One of the biggest challenges of writing about music that I often run into is there isn’t always a lot to talk about. Just because it’s a good song, doesn’t mean that it is a conversation piece. New music is particularly hard to write about. It takes a lot of research, and it takes quite a few listens over some time to pick up the nuance. Furthermore, I mostly write about old music because I have memories associated with it. These memories are acquired over time, and can’t be forced onto a song every Friday with the new release cycle. But when a song has layers of meaning, or in this case, layers of history, not only is it easier to write about, but also I can connect with the song on a deeper level. I won’t be able to get into all of the layers that I want to in this short post, but I’ll see what I can accomplish.
I’M CAUGHT UP IN YOU. In 2019, Taylor Swift announced that she would be re-recording and releasing new versions of her back catalog. This was a response to her failed attempt to buy back her masters which Scooter Braun had sold for $300 million. This would allow her music to be used without her consent and without her making money from the appearance of that song. In 2021, Taylor released the first of these projects, a re-imagination of Fearless, her 2008 multi-platinum sophomore album, which rocked both the Country and pop charts. As we saw last year, Swift now shrugs off music executives’ conventions and takes control of her own musical direction. Taylor’s Version of Fearless is a long album. She released all of the bonus tracks from Fearless: Platinum Edition and some cut tracks from that era that never made it to recording.
YOU’RE UNTOUCHABLE, BURNING BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN. “Untouchable” is a cover of a song by rock band Luna Halo. First appearing on Sparrow Records, the band debuted as a Christian Rock band. Their debut album had the hit “Superman” and the song “Hang On To You,” written by fellow labelmate Delirious. The band disappeared and changed members, but reassembled in Nashville to relaunch with their sophomore, self-titled record. The band’s greatest accomplishment, however, was Taylor Swift’s cover of “Untouchable.” Luna Halo never released a follow-up album, and “Untouchable” launched guitarist Cary Barlowe’s career as a country music songwriter. Taylor Swift’s version of “Untouchable” highlights the lyrics of the song. While the verses are short, we get the image of a teenage girl in awe of someone she thinks is “untouchable” to her. It’s quite a different meaning when a late-20s Nathan Barlowe sings about a girl who’s out of his league. However, in 2021, very little seems “untouchable” for the superstar Taylor Swift. The star has seen the world, famously dated in Hollywood and the music scene. She’s become the celebrity who goes from hometown hero into her gated mansion. The star herself has become “untouchable” to many, yet you still hear of her doing incredible things for her fans. What’s the untouchable dream for Taylor? Is it justice from the music industry?
Formed in 2006, Lady A, then known as Lady Antebellum, scored a massive Country crossover hit from their sophomore record, the title track “Need You Now.” The band named themselves after doing a photo-shoot dressed in Southern pre-Civil War-era clothing, but following the 2020 George Floyd protests decided to change their name to Lady A due to the nuanced connotations the term Antebellum held in the cultural consciousness at the time.
I SAID I WOULDN’T CALL, BUT I’M A LITTLE DRUNK. Lady A isn’t the only country group to change their name because social issues. Dallas-based trio formerly known as The Dixie Chicks dropped the word dixie from their name, simply becoming The Chicks. Of course, not everyone was satisfied with the name changes for either band, but Lady A’s was particularly polarizing. Country music listeners tend to be politically conservative, and some viewed the trio’s name change as erasure of Southern heritage. Some accused the group of giving into “woke” trends. But others felt that Lady A wasn’t doing enough or perhaps doing the bare minimum to stay culturally relevant. Calling themselves Lady A only censured the word that they were referencing as if showing an R-rated movie on television or an explicit lyric on the radio. The checkered meaning left in the band’s name, future generations or new fans need only ask what the A stands to see that Lady A was a band named after a problematic time in America’s past.
I’D RATHER HURT THAN FEEL NOTHIN’ AT ALL. When American settlers discovered America, they stole lands from the people already living there. Call it CRT, but I call it historical fact as it is. When Lady Antebellum changed their name to Lady A, they didn’t consider that there already was a Lady A, Seattle-based blues, soul, and gospel singer Anita White, who had been using the moniker for over twenty years. The band sued White after she refused to stop using the moniker and was eventually settled in court with the results undisclosed to the public. The irony of the situation felt like a story from Curb Your Enthusiasm, a group of white people trying to prove their not racist by covering up their racist past by stealing their new name from a African American artist. Maybe this isn’t so surprising from a band whose biggest single is about a drunken booty call. Even if it’s how 50% of babies are made in the south, you eventually have to live up to the fact that being lonely, drunk, and horny isn’t a logical excuse for getting back with his beatin’ and cheatin’ ass. And when you decide to change your name on a whim because your “eyes are opened” to how something you said in your past could be taken as racist, you shouldn’t appropriate another artist’s name and litigate until you have it. And if these connections seem a little loose, please forgive me. I, too, am a little drunk… on jet lag.
When I first blogged about BTS, I talked about my gateway drugs into K-pop. Shinee was one of them. The first song I heard from them was “Everybody” which oddly made me think of industrial rock. Later I heard their song “Stand By Me” when I started to watch the drama Boys Over Flowers. I’m sure I’ll talk about my love-hate relationship with Korean dramas later. If you listen to “Stand By Me,” don’t you hear hints of Rick Astley‘s “Never Gonna Give You Up“? Then in 2015 one of the biggest songs in Korea was Shinee’s song “View.” Some of the genius in Shinee’s producers is making hit songs that sound vaguely familiar. Sometimes you can pin a pop song comparison, other times you’re left racking your brain wondering where you heard that song before.
FOREVER YOURS.Key (born Kim Ki-bum) is one of the vocalists of Shinee. As the group’s career started winding down, Key started acting and becoming a TV personality on Korean reality shows. His talents stretch beyond music into fashion and philanthropy. In 2018 he released his first solo single, “Forever Yours” featuring former member of the girl group Sista‘s Soyoo. Key stuck to Shinee convention keeping the music semi-familiar yet fresh. Yet, starting out with the guest vocalist rather than the main singer is an interesting choice. And failing to feature Soyoo on the screen in the music video makes it seem a little lonely and incomplete. Speaking of the music video, if the song doesn’t give you early ’90s vibes, the video will remind you of a big budget music video from the year 2000. This is not to knock the song in anyway. In fact if you take the lyrics and translate them into English and watch the music video without listening to the music, it would too cheesy. Fortunately there’s the salty cracker that is the music.
YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE INDIFFERENT TO EVERYTHING. I have many thoughts from my recent trip to America, dealing with the desire to be honest about who I love. I think about the sentiment of forever, and how that really only lasts (in the best case scenario) for as long as the shortest living partner, leaving the other eventually to die alone. Valentine’s Day may be over, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t still celebrate the ones that we love. Tomorrow, I’ll see him, but tonight–sixteen hours in the air–I can barely keep my eyes open.
The second single from the 2006 album Eyes Open after the album opener and rocker, “You’re All I Have,” “Chasing Cars” is the most recognized song by Snow Patrol. The band’s frontman and songwriter Gary Lightbody said that he wrote the song after sobering up after a white wine binge in the garden of producer Jacknife Lee‘s cottage. Lightbody told Rolling Stone that “Chasing Cars” is “the purest love song I’ve ever written. There’s no knife-in-the-back twist.” He stated that “all the other songs I’ve written have a dark edge.” While the song and video for “Chasing Cars” don’t have a dark side, the connotation the song has with dramas like Grey’s Anatomyand One Tree Hill certainly wields the knife so carefully left out by the songwriter.
LET’S WASTE TIME CHASING CARS. Here’s an updated Romantic Mix from last year. I’ll add to it from time to time so that it’s not just rebranded from last year.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Let’s celebrate with a depressing song about separation and/or death. While Linkin Park released Minutes to Midnightafter I graduated high school, the sentiment of the pains of being pathologically single burns in the song. The sounds bleak imagery of the gray skies, naturally occurring during this time of year in the northeastern United States and similar climates, paired with the feelings of deep loss and loneliness, the ninth track on Linkin Park’s third record, “Valentine’s Day,” is a perfect anti-Valentine’s Day track. And being without the one who I love today, I decided to make a playlist of anti-love tracks. These aren’t break up tracks, persey. But rather they’re about missing a loved one, titled Missing You. Enjoy!
In 2006, Skillet created the album they used as a template for the albums that they would release for the next sixteen years and counting. At the time when Skillet released Comatose, it was their most mature and refined record following ten years of member line up and style changes. Starting as a post-grunge band then transitioning into industrial around the turn of the millennium, Skillet began to switch out synthesizers for strings on their 2003 record, Collide. The lead single, “Rebirthing,” highlighted the new Skillet sound, symphonic hard rock. But what was once novel turned banal after all of the following records sounded the same.
I BREATHE YOU IN. Whilenot a maître of metal or hard music but rather a commercial success story and a brand, Skillet’s rebirth brought them to rock radio and landed them on some of the major tours in the active rock genre. As Skillet became more about refining the brand, they leaned into their role as a band in ministry. They became one of the biggest unapologetically Christian bands. And from their stage production complete with pyrotechnics, they made a lot of money on the road. What a Christian band means for Skillet is a propitiation of the conservative politics common in evangelical Christianity during the George W. Bush years. Lead singer John L. Cooper even delved into theology, writing the book Awake & Alive To Truth. But soon, he began tackling political issues, appearing on Fox News, arguing against Critical Race Theory and the so-called “woke agenda,” arguing that both of which is creating a civil war in the church.
I WANNA LIVE FOR LOVE, I WANNA LIVE FOR YOU AND ME. I’m getting awfully sick of Christian gaslighting, as I believe more and more that I have a right to exist as a gay person. I also believe that we need to look at history through different lenses and that we need to acknowledge that we are a product of wars and inequalities. I think that Skillet’s new music is not to my liking, so it doesn’t make it difficult to give them up. However, after watching a nation display of Christian nationalism on Fox last night, also known as the Super Bowl, I realize that America is composed of the old guard trying to uphold Christian ideals with commercials funded by Hobby Lobby. Patriotism and spirituality on display feels awkward to me. I think it should be in humble heart rather than on full display, sort of like the parable Jesus told in Luke 18:9-14. That being said, after Taylor Swift, Drake or a ton of Nashville acts got the time slot on America’s biggest stage, I can imagine Skillet opening a halftime show with an orchestra playing “Rebirthing,” the band perhaps suspended in the air like Rihanna last night. It will never happen, though, since the country is supposedly going to hell in a hand basket.
“Melted” was the second single from AKMU‘s debut record, Play. The duo’s 2014 record was released in the spring, and many of the songs thematically matched with spring. These songs talked about growing up, falling in love, and childhood. Paired with upbeat, bright melodies, Play was one of the best K-pop records to hear in coffee shops around Korea in 2014. “Melted,” however, is a colder song. With the lyrical imagery of snow melting, grey skies, and rain, in the context of the album, “Melted” kicks off spring. Although the weather outside may be nasty and while people can be cold, there is an optimism that winter is almost over and that love may win in the end, even if we’re in the midst of five more weeks of winter.
WHY ARE THEY SO COLD? The weather during my time in North Carolina has been pretty mild, but last night the National Weather Service sent people into panic with a potential snow storm. Rain might turn to ice and then to snow. What a Super Bowl Sunday. It didn’t happen, though, and I got up to Asheville where I will watch The Philadelphia Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs in a game that nobody at the party is actually thrilled to see. I’m in it for the commercials, Rihanna, the food, the experience, friends, and maybe the sexy uniforms, which is honestly what got me into football in the first place. This is the third Super Bowl I’ve watched since I’ve been in Korea. The first was “left shark” in 2015, the Chief and the 49ers in 2020, and this year with whatever it might bring. In all of the times I’ve been home in January or February there have been some weather issues. It was scary driving down the mountain after the 2015 post-Super Bowl snow storm in a car with sketchy brakes.
IF THE ICE MELTS, A WARMER SONG WOULD HAVE TO COME OUT. As my time in America is winding down and this is one of the last times to see friends and family until I come back, I’m filled with a gratitude that I can pop in on their lives and enjoy life as a teacher in Korea. America has been a nice place to visit, but I miss the life that I’ve built in Korea. Soon it will be back to school and back to life as normal. The spring will bring a life with fewer Covid restrictions and perhaps some new craziness. I will have to find a new routine to fit in all the faucets I want to include in a life moving forward–no longer held back by a fear of Armageddon or a gaslighter in the office and hopefully making better money, though I have to pay back the credit card debts of living the American Dream! Spring is just around the corner. The ice is melting, and hopefully I’ll get the blog back into order in March. Until then, let’s enjoy the cold for just a little longer.
Pinkertonis a foundational album in the emo genre. Weezer’s second record was a commercial failure at the time of its release, especially following their massive debut record. Many successful bands look back at the album almost as a kind of bible of guitar tones and lyrical content. Pinkerton produced three singles, including “Pink Triangle,” a song in which the speaker, a boy in college, falls for a lesbian who doesn’t return his affection. The song explores the complexities surrounding sexual identity, which seems progressive for the time but a little cringy today. And it’s that cringe that seeps into Watashi Wa’s 2022 People Like People, an album I’ve talked about before, but today I wanted to look into why a self-identifying “ministry band” quoted Weezer to “say it ‘Like You Mean It.’”
SO HERE COMES THE SON TO REMIND YOU OF YOUR OWN BELIEFS.Watashi Wa started as a punk band when Seth Roberts and the original band were in middle school. Inspired heavily by early Tooth & Nail bands such as MxPx and Ghoti Hook in a time when Tooth & Nail Records started moving away from the fast drums and three-chorded fast songs, Watashi Wa signed to Bettie Rocket Records where many former Tooth & Nail punk bands and former members of those bands formed new bands signed. Also on Bettie Rocket was another band, Freeto Boat, who is featured in today’s song, “Like You Mean It.” Freeto Boat was a Christian ska/punk band, starting as a ten-piece band with horn section, eventually moving into a hardcore direction. The band broke up in 2000 but started making music in 2019, around the time when Watashi Wa reformed. Like many of the features on People Like People, only avid fans of the often obscure bands would know the contributions made to the songs.
YOUR MIND AND PRIDE. People Like People was my #2 best album of 2022, but it certainly wasn’t without issue—some of which I have talked about in the two other posts about it. Today’s song, “Like You Mean It” takes a lighthearted look at polarization. Like a lot of the record, the lyrics are confusing. What exactly is Seth Roberts trying to say? What stance is he trying to take? The message Roberts comes back to is a lament about how unfortunate it is that people are divided on issues. He talks about how quickly love can turn to hate, possibly referencing cancel culture. Having been outside of America since before the pandemic started, I now think that I may have misjudged Roberts’ intentions with the record. And a big part of my reevaluation is the complete restructuring of small town America I’ve noticed particularly around gay and lesbian rights. Trans and non-binary rights are quite a bit lacking, though. When I can enter a Walmart in Mern, NC, and buy a Pride Bear for Valentine’s Day, it seems like progress. I see so many openly queer people in public. Of course not going to church might skew this view. Perhaps, Watashi Wa’s People Like People is an album of “live and let live.” I still think it’s naive, but perhaps not as malicious as I thought. It’s still a very pasty white, straight Christian male voice, but it’s slightly adapted for a modern world. Gay rights certainly has further to go, but I’d like to acknowledge how far it’s come since I was a high schooler in a small town thinking that I would take my secret to my grave. Tomorrow we fight the good fight. Today let’s just focus on the love for all people.
The synth intro to A-ha’s “Take on Me” is probably more encompassing of a decade than the intro of today’s song, but The Verve’s “Bittersweet Sympathy” also has one of the most iconic intros of the ‘90s. But it’s that symphonic riff on the band’s signature song arguably created more trouble than it was worth for the band. The band formed in 1990, experimented with drugs and musical styles before their breakthrough 1997 release of Urban Hymns.
I’VE NEVER PRAYED, BUT TONIGHT I’M ON MY KNEES. The YouTube channel Middle 8 (see below) tells the story about the musical plagiarism scandal behind The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” The highlights of the scandal include sampling a few bars from an orchestral arrangement of The Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time”(see below), The Stones’ litigious manager Allen Klein suing for him to get the entirety of the royalties from “Bittersweet,” despite the fact that The Stone had no part in the composition of the orchestral cover, and finally Mick Jagger and Keith Richardssettling with The Verve’s lead singer, Richard Ashcroft, granting him royalties starting in 2019. Sampling in music happens all the time and there are constantly lawsuits alleging musical plagiarism, recently Dua Lipa and Ed Sheeran have been in court. Led Zeppelin just won a lawsuit that had been ongoing for decades regarding the originality of the guitar on “Stairway to Heaven.” But any Rick Beato on YouTube could tell you the bands with the best lawyers, as many of his videos have been blocked for using samples of famous sounds for educational purposes. While I do believe in copyright and that the right people should get paid, the case of The Verve makes me question if I’m doing everything in my power to follow the law? Furthermore, what if I monetized my blog? Would I need to hire a lawyer? Reviewing requires source material, pictures, etc.
I’M A MILLION DIFFERENT PEOPLE FROM ONE DAY TO THE NEXT. “Bittersweet Symphony” was a massive hit just before I started listening to the radio. I heard the song on the fuzzy Adult Alternative station or during non-peak hours on the pop stations. As I’ve talked about with my early relationship with Rock music, especially secular music, I had to listen in my room with the door closed. At first I had to hide the music I liked from my mom, but she grew more tolerance towards my sister and I listening to music as long as she didn’t have to hear it. But as I got older, my mom started listening to Coldplay and then discover The Verve on Pandora. I came back from college and Urban Hymns was constantly on in the car. I remember when I was about thirteen asking my friend’s mom why moms stop listening to new music. My mom’s friend said that after pregnancy and raising a baby, there’s no time for new music. And by the time the kids are grown up, the music sounds so different. While The Verve certainly isn’t new music, their sound was just familiar enough for my mom when the kids were all grown up. And while I don’t have anything separating me from the music is fun “kids these days,” I’m still miss and think that the music I listened to growing up was better than most of what’s popular today. In a round about way, today’s post is a big thank you to my mom and all moms who have put their own musical tastes on hold to listen toSesame Street songs. I wasn’t appreciative at the time, but thank you.
The Verve’s “Bittersweet Sympathy” also has one of the most iconic intros of the ‘90s. But it’s that symphonic riff on the band’s signature song arguably created more trouble than it was worth for the band. The band formed in 1990, experimented with drugs and musical styles before their breakthrough 1997 release of Urban Hymns.
I’VE NEVER PRAYED, BUT TONIGHT I’M ON MY KNEES. The YouTube channel Middle 8 (see below) tells the story about the musical plagiarism scandal behind The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” The highlights of the scandal include sampling a few bars from an orchestral arrangement of The Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time”(see below), The Stones’ litigious manager Allen Klein suing for him to get the entirety of the royalties from “Bittersweet,” despite the fact that The Stone had no part in the composition of the orchestral cover, and finally Mick Jagger and Keith Richardssettling with The Verve’s lead singer, Richard Ashcroft, granting him royalties starting in 2019. Sampling in music happens all the time and there are constantly lawsuits alleging musical plagiarism, recently Dua Lipa and Ed Sheeran have been in court. Led Zeppelin just won a lawsuit that had been ongoing for decades regarding the originality of the guitar on “Stairway to Heaven.” But any Rick Beato on YouTube could tell you the bands with the best lawyers, as many of his videos have been blocked for using samples of famous sounds for educational purposes. While I do believe in copyright and that the right people should get paid, the case of The Verve makes me question if I’m doing everything in my power to follow the law? Furthermore, what if I monetized my blog? Would I need to hire a lawyer? Reviewing requires source material, pictures, etc.
I’M A MILLION DIFFERENT PEOPLE FROM ONE DAY TO THE NEXT. “Bittersweet Symphony” was a massive hit just before I started listening to the radio. I heard the song on the fuzzy Adult Alternative station or during non-peak hours on the pop stations. As I’ve talked about with my early relationship with Rock music, especially secular music, I had to listen in my room with the door closed. At first I had to hide the music I liked from my mom, but she grew more tolerance towards my sister and I listening to music as long as she didn’t have to hear it. But as I got older, my mom started listening to Coldplay and then discover The Verve on Pandora. I came back from college and Urban Hymns was constantly on in the car. I remember when I was about thirteen asking my friend’s mom why moms stop listening to new music. My mom’s friend said that after pregnancy and raising a baby, there’s no time for new music. And by the time the kids are grown up, the music sounds so different. While The Verve certainly isn’t new music, their sound was just familiar enough for my mom when the kids were all grown up. And while I don’t have anything separating me from the music is fun “kids these days,” I’m still miss and think that the music I listened to growing up was better than most of what’s popular today. In a round about way, today’s post is a big thank you to my mom and all moms who have put their own musical tastes on hold to listen to Sesame Street songs. I wasn’t appreciative at the time, but thank you.
Kicking off Matt Thiessen’s break up record, the title track of Forget and Not Slow Downintroduces listeners to the themes of the record. I’ve talked about how Forget and Not Slow Down has a shadow story, one in which the Relient K frontman ends his engagement with radio DJ Shannon Murphy. While I have not seen any statements from Thiessen about the meanings behind the tracks on the album, I’ve referenced Murphy’s story that seemed pretty damning toward Thiessen, and it doesn’t seem that there were any libel lawsuits. Forget and Not Slow Down was a record that helped me through a difficult time in life, so I will be forever grateful to Relient K, but I’ve also had to think critically as to whether or not the album is too problematic to enjoy. So today I’d like to talk through my judgement of the band’s 2009 record.
HOW MANY TIMES CAN I PUSH IT ASIDE? “Forget and Not Slow Down” shows a youthful resilience toward the ending of a relationship. The songs on the album deal with a range of emotions, from “gathering regret” to moving on. The first track serves as a kind of overture to the record, the product of a long process of emotions. Later, we’ll hear the details—the trips to “Savannah,” the long drives in Eastern Tennessee in “Therapy” and “Over It.” But we’re only getting half of the story, and that’s important to remember when enjoying the beauty of this record. “Forget and Not Slow Down” is an anthem about not overthinking mistakes, and the record feels like a “pushing aside” of Thiessen’s guilt in the relationship’s end. What’s worse is that Thiessen invokes God into the argument, without admitting specific fault. The song and album allude to Thiessen’s mistakes, but he’d rather forget about it and move on. The album feels like Psalm 51 without David admitting guilt for adultery with Bathsheba or the ensuing cover up. Then it gets worse at the end of the album. Thiessen gaslights his ex. In “If You Believe Me,” Thiessen states that “If you believe me, we could stand the test of time like no one else. He also says, “you had a hand in this too.” This may be true, but it’s an unproductive conversation. In “This the End” and (If You Want It), we get Theissen unrepentant, “shrugging off” his personality flaws. He doesn’t want to be tied down. He doesn’t want to “move into boxes” because he has an “itch to move on.”
POUR OVER ME AND WASH MY HANDS OF IT. I’ve made a pretty good case for me never to listen to Forget and Slow Down ever again. If we’re just listening to Thiessen’s argument and if we apply the same logic of “Forget and Not Slow Down” to our own lives, we’re going to have some serious issues in our human relationships. Whether or not this is unfiltered Matt Thiessen around 2007 or 2008 doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been growth. But I’m more interested in the “Forget and Not Slow Down” aspect. In Christian music and Christianity admitting faults, also know as sin, is unpopular, particularly if you have a large platform like one of the biggest pop-punk bands. Many Christian artists endured public divorces. Hiding the fact that it happened seems much better for one’s career than facing it head on. But the implications of “Forget and Not Slow Down” is even bigger. Sometimes it’s hard to admit to yourself that you are actually at fault, but rather call upon God and look for faults in the other person that made you do something bad, but not as bad as them. It’s the story of every religious scandal. It’s the story of every Christian family trying to save face, never admitting that there’s a problem. But just as when Frank Constanza yells “Serenity now!” in Seinfeld and as Gob takes roofies which he calls “Forget Me Nows” whenever he wants to forget something that he has done, everyone who tries to “Forget and Not Slow Down” will have to slow down eventually. And that break down can be quite devastating.
Mixtapemotions 