Mixtapemotions

  • “Mean What You Say” by Sent By Ravens (Trigger Warning: discussion of a hate group and disturbing language), Sunday, November 20, 2022

     

    Many Christians and former Christians were crestfallen by the marriage of politics and religion, particularly displayed from the 2016 election of Donald Trump. How could religious leaders we looked up to, who taught us about the fruits of the spirit, now say that Trump was appointed by God? Back in 2012, though, a band from Hartsville, South Carolina, began to see inconsistencies between what the Bible said and what was preached.

    YOU BETTER MEAN WHAT YOU SAY. Sent By Ravens released two records with Tooth & Nail Records before going on an indefinite hiatus. Unlike many Tooth & Nail acts, Sent By Ravens was a Christian Rock band that dealt with Christian themes directly. The band’s debut record, Our Graceful Words, produced by Aaron Sprinkle, challenged listeners on spiritual themes on songs like “New Fire” and “Beautiful List.” Other songs on the record like “Trailers vs. Tornadoes” and “Stone Soup” displayed a post-hardcore sound.  But the vision for Christian Rock that Sent By Ravens shared with listeners unfortunately failed, and that could be because of their potentially divisive sophomore record, Mean What You Say. By divisive, I mean that Mean What You Say was uncomfortable for two groups of Christian music listeners. While bands like Anberlin and Underoath had made a career on mostly relationship-based songs, other bands like Kutless and Seventh Day Slumber took an opposite trajectory into worship music. There were other bands like Sent By Ravens who sang about spiritual subjects, but much of the Christian Rock audience was either moving away from Christianity or deeper into Christianity and further away from rock. The sincere lyrics of the band felt awkward to the soon-to-be deconstructionists, and the questions the band raised made the future MAGA Christians double down in their politically conservative agenda. 

    I DON’T HAVE TO KILL WITH MY HANDS. “Mean What You Say” is the title track from Sent By Ravens’ sophomore record. The song and others on the album addresses the hateful messages that some vocal Christian individuals and groups spread to disparage fellow believers and non-believers. The song was specifically inspired by the hatred spewed by Westboro Baptist Church. Church members can be seen on TV getting attention for their causes in the most abrasive way possible with provocative signs. The church’s central message is in their URL(not shared for the purpose of decency): “God hates fags.” The church is obsessed with homosexuality, protesting at funerals of famous people no matter the deceased’s actual sexual orientation, making outrageous claims that the deceased was gay or furthered the “gay agenda.” In addition to the religious group’s unyielding homophobia, the church members also demonstrate extreme anti-semitism, islamophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia. Many Christians and non-believers alike label the church as a hate group, and there have been many lawsuits against the church and its founder, Fred Phelps, Sr., even a Supreme Court case against the church’s founder. When I was going to a religious high school, my Bible teacher condemned Westboro Baptist church and joked about them being crazy fanatics. But the messages about homosexuality weren’t that much different at Bible class. Maybe it was less obsessive, but I felt deep down, the far right is what the “moderate fundamentalists” really wanted. Maybe Westboro Baptist church was speaking to something they found instinctively true. Today’s song challenges listeners to “mean what they say.” But this message causes Christians either to become more loving and affirming or more hateful and intolerant of others. 

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Step Here” by Aaron Sprinkle, Saturday, November 19, 2022

    Today we take another dive into Aaron Sprinkle‘s 2017 record, Real Life. In a sense, Real Life was a farewell record. Sprinkle had scaled back his productions in the early ’10s, only working with bands he really wanted to. Real Life is also his final record on Tooth & Nail Records. Since moving to Nashville in the ‘10s, Sprinkle began working on other musical projects outside of the Tooth & Nail world. Real Life blends trendy late ‘10s pop hooks and ‘80s/‘90s electronic sounds.

    MEET ME WHERE THE LIGHT GETS IN YOUR EYES. Today, I’m updating the hideous album artwork for my Aaron Sprinkle Essentials playlist on Spotify and creating an Apple Music edition. After all, it is Apple Music playlists I’m basing the Aaron Sprinkle list on–Max Martin, Jack Antonoff, Greg Kurtsin, etc. I think Aaron Sprinkle deserves his own playlist, so here it is:

  • “Knowing This” by Kye Kye, Friday, November 18, 2022 + Young Love Remix EP Track by Track

     

    I got into Kye Kye in 2013 when I was also starting to listen to K-pop. The Christian electronic band made up of Estonian-born, Portland, Oregon-based siblings with their vaguely spiritual, ethereal pop music never quite caught on with any part of the Christian music scene. They may be too artistic for the Christian pop world and not heavy enough for the Christian rock world. The band is still around today, though not releasing Christian music. Today I wanted to delve into their remix EP, Young Love. 



    1. “Broke.” This is a remix of the band’s single from the record. I remember it kept losing on RadioU‘s Battle of the Buzz but when it was released in regular rotation, it caught on and even topped their countdown show, TMW.
    2. “Introduce Myself.” On the album Young Love, “Introduce Myself” is kind of a mundane track; a kind of meandering intro to public speaking class that breaks the rules of good speech writing. As a dubstep track, it’s little more fun. 
    3. “Walking This.” Back in May I talked about the original version of this song and who it seemed to be closely related to today’s song. In fact, the two tracks appear back to back on both the standard and the remix version, but on the remix album they are switched in order. It would seem like you would “Know This” before “Walking This.”
    4. “Knowing This.” Today’s song envisions God as a “perfect lover.” The Genius annotations have scripture backing up every line of the song. 

    Original Version:

    Remixed version:

    5. “Trust and Trees” Kye Kye’s lead singer Olga Yagolnikov’s vocals are often subtle beneath the music. From reading the lyrics, the song seem spiritually esoteric. 

    6. “My Sight” is a song I’ve never listened to much. It’s one of the more blatantly spiritual tracks from the band, talking about the resurrection. 

  • "사랑을 했다 (Love Scenario)” by iKon, Thursday, November 17, 2022

    Writing a song that an entire nation sings for a year or more is no small feat. In 2018, the K-pop band iKon released a single that was hummed by the elderly and even banned in some elementary schools for what teachers and administrators said was inappropriate lyrics, but was really about the students singing it excessively. Unlike some K-pop bands, iKon’s members are often involved with the songwriting process. Kim Han-bin (김한빈), better known by his stage name B.I, took inspiration from the ending scene from the 2016 musical La La Land when writing iKon’s “Love Scenario,” the song that was called “The Song of the Year” in South Korea in 2018.

    THE LOVE SCENARIO WAS CREATED AND NOW THE LIGHTS ARE OFF. Spoiler alert: In the final scene of La La Land, Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) play out a “love scenario” which plays to a beautiful instrumental fantasia. In this fantasy, Mia and Sebastian imagine themselves together, patching up an otherwise ill-fated relationship throughout the film. By the end of the piece, the audience learns that Mia and Sebastian are not actually together in reality and were not able to patch up their differences. But in that instrumental moment–Sebastian playing a piano in a night club and Mia watching him at the piano, the “love scenario” feels more real than what actually happened. B.I wrote “Love Scenario” with lyrics of pining for a lost love, but the group sings the song in a “happy-sad” way. He described the emotion of the song: “I wanted to express what I found regrettable, neither sad nor happy, in the warm farewell.” The song reminds listeners that relationships don’t always work out, and that just because it didn’t work out doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time to have loved. It reminds me of Alfred Lord Tennyson who said in his poem “In Moratorium” after his friend died at the age of 22 of a brain hemorrhage, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

    THE ELECTRIC FEELING IN BETWEEN MY RIBS. “Love Scenario” brings back lots of memories for me. It’s not so much about picturing various scenarios in which life could have worked out differently. Instead, the song transports me back to 2018 when the song was everywhere in South Korea, the phone stores, the gym, the cafes, anywhere shopping, and sung in the classroom. And I think about this song today as I think about my former students who took  their CSAT today, the only college exam in South Korea held on only one day of the year. The graduating class in 2018 were just second graders in middle school singing that dumb song over and over again. Since I’ve been teaching for many years at the same school, I’ve discovered that class dynamics are so important and that some classes are more enjoyable than others. And while teachers are not supposed to have favorite students, I think that my favorite grade of all my years of teaching was this year’s graduating class. It might be because of the students’ personalities, but I also feel like it was their grade that I finally got it together as a teacher, like the years before I “faked it before I made it” and that year I could stop “faking it.” So today, rather than focusing on what could have been, I would rather celebrate the accomplishments my students  have made in their learning and I have made in my teaching.  Congratulations class of 2022!

    Read the English translation on Genius.

    Read the Korean lyrics.

    Lyric video with English translation:

    Music Video:

  • “(There’s Gotta Be) More to Life” by Stacie Orrico, Wednesday, November 16, 2022

    In 2003, Stacie Orrico was among a spate of Christian artists crossing over to secular radio. At that time, it seemed like every act was secretly Christian. Stacie Orrico’s breakthrough record as a Christian artist came when ForeFront Records released Genuine in 2000. The record sold well and several singles were released including the biggest hit “Don’t Look At Me,” which topped the Christian Hit Radio charts for eight weeks.
     

    CHASING DOWN EVERY TEMPORARY HIGH TO SATISFY ME.  Stacie Orrico’s first record was unambiguously Christian. Though she dealt with teenage issues, her thesis lay in the message of her biggest hit, “Don’t look at me, look at Him,” meaning Jesus. But “Don’t Look At Me” didn’t have a music video. Christian labels often released one music video per album because videos are a great expense and the record sales often didn’t mirror general market acts. Orrico’s team chose to make a video for the album’s title track, “Genuine.” The video featured Orrico dancing to the song leading a team of female dancers. The video was successful both in Christian and secular markets, reaching the Top 5 on Disney.com. In 2001, Orrico opened for Destiny’s Child on their Survivor Tour. With this attention, Orrico signed with Virgin Records and began working on her sophomore, self-titled record. Stacie Orrico wasn’t quite a Katy Hudson to Katy Perry rebranding. While the lead single of Stacie Orrico, “Stuck,” had nothing to do with a spiritual topic, the song was promoted on some Christian Radio and music video programs. Elsewhere on the record, songs are vaguely and sometimes explicitly spiritual, though much less than on Genuine. 
    WHY CAN’T I LET IT GO?   Stacie Orrico’s second single, “(There’s Gotta Be) More to Life” uses a subtle evangelistic tool of bating listeners with an existential question. Some chose to answer that question right away, but the more marketable artists don’t. If listeners was really wondering what that more is, while either filling their homes with luxurious imported Missoni furniture or drunk-driving to the club on the weekend, they only need to listen to Orrico’s debut record to find out what the answer is. I’ve been importuning upon my readers Christian songs popular for millennials when we were in middle and high school this year. As a kind of exvangelical, I feel nostalgic for this music, and really I don’t think that there’s too much I disagree with. I think there’s gotta be more than what I’m seeing right now, but I wouldn’t be so quick to name what that thing is. And just like me, not all of the Christian singers of the ’90s and ’00s are cemented in political evangelical Christianity. Oricco’s most recent album, Beautiful Awakening, was released in 2006. She mostly works on other projects these days and is married to the actor Isaiah Johnson and talked about parenting bi-racial children during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 with her husband on the Never Thought I’d Say This podcast. Oricco seems like a really cool person, and like the episode of Good Christian Fun, I’m going to have to send this song “Heavenbound.”


  • “Man” by Relient K, Tuesday, November 15, 2022

    For some musical acts, it takes a while for their audience to take them seriously. Take for example Relient K. After three records of lyrics about Marylin Manson eating girlfriends, manipulating emotional girls to wear mood rings, and fantasizing about showing up to an ’80s-themed prom in a pink tux listening to Tears for Fears, the band scored two mainstream pop hits from their not-quite-as-cheeky Mmhmm album. 

    TOO OLD TO BE GROWING UP.  Relient K’s latest effort Air for Free was released in 2016 and the band continues to tour with the record. While the band gets playful with songs like “Local Construction,” “Cat,” “Mrs. Hippopotamuses‘” and “Elephant Parade,” there are serious moments on the record. One of the most serious songs is “Man,” the fifth track. Relient K’s early music was almost exclusively punk rock–electric guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. But little by little, Relient K began introducing other instruments–acoustic guitars, piano/ keys–and production elements. Now the band freely incorporates piano without fears of not being punk rock. Today’s song is both lyrically and musically masterful. Starting out at a laid-back pace, “Man” gradually gains tempo. In a 2016 interview, lead singer Matt Thiessen stated that “Man” is a follow-up to the band’s album-closing tracks for Forget and Not Slow Down, “This Is the End” and “(If You Want It).” To signify the growing urgency in the song, the tempo continuously speeds up until the final chorus which presents the lyrics as a swirling round. 

    I SPENT THE LAST SIX YEARS LIKE HOFFMAN IN THE SWIMMING POOL.“Man” is, coincidentally, the third track this month that references Peter Pan following Tyson Motsenbocker‘s “Wendy Darling” and Anberlin‘s “Godspeed.” Peter Pan is often used in songs and literature as a symbol of the struggle between staying young and growing up. The beginning of the song references Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, spending his summer in the pool, eyes locked on Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), waiting to see where life will take the young man. The song also subtly references one of the band’s covers, the Veggie Tales silly song “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.” In “Man” the speaker feels the gravity of waiting around for life to happen. As time is slipping away, the speaker has many impulses: hide from it, try to delay it, die prematurely, but ultimately he realizes he has to face it. There also seems to be some regret for the singer’s careless attitude in the past alluded to in the song’s lines. With millennials and Zoomers demanding accountability for misogamy and homophobia in Christian and secular media, many songs and artists have suffered losses in streams and have become irrelevant. Just this year, Matt Thiessen apologized for the problematic lyrics in “Mood Rings” after a TikToker went viral with a message about how the song stereotyped young women as emotionally turbulent forces in a young man’s life. While much of Relient K’s most remembered tracks may be muddied by some of their past statements, it seems that the band is waking up and seeing the role they played in it and taking accountability. 

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Magnetic” by Flyleaf, Monday, November 14, 2023

    When a successful band records a new record and the announces the departure of their lead singer— the face of their band, it can be industry suicide. That’s exactly what happened when Flyleaf’s frontwoman Lacey Sturm quit the band soon after releasing their third album, 2012’s New Horizons. After the car accident and death of the band’s sound engineer Rich Caldwell and after reevaluating her life, Sturm decided to quit the band to focus on her family. Before leaving, though, she and the other band members selected Kristen May, formerly of the band Vedera, to replace Sturm.

    PULLING ME FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD. Momentum for the third Flyleaf record withered with the departure of the signature sound of their front woman. Dropping out of Flyleaf meant dropping out of all album promotion, save for the singer’s farewell videos, “New Horizons” and  “Call You Out.” Kristen May stepped into touring duties immediately following Sturm’s departure. The next year, Flyleaf released an EP with Kristen May on vocals. This was the first exposure for many fans to the new sound of the band. The EP featured a new song with P.O.D.‘s Sonny Sandoval, but the rest were live songs, mostly from New Horizons, but one track from the band’s self-titled, “Sorrow.” Many fans failed to see the continuity of the band. May, the band’s new lead singer was more akin to Paramore‘s Haley Williams or Fireflight‘s Dawn Michele. Whereas Sturm’s voice is low and her stage persona mysterious and somewhat tortured, May’s voice is upbeat and her stage presence is like a pop-punk star, more like Sara Dallin or Keren Woodword of Bananrama than of Lacey Sturm, and the EP Who We Are sounded like a pop band covering Flyleaf. 

    ALWAYS GONNA FIND EACH OTHER SOMEHOW.  Flyleaf then released a full-length record with Kristen May on vocals in 2014, titled Between the Stars. The album continued to deviate from the band’s dark original sound, dealing with lighter subject matter. Critics and fans agreed that the new Flyleaf sounded nothing like the original band though Between the Stars received “generally favorable reviews” according to Metacritic. For me, the only redeemable song is “Magnetic,” the album’s second track. It’s a love song with a killer bass intro, a kind of evolution of Kirk Patrick Seals‘ “I’m So Sick” intro. Still, it’s not Flyleaf. Although Kristen May was selected by the band, the singer felt insecurity being in the group. She stated in an interview with Cryptic Rock that she felt that fans judged her on how she showed her Christianity. And compared to her predecessor, the charismatic Lacey Sturm, who practically brought a church service to the intoxicated crowds, fans probably noted a stark difference between the lead singers. There could only be one Lacey Sturm and she was the voice of Flyleaf. May left Flyleaf following Between the Stars, like Sturm exiting to take care of her newborn son. Of Flyleaf, she said that she never really felt like a part of the band. Sturm had left Flyleaf on good terms. As her children grew up, she began to focus more on her music and writing. She has continued to collaborate with bands such as Breaking Benjamin and Skillet as well as releasing a full-length record in 2016 called Life Screams and singles since then. Just like pure magnetism, last week Sturm announced that she and Flyleaf would be performing a show together next year. What this means for the future of the band, we have yet to find out.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Luck” by The Starting Line, Sunday, November 13, 2022

    In 2008, The Starting Line went on hiatus. Disillusioned from the recording industry after their sophomore record and major label debut, Based on a True Story, was neglected from promotion due to the band’s label, MCA being acquired by Universal Music Group and forming the sub-label Gergen Records. This prompted the band to sign with Virgin Records and release their third record, Direction. Unlike Based on a True Story, Direction was better promoted. Still, even with the new promotion the band had enough.


    GETTING CLOSE TO WHATEVER MATTERS. The Starting Line’s hiatus included a few tour dates together and live recordings. The band is yet to release a full-length follow-up record to Direction, but in 2016 they released a three-song EP titled Anyways. Lead singer Kenny Vasoli said at the Slam Dunk Records festival in 2011: “People keep asking us when we’re getting back together, and the answer I have is yesterday. And what happens when bands get together? They write music. So, we have a new song for you.” “Luck” is the last of the three songs on the EP but was the first of the new songs that the band wrote. The song indirectly addresses the issue that drove the band to take a break, their lack of promotion from their label. We may eventually get new music from The Starting Line as they continue to play reunion shows. The band recently played the When We Were Young in Las Vegas, the massive 3-weekend music festival. The band’s live shows and continued support from their fans is a testament to The Starting Line’s lasting impact on the emo, pop-punk scene. But what we’ve seen in recent years, a legacy band reuniting certainly isn’t the same as producing new music. What would new Starting Line music post-pandemic sound like? 

    THEY USED TO TAKE YOU FOR GRANTED. Speaking of luck, I confirmed last year that The Starting Line’s “Island” (Float Away) is actually a bit of a bad luck charm for me. The line “It seems that things are always getting better” always gave me hope whenever I listened to the song. Direction is one of my go-to records for a summer or a summery spring day. But at the end of that summery spring day, a cold front blows in. It was a mantra that ended in an EF-4 tornado in college after beautiful, spring weather. Last year after writing about that track, my dad had a stroke. He’s doing better now. In life, it seems like bad luck to declare that life is getting better because the next thing is around the corner. After all, life isn’t a staircase to some glorious finish but rather peaks and valleys. Rarely do we enjoy the next level of success that transcends us to another dimension of being human. Better to think that when things are going well, they won’t always be this good. Things to think about on the thirteenth day of the month. Good luck!

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • "Dance or Die" (The Secret Handshake Han Valen Remix) by Family Force 5, Saturday, November 12, 2022 (Repost)

    In 2006, Family Force 5 debuted with their brand of ‘crunk,’ rap-rock punk that was comical, dancey, awkward, and overall unique. You’d be hard-pressed to find much Christian Rock on Business Up Front/Party in the Back. Most of the songs are about dancing in the club and falling in love. While pretty innocent, it was one of the first times a Christian Rock band invited its listeners to the club. Known for their outrageous live shows and touring with the likes of Cobra Starship, 30h!3, Cash Cash, Breathe Carolina, and The Secret Handshake, the band took a stylistic left turn when they released their sophomore record on Tooth & Nail Records in 2008. Dance or Die has much less crunk, more singing, and fewer joke songs. The band started taking themselves seriously on this record, but looking back, I wonder who it was for?

    THEY TRY TO TAKE OUR LIVES, BUT WE WILL SURVIVE. Family Force 5 is a rock band, but in their live shows they functioned as a boyband. In 2006-2010, boy band music was pretty scarce from the American music scene. There was the Jonas Brothers, but they were more like Hanson than Backstreet Boys. Meanwhile in the UK, there was Westlife, and South Korea never stopped generating boy (and girl) bands. The sounds of Westlife and South Korean bands evolved beyond the late ’90s teen pop sound. The boyband evolution in the UK and South Korea, though, probably didn’t have much influence on the  five “Kountry Gentlemen” from Atlanta, GA. The band members of FF5 had stage names and personas, nerdy music videos, and hip hop influences. However, the hip-hop would be temporarily dropped for their ’80s dance pop follow up, Dance or Die. Functioning as a boy band on their second record, Dance or Die was a somewhat more serious album. Songs like “Dance or Die,” “Rip it Up” and “How in the World” offered little comedy [with the exception of “Rip it Up” (The Pragmatic Remix) from Dance or Die with a Vengeance and songs like “Get Your Back Off the Wall,” “Party Foul,” “D-I-E 4 Y-O-U” and “Fever” only containing exaggerated lyrics. 

    TRANSMISSION RADIO, RESPOND IF YOU’RE ALIVE. Ultimately, Dance or Die, a straight-up dance record, would not be the direction the band would keep. The band’s III album returned to the silliness of their debut, but lost a lot of fans with the lyrics. Then lead singer Solomon “Soul Glow Activatur” Olds left the band and the band just before the band’s leaving Tooth & Nail. The band’s fourth album, 2014’s Time Stands Still,  flirted more with EDM. Eventually, all but two of the original members were left, causing the now duo to change their name officially to FF5, their long-used acronym. So who is Dance or Die for? It’s certainly not sexy music. The mullet wearing Family boys aren’t winding up on any middle school girl’s bedroom wall. The voices of Olds and company are more serious, but still sound pretty jokey. And yet, the amount of collaborators who came together for Dance or Die with a Vengeance is impressive. There are remixes by 30h!3, Cobra Starship, David Crowder, Jasen Rauch (Red/Breaking Benjamin), and guest appearances by Matt Thiessen and The Secret Handshake. Who is this album for? Your girlfriend will probably hate it. It’s guilty pleasure bro rock, and it’s getting more and more obscure with age. Still, it’s kind of fun to listen to awkward dance music sometimes. Just as long as it doesn’t remind you of a sixth grade dance.

    Official Music Video:
    Remix:
    Read “Dance or Die (The Secret Handshake Han Valen Remix)” by Family Force 5 on Genius

  • “Wrecking Ball” (Miley Cyrus cover) by August Burns Red, Friday, November 11, 2022

    In 2010, we learned that Miley Cyrus Can’t Be Tamed. The former Disney Channel star had released soundtracks for the Hannah Montana series before releasing several saccharine pop records. As she came of age, though, the singer wanted to make it clear that she was a sexual being. Enter 2013’s Bangerz and its second single “Wrecking Ball.” The song is a slow breakup ballad and doesn’t feature explicit language like many of the other tracks on the record. Still, it was the video for the song that virally brought Cyrus into the post-purity culture, sex-positive zeitgeist. The video features the singer clad in only a pair of white panties and a t-shirt, then fully nude—the singer and the director tastefully hiding the singer’s genitals—riding on a wrecking ball and licking a sledgehammer. From that moment everyone had an opinion about Miley Cyrus and whether expressing sexuality in such a manner was art or pure immortality.

    DON’T YOU EVER SAY I JUST WALKED AWAY. And while Miley Cyrus’ original version is fascinating, today I’m giving, for many of my listeners, a candelabra to the head. We have another entry from Fearless Records’ Punk Goes Pop, Vol. 6, like yesterday’s song “Royals” by Youth in Revolt. Unlike Youth in Revolt, I knew August Burns Red before this Punk Goes… series entry. I sometimes listened to August Burn Red in college when I needed heavy, aggressive music, especially when driving. The Christian metalcore band formed in 2003, signing with Solid State Records and releasing their debut record Thrill Seeker. The band’s musical style is noted for its fast tempos, classic rock guitar riffs, brutal drums, and unclean vocals—lead vocalist Jake Luhrs doesn’t sing, though the band is able to pull melody from the vibrant guitars—a technique I describe with harder music as rewarding listeners with melody, essentially giving them a payoff. Luhrs joined the band in 2006 after the band’s original vocalist Jon Hershey quit the band. August Burns Red has released nine records, including an instrumental Christmas album, Sleddin’ Hill.  In addition to “Wrecking Ball,” August Burns Red also covered Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” for Pop Goes Punk Volume, 2.  The fast guitars and the fun attitude of the band make August Burns Red a worthy entry to the list, even if it’s not very fun to listen to. 

    I PUT YOU HIGH UP IN THE SKY. “Wrecking Ball” set a record at the time with 19.3 million views in 24 hours and became a cultural conversation. First the video was controversial for depicting Cyrus nude, to which Cyrus defended the artistic choice, telling MTV News: “ I think the video is much more, if people get past the point that I’m naked and you actually look at me you can tell that I actually look more broken than even the song sounds.” The video was inspired by Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” depicting heartbreak sincerely. Of course, given the song’s viral popularity and the purity of Cyrus’ heartbreak, the song lent itself to parody. One of the best parodies was filmed on Chatroulette by YouTuber Steve Kardynal. The YouTuber mimics the video on the platform as random users sing along. Kardynal starts the video dressed in the same white t-shirt and panties as Cyrus and ends up swinging naked on an exercise ball hanging from his ceiling. But as far as parodies go, a heavy metal cover of a heartbreaking slow ballad certainly makes light of a serious subject. Yes, wrecking balls would make sense for a heavy metal track. What’s also interesting about this cover is that August Burns Red diffuses some of the Christian “slut shaming,” at least with more progressive hard music listeners, surrounding Cyrus. Many Christian Rock bands embrace culture when it seems moral, but August Burns Red jumped into the pit panties first—though I don’t know that they have performed the song as Cyrus did.

    Miley Cyrus original:

    August Burns Red cover: