Mixtapemotions

  • "Let Go" by Edison Glass, Tuesday, October 11, 2022

    Edison Glass was a Christian indie band from Long Island, New York. Forming in 1998 as Mannafest (not to be confused with the Christian rapper Manafest), the band released three records. Then they released an EP called Starting Over as Edison. Starting Over produced a hit, “Forever,” that found its way to RadioU and its video to RadioU’s sister music television channel TVU. The video for “Forever” is no longer available online, but it was one of the typical low-budget videos of live footage with studio sound often played on TVU at the time by independent bands or low-budget labels.  


    SLEEPWALKING. After releasing Starting Over Edison signed with Credential Records and changed their name to Edison Glass. The band derived their name from the inventor Thomas Edison and the composer Philip Glass. As Edison, the band equated creating music as a kind of experiment in the garage. The music business for them was “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” But adding Philip Glass to the band’s title added sophistication. Along with John Adams, Glass is considered to be a minimalist composer, reacting to the avant-garde musical movements throughout the 20th century. Glass’s works are accessible modern Classical works, and the composer has scored several films with his signature sparse style. Besides Edison Glass, the minimalist style of Glass and Adams seems to have influenced other Indie artists in the mid-’00s such as Deas Vail and Copeland among others. Edison Glass released their first record A Burn or a Shiver with three singles in addition to a reworked version of “Forever.” The album was successful and the band played the major Christian festivals.

    OPEN YOUR HEART, AND LET IT SING! Edison Glass released Time Is Fiction, a follow-up to A Burn or a Shiver in 2008 with the lead single “Let Go,” which was also part of a four-song EP titled Let Go released the year before. They toured the U.S. with Blindside who were promoting their Black Rose EP in 2007 leading up to the delayed release of Time Is Fiction. They released a video for “Let Go” complete with a phone number for fans to dial to leave messages for the band. But after the charting on TVU’s Most Wanted, the band disappeared. But disappearing–never confirming a break-up, leaving Wikipedia pages with over a decade of silence is the norm for bands of this era– a soft break-up rather than a messy musical divorce. Perhaps it was fuel prices and the economic collapse that killed many bands or maybe it was the robbery during the Blindside tour, but Edison Glass has been mostly forgotten in the scene. Whatever it was, Edison Glass left us with some interesting music and two interesting videos: “This House” and “Let Go.” Today’s song is unconventional, not following the typical verse-chorus-verse structure but rather packing the energy of a verse and exploding into a finale. The video is reminiscent of the cheap videos on Fuse when Indie Rock was king. It’s a fun part stop-motion animation video/ part live-action video. So today, enjoy an indie-forgotten gem. You may have failed in the past or missed an opportunity. Today, we should let go of it. 
     

  • "Let's See It" by We Are Scientists, Monday, October 10, 2022 (updated repost)

    We Are Scientists formed in 2000 when two college students in Berkley, California, met at bass guitarist Chris Cain‘s Dawson’s Creek viewing party. Cain and guitarist/   vocalist Keith Murray became good friends. Their mutual interests included comic books, films, television, and stand-up comedy. The nerdy pair went on to create nerdy music, blending music and comedy into their live shows. The band’s biggest hit “After Hours” is from their second album,   Brain Thrust Mastery. The song was featured in the video game Tony Hawk: Ride and in the movie Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Today’s song, “Let’s See It,” was featured in an episode of Gossip Girl. “Let’s See It” analyzes a couple’s argument in terms of science, faith, and fate. “The evidence is gonna suggest that [the speaker] will let [the listener] down.” He “muster[s] the faith that [the speaker] won’t let [the listener] down.” But he must be resolved that “science will just have to surrender to fate.”

    I KNOW THE EVIDENCE IS GONNA SUGGEST THAT I WILL LET YOU DOWN. For one week in October every year at Mission College, evening activities shut down. “Sorry but the weight room is closed for TentsRevival,” the RA us. “That’s a great way to kill a workout routine,” my friend Mark said. It was only the fifth week of school and the third week since I had joined my roommate Mark and new friend James three nights a week in the basement of the dormitory. “Should we check out the meetings for our spiritual health?” James said with a smug smile. “Might as well see what all the hype is all about,” Mark said. “I want to go up to my room and get a jacket,” James said. When the trio met in front of the the large canopy spread out on the lawn in front of the music and communications halls, I was wearing a thin Skillet hoodie covering his t-shirt and the Floridians were wearing winter coats. Music was coming from the tent. Praise and worship music “He is mighty to save, mighty to save” was coming out for the from the tent accompanied by an acoustic guitar and woodblock drumming. The tent was pack and staff continued to put out chairs in the back. Students were pushing their way to sit in the front. I made a sideways glance to my friends. Like me, they were also looking for seats in the back and at the sides. “Amen!” “Amen!” “We love you Jesus!” students shouted after the song finished. After two more energetic songs and a worshipful slow song, the guest speaker, Daniel Ashcraft, took the stage in his tight jeans and slim-fitting pink lavender shirt with a skinny black tie. 

    I WOULDN’T SAY SOMETHING I DIDN’T MEAN. The handsome young pastor mesmerized the rows and rows of students in front of in front of us. Ashcraft was a well-skilled orator, using crowd dynamics to play into his conversational preaching style. He started by telling his testimony, about how he was a straight-edge punk rocker, kicked out of the house and on a motorcycle migration between San Diego to Seattle, sleeping in garages wherever he could, often eating from dumpsters or stealing food when he needed to, until one day he was caught stealing from this old surfer dude just south of San Francisco. Rather than pressing charges, the man invited him to the local Seventh-day Adventist church. “I was hungry and that man fed me. But he knew that I was hungry for more than bread.” The crowd erupted in cheers and intense “Amens.” Pastor curated a look, a preaching style, that said, “I’m not your parent’s generation of preacher,” yet preaching generally the same message the old men in suits on Sabbath said with their neck ties strangling them. “I don’t believe in rock music anymore. I sold my bass guitar so that I could study at the Believable Truths institute in northern California. You see, rock music is all about the glory of man. Even Christian rock it’s all about ‘look at me.’ I say, ‘don’t look at me, look at him.’” The crowd erupted in cheers. Later that evening, Facebook and Twitter had the quote: “Don’t look at me, look at HIM”–Pastor Daniel Ashcraft along with other quotes from the evening flooding students at Mission College’s timeline. After a twenty-five minute altar call for 1)first timers 2)rededication 3)call into ministry, the evening ended with several praise and worship songs. “Guys, I really gotta get to my calculus homework,” Mark said. James and I also slipped out during one of the last songs.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.  

  • "Ghost" by Yellow Ostrich + Spooky Season '22 Playlist, Sunday, October 9, 2022

     

    It’s officially spooky season, so I decided to make a playlist celebrating the spookier songs I’ve blogged about or artists that had a spooky song. The 31 tracks that I included perhaps won’t make you writhe in horror, but they have a loose connection to Halloween. Maybe there’s a lyrics or a creepy video, or maybe it was just a song that I listened to a lot in October. I will post the Spotify playlist below and links to the posts and the tracks so that you can read the spooky stories behind the tracks. 

    1.       “Ghost” by Yellow Ostrich

    2. “Closer” by Kings of Leon

    3. “Unholy” by Sam Smith ft. Kim Petras

    4. “I’m Pretty Sure I’m Out of Luck and Have No Friends” by Underoath

    5. “Two Graves” by Anberlin

    6. “Moonlit” by Falling Up

    7. “Panic Switch” by Silversun Pickups

    8. “Killer” by Chvrches 

    9. “Midnight City” by M83

    10 “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks

    11. “Foundation” by Years & Years

    12. “Control Freak” by Copeland

    13. “42” by Coldplay

    14. “Carlo Rossi” (Love in the Face of Danger) by Tyson Motsenbocker


    15. “Haunted” by Acceptance 


    17. “Running Up That Hill” (A Deal with God) by Kate Bush


    19. “Little Dark Age” by MGMT


    21. “Bad Love” by Key

    22. “Writing on the Wall” by Paper Route

    23. “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran

    24. “Babylon” by Lady Gaga

    25. “Monsters” by All Time Low ft. blackbear & Demi Lovato 


    26. “Zombie” by Watashi Wa ft. Anberlin

    27. “seven” by Taylor Swift

    28. “You Are Familiar” by Secret & Whisper

    29. “Dead Weight” by Pvris

    30. “Dark Horse” by Katy Perry ft. Juicy J
    31. “Vampire Spy Film” by Lovedrug

  • "Happy Not Knowing" by Carly Rae Jepsen, Saturday, October 8, 2022

    We’re a less than a fortnight away from both Taylor Swift‘s Midnights and Carly Rae Jepsen‘s upcoming release of her record 
    The Loneliest Time. Yesterday, Jepsen released the disco-infused ballad title track from the record, a collaboration with LGBTQ+ legendary singer Rufus Wainwright leading up to album’s release. I didn’t immediately love the song like “Beach House” and “Talking to Yourself,” but it seems that The Loneliest Season is shaping up to be a cohesive record about loneliness; perhaps more cohesive than her previous record,  Dedicated, which dealt with crushes, being in relationships, breaking up, and sex.
     

    WHERE THIS GOES, HOW THIS GOES. “Happy Not Knowing” is the sixth track on Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2019 record Dedicated. Listening back to the record puts me back in 2019. Everyone was talking about how great it was before Covid changed everything, but do we really remember? I remember everything feeling unfinished. We look back at 2019 thinking that times were good, but at the time we were looking forward to our own version of the Roaring ’20s, a time of greater prosperity. It was supposed to be the time that we shrugged off the “Little Dark Age,” and moved to a more inclusive world where hunger and want would disappear. It was a time when we would finally have more money to travel and spend time with the ones that we love. There were all these hopes that were dashed sometime in February or March of 2020. Then came three years of rebuilding what normal was. For me, I’ve been in a cycle of self-loathing and self- sabotage that’s held me back. I see my friends moving on, and I’m happy for them, but I worry about my dissected resumé, about all the potential that I’ve wasted, and I think it’s about all the things that I’ve left unfinished–the application to grad-school, the application for student loan forgiveness, the job I never applied for, the friendly getting to know how we can help you better survey before selecting a therapist from BetterHelp.com.

     

    I DON’T HAVE THE ENERGY. “Happy Not Knowing” is Carly Rae Jepsen’s declaration that it’s better not to know what could happen. The speaker opts to play it safe rather than risking it all for the unknown in love. When I think of today’s song, I think about couple of other songs on a concept, tossing around for a little while. First there’s the line from folklore‘s “this is me trying“ that says: “So I got wasted like all my potential.” When I listen to this song, I think about how Taylor Swift certainly didn’t wast her potential, and then I think about if it’s a question of perspective: perhaps no matter what you accomplish, you feel like you’ve wasted your potential. Then there’s Sasha Alex Sloan‘s “Hypochondriac,” a song in which the singer talks about “calling [her] doctor every day” because if she dies she won’t be able to be with her love. Before meeting him, the speaker lived recklessly. “Happy Not Knowing” is the antithesis of “Hypochondriac” to me. When it comes to the uncertainty of my future, I’d rather not know. I’d rather believe that everything will work out ok, but there’s a more self-destructive side to that. I’m terrified of failure. Just the thought of  vitriolic comments put me in a melancholy mood. And the truth is, more than being afraid of failure is that I don’t know if I could live in a world where I got the success I’ve dreamed about. More money, more problems, more responsibility.  I wish the best to my students, but for me, I’m happy not knowing what I could be. New Year’s Resolution 2023: fill out that BetterHelp.com questionnaire.

  • “Sprite” by COIN, Friday, October 7, 2022 (repost)


    Following up their 2020 album, Dreamland,

     COIN dropped three EPs in early 2021, leading up to their full album, Rainbow Mixtape, released in April. The band wrote and recorded their follow-up album after their 2020 supporting tour for Dreamland 
    was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Singer Chase Lawerence sold his house at the beginning of the pandemic and moved back to his childhood home in Virginia where he began writing music for the next record. The band recorded many songs, yet the songs didn’t seem to have a theme. “We broke it down to its elementary form and felt like colors represented the lyrical and sonic themes,” Lawerence told American Songwriter. Each song corresponded with a color and was released on three EPs, though the second and third are combined on Apple Music. Red-Orange, Blue-Green, and Indigo-Violet make up the three sections of the band’s fourth studio album

    SUNRISE IN ORBIT. Rather than telling a story, like in their 2020 song “Cemetery,” “Sprite” speaks poetically about Lawerence’s feeling of isolation. The song seems to be addressing a romantic relationship, perhaps someone the singer has cast aside in the past. “Sunrise in orbit” seems to be drawing a parallel between being in space and being disconnected from a loved one, or family. As children, many of us dream about growing up to be an astronaut. But what we don’t realize as children is that being an astronaut means long periods of being unreachable to loved ones. Under normal circumstances, a touring band might have thought about the isolation. “Sunrise in Harlem,” denotes a different city every night, different time zones, and a grueling schedule that has made many bands quit. However, many around the world knew isolation because of the pandemic. Last year, Nick Jonas released an album titled
    Spaceman which tackles the metaphor of living on another planet, away from the ones you love. I think that the imagery of looking at the world in space, along with the line “your eyes were never blue,” gives “Sprite” its color in COIN’s spectrum. 

    THERE’S NO PUDDING, BUT HERE’S THE PROOF.  The question, though, is why is the song called “Sprite”? The green-labeled soft drink produced by Coca-Cola is the most common usage of the word today. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary lists these as the following definitions: 1a) an elf or fairy b) an elfish person  2a) a disembodied spirit or ghost b) a soul. Other popular uses of the word are a kind of computer graphics, a British motorcycle or car, a classification of butterflies, a fairy in the Artemis Fowl series, a creature in Dungeons and Dragons, a Marvel universe character, a term for lighting, or a special melon cultivated in North Carolina. Maybe the song refers to the second definition, a disembodied spirit. Imagining the ghost floating around the earth, watching the sunrise every ninety minutes adds to the loneliness. In the middle of the pandemic, many of us turned to simple hobbies and things that reminded us of a simpler time. We reassessed our relationships. Chase Lawerence found that family and listening to ’70s R&B and George Harrison were exactly what he needed. For me, I revisited music from my teenage years and started to fall in love with modern artists who were incorporating sounds of the early ’90s. Under normal circumstances, I would say that nostalgia isn’t the best way forward. We love nostalgia because it’s a tried and true formula for our entertainment. It’s sweet and we don’t have to challenge ears, eyes, and minds with new material. Nostalgia might be the only thing keeping us from stagnation and fear. But eventually, we’ll see that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And if it’s too sweet, we might just get sick of the nostalgic overload. Luckily, the carbonated, bubbly music of “Sprite” keeps the sweetness quite fresh.

    .find_in_page{background-color:#ffff00 !important;padding:0px;margin:0px;overflow:visible !important;}.find_selected{background-color:#ff9632 !important;padding:0px;margin:0px;overflow:visible !important;}

  • “I Love You Always Forever” by Betty Who (Donna Lewis cover), Thursday, October 6, 2022

    In 1996, Welsh singer-songwriter Donna Lewis released her debut single “I Love You Always Forever.” The understated, delicate pop song became an international hit. In the United State, it hit number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, unable to take the top spot because of multiple versions of that counted as Los Del Rio‘s version of  “Macarena,” the dance track that plagued ’96. Lewis never matched the success of her debut single.


    SECRET MOMENTS SHUT IN THE HEAT OF THE AFTERNOON. Today’s version of “I Love You Always Forever” is performed by Australian pop star Betty Who, but I also recommend Mike Mains & the Branches version as well. Mike Mains & the Branches released their cover last year and is their most recent single. After an emotionally taxing record, When We Were in Love in 2019, “I Love You Always Forever” is a nice check in with the couple whose marriage was tested by events mentioned in the record. Betty Who’s version was released as a single between her debut record, Take Me When You Go and her sophomore record, The Valley. The single was so successful, though, that Who decided to promote the song as the lead single from The Valley and include it as the fourteenth track of the record. Who’s version topped Australia’s airplay chart, reached the Top 4o in New Zealand and topped Billboard’s US Dance Club Songs. Who told Spin about why she chose to record the song. She said, “It’s one of those songs that you don’t know, and when you hear it you go, ‘Ah I know this song.’” She went on to say in Vogue that she remembers the song being “everywhere” when she was 5 years old in ’96.  

    YOU’VE GOT THE MOST UNBELIEVABLE BLUE EYES I’VE EVER SEEN. Betty Who goes on to say in her Vogue interview listening to “I Love You Always Forever” she “got a lovely warm feeling about recollections of [her] childhood.” There is something instantly recognizable about this song. I don’t remember it from my sheltered radio days, though ’96 was probably my earliest popular music memories. Donna Lewis wrote the track inspired by the 1956 novel Love for Lydia by H. E. Bates, taking the chorus of the song from the novel. The lush imagery in “I Love You Forever and Always” transports the listener to “cloud of heavenly scent,” to a “windless summer night” to “the heat of the afternoon” or simply to look into “the most unbelievable eyes [you’ve] ever seen.” The Lewis version is lush and delicate, Mike Mains’ version adds masculinity to the track, but Who’s version adds sensuality absent on the other two versions. The harmonized a cappella start with soft, yet sharp vocals piercing the song combined with the music video in which Who is part of a throuple adds a bit of naughty with the nostalgia. Not there’s anything wrong with that.
    Donna Lewis version:

    Betty Who version:



    Dance version from To All the Boys I Loved: 
    Mike Mains & Branches version: 


  • “invisible string” by Taylor Swift, Wednesday, October 5, 2022

    Taylor Swift went from America’s sweetheart to a polarizing figure in her twenties. Feuds with Kanye West and then wife Kim Kardashian, Katie Perry, and others; a dating reputation; and self-deprecating and aggrandizing songs made Taylor’s star not for everyone. But in 2019, Swift was starting to change the narrative, patching up things with Perry in the video for “You Need to Calm Down,” reducing her reliance on hip-hop beats, and reducing lyrical narcissism. 
    SAID I LOOKED LIKE AN AMERICAN SINGER. Swift didn’t gain universal acclaim for Lover, though it did bode better with critics than Reputation. Swift shows her most mature efforts on 2020’s folklore and evermore. I’ve spoken at length about folklore this year, writing about the tracks “exile,” “august,” and “cardigan.” And my thesis about all of these songs is about how unlike Taylor Swift they are. I’ve argued that if you have bad blood with the pop star, you can listen to folklore with an open mind. You can sneak it into an indie singer-songwriter playlist sort of like how I played Switchfoot songs that sounded different from “Meant to Live” to the “gotcha moment” to convince my sister that not all Switchfoot songs are a lazy-voiced Jon Foreman, but I digress. But today’s song, “invisible string” feels like the most Taylor Swift song on folklore, yet it doesn’t overwhelm the listener. Swift feels like a present narrator on other tracks, revealing that she bought the house in “the last great american dynasty,” and the story about a friend who moved away in “seven” seems like it could be about Swift’s childhood. But it’s “invisible string” that gives longterm Swifties the Easter Eggs they crave. To a moderate Swifty, the verse about “Bad Blood” playing on the radio when the singer goes to LA, being identified on vacation with a boyfriend as someone who looks like “an American singer,” having a “ax to grind” with exes, but sending their “babies presents” now.

    TEAL WAS THE COLOR OF YOUR SHIRT. But “invisible string” is not a bragging tune, a fight song, or a forced pop banger. Instead it’s the musical equivalent to an indie rom-com. It’s the story of a young girl who sits reading in Centennial Park, a teenaged Taylor who has moved from Pennsylvania to Nashville to write and record. She feels that she will someday meet someone special in this park because it is such a special location to her. But across the world, in London, her eventual boyfriend actor Joe Alwyn, is working a job in a yogurt shop. Every image that Swift gives us in “invisible string” has a color mentioned with it, illustrating the season and making the details more vivid. But the overarching concept of the song is an Asian myth, the “red thread of fate,” an invisible string brings lovers together, no matter the distance. In “invisible string” Swift sees the events in her life as points on that thread that eventually made love make sense. Swift and Alwyn had been dating for over five years, three at the time of folklore, but the two have kept the details of this relationship quiet. And yes, sometimes when you are listening to songs about longterm relationships it can get a little bit stuffy; you don’t want it flaunted in your face, but one song on folklore is hardly gratuitous. Instead, we get a portrait of how healthy love can look. We get a portrait of how the seemingly random details of our lives can play out in something bigger. And we get a beautiful plucked guitar played under an oak tree on a beautiful fall afternoon. 

     Read the lyrics on Genius.

    Lyric video:

    Live recorded version:

  • "Lie" by Sasha Alex Sloan, Tuesday, October 4, 2022

    The first single form Sasha Alex Sloan‘s debut record Only Child,  “Lie,” continues to reveal the singer-songwriter as a voice of truth, even if the truth hurts a little. Sloan said in a Newsletter that the song came from a relationship that for the last two years turned into apathy. She said that while he worked a steady job, but she would stay at home, eventually starting to spend a lot of time on the Internet, talking to strangers during the day when her boyfriend was at work and after he went to bed. This unhealthy relationship fell apart, and Sloan met and started dating the producer of Only Child Henry Allen, better known as King Henry.

    TOUCH ME LIKE THERE ISN’T SOMETHING MISSING.  There are some interesting statistic to read about lying. Some surveys say that 7% of all communication is lying and 90% of all lies are white lies. Another survey showed that Americans tell four lies every day on average. But because all of the statistics are based on surveys, can we be sure that these people aren’t lying about their lies? We often think of white lies as innocuous. But I’m still a bit traumatized about my mom, Sabbath school teachers, and pastors saying that lying is the one sin that God hates the most. The pastor said that the one thing that God would never do is tell a lie. Except for the time that he God sent a “lying spirit” to deceive Ahab (1 Kings 22:22). When you’re growing up in a church that says that it’s the only true church and that every other religion and denomination is based on a lie and that only their church is based on sincere Biblical scholarship you tend to believe that church members and the theology is honest. And there were all the hypotheticals: what if you’re trying to save someone’s life, like in the case of Corrie Ten Boom’s family hiding Jews from Nazis. Rather than telling a lie, the family told the truth which sounded so crazy to the Nazis that the immediately left.

    I REALLY CAN’T GET MY HEART BROKEN TONIGHT. While “Lie” sounds like it could be coming from Sasha Alex Sloan’s perspective, and it very well might be, it also sounds true of her boyfriend. However, dishonesty in a relationship is a major reason for a break up. Secret addictions, cheating, financial indiscretions, all begin with a lie. And if we grew up watching any sitcoms at all, we know that lie builds on lie until it gets out of control. But like Michael W. Smith reminds us, “Life ain’t the Brady Bunch.” The out-of-control lying doesn’t get laughed off in some rushed moral and next week another unrelated issue appears. No, a long-term relationship is at least a half-season on Grey’s Anatomy or something as equally dramatic. There was only one lie that was sanctioned by youth group leaders and that was the answer to “does this make me look fat?” from a girlfriend or wife. The answer is a categorical no. But if most white lies are told out of protecting the other person’s feelings, most of the time, no harm done. However, in Sloan’s case, lying became a tool to protect a relationship that had expired. When we start having to wager if the security of our relationships is worth the thrill of deceiving that person, the relationship is truly in danger. Heartbreak seems inevitable, but we can lie to ourselves and say that nothing’s wrong. 

    .find_in_page{background-color:#ffff00 !important;padding:0px;margin:0px;overflow:visible !important;}.find_selected{background-color:#ff9632 !important;padding:0px;margin:0px;overflow:visible !important;}

  • "Unholy" by Sam Smith ft. Kim Petras, Monday, October 3, 2022

    Somewhere between cleaning up at the 2015 Grammy Awards for In the Lonely Hour and 2020’s Love Goes, Sam Smith‘s music lost momentum with listeners. Of course a lot has happened to the singer since then. In 2015, Smith was an openly gay Grammy- winning artist. In 2019, the singer came out as non-binary, telling the BBC, “I do think like a woman sometimes, in my head. Sometimes I’ve questioned, ‘Do I want a sex change?’” Since coming out as non-binary, the singer has embraced both the masculine and the feminine in their videos, concerts, and album promotion. But not only did the singer’s sexuality evolve, but also their musical versatility, from a gospel-inspired second record (The Thrill of It All), a Bond theme (“Writing’s on the Wall“), featured in a Calvin Harris track (“Promises“), a dance pop record in 2020–nothing seemed beyond the scope of the singer, though never they quite matching the success of In the Lonely Hour.
     

    MUMMY DON’T KNOW DADDY’S GETTING HOT AT THE BODY SHOP. Sam Smith is yet to announce details of an upcoming album, but “Unholy” is said to be the lead single from the Grammy winner’s fourth record. It’s a shocking song and a shocking video, on that made our friends over at PluggedIn call it “next-level vile.” Writing about the song before the context of the music video, and taking the lyrics of the song quite literal as a “celebratory tone used to praise a man for lying to his wife, ignoring his children and visiting a prostitute whenever he so pleases,” the critic Kristin Smith lambastes the song. And even though the correctly points out the literal message of the song, it seems that there’s something else going on. But because our dear friends at Focus on the Family didn’t have the video at the time of the review, let’s start there. The video (see below) is truly an avant-garde statement complete with an introduction, elaborate costumes, and Cabaret–styled dance sequence. The Body Shop scenes–a dinner-theater styled sex club–aren’t too graphic to be censored on YouTube, but the viewers certainly get the idea about what is happening at this club, which is MC’ed by Smith. Famed Italian-Canadian music video and film director Floria Sigismondi directed “Unholy.” She has directed videos for Marylin Manson, The White Stripes, and Katy Perry and other artists as well as directing episodes of The Handmaiden’s Tale and American Gods. 

    DIRTY, DIRTY BOY. The experience for the viewer entering “The Body Shop” is not  unlike watching two newlyweds whose car has broken down in front of a Victorian mansion in the 1973 cult classic musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Tim Curry as the “Sweet Transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania” beckons Brad and Janet:”give yourself over to absolute pleasure.” While The Rocky Horror Picture Show  is still shocking today to the Focus on the Family types and even caused my parents to mutter about Tim Curry when my sisters and I watched Muppet Treasure Island and later Clue. But even some conservative types can see the artistic merit of doing the “Time Warp.” Fast forward to 2022, we can ask the question about the artistic merit of “Unholy” and whether or not it meets its goals to promote a conversation. I can think of several merits, though I’m not sure that these are the intentional statements. Both statements have to deal with sexuality and sexual/gender identity. In some ways, the video is styled like a sexy hip hop video–singer Kim Petras acting as featured singer. Smith is not rapping, but the lines feel like rapping. The video subverts the homo- and transphobia in hip-hop’s past. The video features dancers who are trans, non-binary, and sis-gendered, showing the spectrum that gender can display. And that’s the first point I think the video is making: that gender fluidity is shocking to many these days, but it’s ultimately something we have to come to understand. Drag and alternative gender expressions were once kept in very specific spaces–“The Body Shop,” for example, where people go to have a good time whether or not they are hiding their true identity from the world or even spouses. Now alternative gender expressions are hitting mainstream culture–from Timothée Chalamet wearing a red dress to the film premiere of Bones and All to Harry Styles wearing a blouse. The second point: why call gender fluidity, homosexuality “unholy” when “daddy” abandons his wife and kids in order to frequent the prostitutes. This may seem like a weak point but think about how historically true this is. The more conservative the preacher or politician, the more shocking the cottaging with an undercover policeman in a dimly lit rest area bathroom. I think the idea is that a culture built on repression, restricting desire and expression creates a more shocking reveal than if people were allowed to express themselves as they pleased all along.

    lyric video:

    music video: 


  • "It Doesn't Matter Why" by Silversun Pickups, Sunday, October 2, 2022

    Ten years after releasing their breakthrough record, Swoon, Silversun Pickups released their fifth record, Widow’s  Weeds. The band’s first two records contained fast, pulsating shoegaze tracks, but by their third record, 2012’s Neck of the Woods, the band started playing with their formula. By their fourth record, Better Nature, the band had gone against the rules they set for themselves for their debut record, Carnavas. That rule: to record a record relying mostly on guitar, bass, and some keys that the band could provide and relying mostly on organic sounds. 

    IS IT BETTER ON THE OTHER SIDE? NO. Working with famed the famed Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins producer and Garbage founding member Butch Vig, Widow’s Weeds is Silversun Pickups’ attempt at rock greatness. But rock greatness looks different in the late 2010s when the genre suffered its lowest point. Widow’s Weeds came four years after the band’s fourth record, Better Nature. The lyrics to the band’s first single from the record, “It Doesn’t Matter Why” are opaque like many of the band’s tracks. However, lead singer Brian Auburt told Prelude Press that the lyrics on Widow’s Weeds were more “open and exposed.” Some of the openness of the record has to do with Auburt getting sober in the middle of the recording process, a process that delayed recording for the album. “It Doesn’t Matter Why” seems to take a cue from the band’s second track “The Royal We,” on Swoon, which deals with drug addiction. Musically taking a cue from “The Royal We,”  which initially broke the band’s rules by including a 16-piece orchestra, “It Doesn’t Matter Why” also includes strings.  But the song sounds like a reconstructed version of the band. The song starts with a tinny bass riff that sounds almost like it could be an acoustic guitar and quickly becomes a catchy rhythmic song. Handclaps after the chorus relate the song to a primal energy that makes listeners even more engaged with the hypnotic rhythm. Like with most Silversun Pickups’ songs, except for the ones sung by bassist Nikki Monniger, Brian Aubert’s voice pierces through the wall of sound. 


    WILL IT HELP YOU SLEEP BETTER AT NIGHT? IT WON’T. Paste called  the minimal, eerie video (see below) in which the band and several actors perform stretches and various actions in front of the camera “unsettling” and the song itself had an “underlying sense of anxiety and nihilism.” I misheard the lyric as “It doesn’t matter why we’re numb, we’re just numb” which seemed to make more sense than the real lyrics. I’m not sure what Aubert means by the apathetic statements throughout the song. The speaker asks questions and answers them in the most negative way. The song seems to be dealing with someone who is pushing a concerned loved one away. And this pushing away could be related to the speaker’s addiction, as many times addicts don’t want to change and push away those who care about them. The song could also be dealing with life in the spotlight when someone is concerned about that person. While many might know about the addiction, there are always more who can find out and it’s shaming to the addict to confront his addiction. Unfortunately, the addict often has to hit rock bottom in order to confront it.