, ADOY set their sights both on the Korean Indie market and playing festivals abroad. While the band will probably never be the next BTS, they are embodying a popular sound worldwide–the new retro or newtroas it’s called in South Korea. While K-pop groups may incorporate this newtro sound, the aesthetic is often better carried out in bands and graphic design. Bands like ADOY certainly have a sound that fits in with international acts.
LADY FLOWERS ON MY HILL. I would say that ADOY’s English lyrics are generally stronger than Zee’s other band, From the Airport. All four members of ADOY are credited songwriters on their songs, and it seems that the input of four members yields stronger songwriting. However, the lyrics to today’s song, “San Francisco,” feel a bit like purple prose. The lyrics feel like an impression of the city and the music feels like a rerun of a ’90s sitcom set in San Francisco. Maybe Full House? And this pushes me into a Carly Rae Jepsen tangent, a songwriter who covered the Full House theme song and who also writes songs based on emotions rather than facts. But today’s song references flowers and “prima donnas and dancers” whom “little brother resemble[s].” I imagine a beautiful park filled with flowers–California lilacs, sea lavender, Douglas iris, malva rosa–and drag queens. And as the day is done, and the sun sets, the sexy saxophone ushers you back to your hotel room. Sort of like Laura Linney‘s Mary Ann Singleton in Tales of the Citywe are just tourists here for a brief moment before we go back to our conservative hometowns and talk about that one liberating experience we had in San Francisco. The city was fun, but who can afford the rent?
If you namedropJimmy Eat Worldin a casual conversation, people might look at you funny. The name sounds like its origins: two little kids teasing each other. Though fronted byJim Atkins,he is not the “Jimmy” who “eat[s the] world,” but rather it was an insulting picture guitarist Tom Linton‘s little brother, Ed, who drew a picture of his slightly older brother Jimmy looking so fat that he was “eat[ing]the world.” Jimmy Eat World is a band’s band. They are responsible for influencing everyone in punk, pop punk and even hardcore punk in the last 20 years. Best known for their song “The Middle,” a top 40 pop hit, the band spun several singles throughout the years, even today. Their most commercially successful albums have beenBleed American(2001),Futures (2004), andChase This Light(2007).
ARE YOU DIZZY YET?I’ve talked about the burnout I’ve experienced as a teacher. Burnout is very common with teachers, and I’m sure that most of us are experiencing it in a time with so much uncertainty. But there’s a dizzy feeling that comes at the end of the school week, especially at the end of the semester. It’s the papers piled on my desk. It’s the documents I forgot to print before class. It’s fifty questions before the lesson starts. It’s the chaos the students can spin the class into as the technology doesn’t work. It’s the “teacher, can I go get my phone to do the Google Classroom assignment,” five minutes before the end of class. It’s the schedule changes because the special programs that just came up. It’s the repeated cancelation, which trains the students “this class doesn’t really matter.” It’s the clicking and grading of classes that all look the same. It’s the Monday to Friday boxed into the routine that if you break it, you fall behind. It’s the deciding if it’s cutting my cleaning time, my study time, my exercise time, or my blog time so that I can get to sleep on time to manage the next day. It’s the feeling that I used to have everything so together, but now I feel like it’s unravelling. It’s dizzying.
JESUS, IS THERE SOMEONE YET WHO GOT THEIR WISH? “Dizzy” ends the standard edition of Chase This Light. It’s a ballad about a break up that comes from the exhaustion of a dizzying relationship. The lyrics portray disconnect by calling on a payphone and the listener not answering the phone. On a surface listen, this is the classic break up because of the physical distance between tow lovers because one guy is in a band and constantly on tour, not home with the girl. Adkins, in exasperation asks, “Jesus, is there someone who got their wish” meaning that everyone has to deal with the conflicting wishes, i.e. love and money. For me, though, this song has a more symbolic meaning. To me the song is about giving up on a dream. Sometimes it’s important to power through and make it work, but other times it’s important to acknowledge that your dreams may be at odds with each other and it’s time to let one of them go. I don’t know what that means for me as I reevaluate my life and my goals this time of year.
The model for Boyce Avenue‘s success was simple: choose a current top 40 track and release a cover in their own style. YouTube would list their videos below the original song and suggest more of their songs on the side banner. Starting their YouTube channel in 2007, they were on the ground floor of the viral marketing. And with international tours and constantly releasing content, the band continues to have a large following on streaming services. The band hasn’t released a full-length project since 2020’s Cover Sessions, Vol. 6, but have been releasing singles in 2021 and 2022, including today’s song, a cover of Rihanna‘s 2012 hit, “Diamonds.”
Image captured from the James Webb Space Telescope from NASA’s Flickr account. Source.
PALMS RISE TO THE UNIVERSE. It’s difficult not to think about the children’s song “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” particularly the line: “like a diamond in the sky,” when I hear any version of Rihanna’s “Diamonds.” The chorus says, “we’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky.” The song gives a very distant feeling. The speaker choses happiness which might mean separation from a loved one. The speaker and the listener are beautiful with space between them, perhaps with the 13 billion light years between them like the trending photos from the James Webb telescope. While stars are “like a diamond in the sky,” actual diamonds are more common in space than Earth as the conditions of pressure and heat are found naturally on planets with a higher gravity than Earth’s and hotter temperatures. Because diamonds and graphite are
chemically identical, my high school science teacher often scoffed at the idea that he had to buy his girlfriend a diamond ring to propose to her. And given that diamond culture was created by a jewelry company in the 1930s and sold to us with keen placements in movies and advertising, starting with Marlyn Monroe declaring “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” De Beers marketed diamonds to us, setting the standard of how much to pay for the engagement ring. In 1930, one month’s salary. In the 1980s, it became two months. In the ’00s, my science teacher would have been expected to fork over three month’s salary.
FEEL THE WARMTH, WE’LL NEVER DIE. One of the memories I have with this song comes from an Australian TV show called Please Like Me. The show is centered on awkward 20-something Josh (played by Josh Thomas) as he deals with finding love after realizing that he is gay. In the second episode of the final season of the show, Josh and his friends and the guy he is dating, Arnold (Keegan Joyce), at the time go on a camping trip. Through out their relationship, Josh and Arnold seem to be completely out of sync. On the first night of the camping trip, Arnold brings his guitar and starts singing “Diamonds” (see the clip below). Keegan Joyce who plays Arnold is actually a professional singer and the performance is not that bad, but the eye rolling between the other characters makes the scene oddly relatable for anyone who’s been on a camping trip with that guy. Of the three songs in the episode, Rebecca Black‘s “Friday,” Arnold playing “Diamonds,” and the ending of the trip listening to Justin Bieber‘s “Love Yourself,” “Diamonds” serves as maybe the most memorable part of the show that I watched years ago. The show is worth a watch to American viewers who have never tried an Australian show.
Olly Murs is an English pop star who got his start in 2009 by coming in second place on the sixth season of the British music talent show, The Voice.Since then, all but one of the singer’s albums have topped the UK album charts. But it wasn’t until his third record in 2013, Right Place Right Timethat the singer scored a Hot 100 hit in the United States. The song “Troublemaker” features rapper Flo Rida and peaked at #25 on the the Hot 100. Murs released an American version of Right Place Right Time which featured another U.S. hit: “Heart Skips a Beat” featuring Chiddy Bang.
THE ANIMAL INSIDE ME WANTS TO TASTE YOUR LOVE. The follow up to Right Place Right Time, Never Been Betterfeatured guest performances by Demi Lovato on the hit “Up” and Gym Class Heroes‘ Travie McCoy on the song “Wrapped Up.” But none of the songs were hits in America. In the ’10s, Murs songs were played outside of the UK. Korean English radio shows played Murs, and although he was less popular than some of the bigger American stars, he was played in Korea more than America. Today’s song “Deeper” comes from Murs’ 2016 record, 24 HRS. Whereas Never Been Better has an in-your-face pop energy, the songs on 24 HRS lean towards electronic and smooth R&B. Also unlike Never Been Better, 24 HRS doesn’t feature credited big-name pop singers to pander to American crossover. Murs. On 24 HRS, Murs writes solid pop hooks that don’t rely on being overly ostentatious. “Deeper” is the sixth track on 24 HRS. The song was cowritten with renowned songwriter Clarence Coffee, Jr., producer Steve Mac, and Chelcee Grimes, who also features on the track, singing the chorus.
GETTING SO DEEP, IT’S HARD TO BREATHE. “Deeper” is a beautiful love song about falling deep in love with someone. It’s a very feel-good track that alludes to the heat of the middle of the summer. The music’s chords and instrumentation give the song a tropical feeling to it, and when Chelcee Grimes sings the chorus, it feels like this song takes you on vacation. I chose today’s song for that very feeling. Although Korea’s June and July is pretty dreary, being in the middle of the monsoon, I’m trying to imagine what an actual summer vacation would look like. You know, if school would actually get out for the summer. It’s a week of lolling in a chair next to the pool with a cocktail. Beautiful people distracting me from reading a book every now and then. Hop in the pool to cool off and head back to the suite, put a towel down on the chaise and continue reading until the most intense part of the sun has passed and head back to the pool. Yes, my two-week vacation is coming up, but this year still seems quite depressing compared to freer years. So, in the middle of the work day planning post-exam activities and writing comments, it’s nice to have that piña colada of an escape in the form of a song.
Mixtapemotions 