Mixtapemotions

  • “Happier” by Bastille & Marshmello (partial repost), Tuesday, March 21, 2023

    British pop-rock band Bastille had what it took to survive the changing landscape of rock music. Today, the band has 18 million monthly Spotify listeners. Prior to “Happier,” a collaboration with anonymous DJ/producer Marshmello, the band has already explored EDM and had cultivated a rather radio-friendly pop sound. Propelled to fame with their number 2 British single “Pompeii,” Bastille is a band that has accomplished what few bands could achieve in the 2010s, relevance. 

    WHEN THE MORNING COMES AND WE’RE LEFT WITH WHAT WE’VE BECOME.  We all sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It” when we were children. It was a standard in Sabbath school, but we also sang it at school. I can’t remember if it was on a children’s television show or at school where I first heard another verse: “If you’re angry and you know it, stomp your feet.” I don’t think that I was emotionally stunted by my church upbringing, and if I was school may have made the difference, but looking back on the verse omitted from the Sabbath school curriculum, I realized that the church never really taught children (and maybe adults) how to deal complex emotions. If you’re teaching children, you might be tempted to gloss over real or perceived unfairness or injustice and tell them to be happy, even to “stomp your feet” in happiness, but as children grow up, nobody ever teaches us how to make choices so that we can be happier. We may have been taught that question is selfish and we should try to make others happy, but how many of our problems would we solve if we looked at happiness in the long term? This becomes essential when we get depressed or feel like a choice we made is no longer effective. How can I not be miserable? How can I be just a little happier?

    WHEN THE EVENING FALLS AND I’M LEFT HERE WITH MY THOUGHTS. “Happier”’is a song about a relationship nearing its expiration date. Being together doesn’t make each partner as happy as they could be, and the singer feels that if he leaves, his partner will be able to recover and find true happiness, whether with another person or pursing a dream. Sometimes the best way to love someone is to let that person go rather than to hold on tightly to the relationship. My last relationship was like that. It started out fun and there was a point that seemed like we could beat the odds–an age difference, a language barrier, long distance. Only after a while we both lost sight of what drew us together in the first place. I had similar problems in my current relationship, but love and communication along with relationship reassessment got us healthy again. I’m certainly not one to say that all relationships should last forever. I believe in divorce, but I also think that love that’s not worth fight for was never love.

  • "I Don't Live Here Anymore" by The War on Drugs ft. Lucius, Monday, March 19, 2023 (partial repost)

    In 2021 The War on Drugs returned after four years with their critically-acclaimed album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore. The title track and lead single features indie pop group Lucius as backing vocals on the chorus. Like their previous works, such as A Deeper Understanding  (2017) and  Lost in the Dream (2014), The War on Drugs is able to play two chords back to back for six minutes and create a song that you never want to end. Those two chords create a warm cadence that’s like a bonfire on a cold fall night. And that’s reason enough to curl up with a blanket and enjoy The War on Drugs all day long.


    A CREATURE VOID OF FORM. In addition to producing their own music, The War on Drugs has also produced two seasons of a podcast titled Super High Quality Podcast. The second season is a four-part documentary about how the band wrote and recorded their fifth record. In addition to the band “talking shop” and sharing their demos and jam sessions, listeners are transported into the band’s world–a snowy cabin in Upstate New York where they secluded themselves to record the 2021 record. The record was recorded over three years. After rewrites and re-recordings in multiple studios in multiple cities and a pandemic, the record arrived on October 29, 2021. The single “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” started showing up on some of the music podcasts I had been listening to as a recommendation for new music. Song Exploder did an episode in which lead singer Adam Granduciel talks about how seeing his musical idol, Bob Dylan, in concert inspired the song about losing a past relationship.
    I NEED A CHANCE TO BE REBORN. I’ve talked about how “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” to me, sounds like an anachronistic ’80s or early ’90s hit, adding it to my Pseudo ’80s Hits playlist. It’s kind of like what Mic the Snare said about “Blinding Lights“: “It’s just like that one song. Uh? Which one?” Is it “The Boys of Summer“? something by Springsteen? In some alternate universe, “Blinding Lights,” “Run Away with Me,” “Somebody That I Used to Know,” and “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” were the ’80s hits.  The song features Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of the Indie pop group Lucius, crediting the backup singers unlike many other artists who record with other artists in the studio yet only a close reading of the linear notes reveals who the musicians on the track actually are. The band is actually a f0ur-piece but vocalists Jess and Holly are the most visible members. Jess and Holly have appeared in several collaborations with other artists including Roger Waters, Sheryl Crowe, Brandi Carlile, Jackson Browne, and John Legend. In today’s song, Lucius adds the female perspective to the relationship that has ended. It’s wistful and teary, and ultimately a great song. 

    Music video:

    Live on Ellen



  • "Yosemite" by Lana Del Rey, Sunday, March 19, 2023 (updated repost)

    In 2020, Taylor Swift released a documentary titled Miss Americana which talked about her music up to the release of 2019’s Lover. While Swift’s country music past and her latest ventures with Folklore  and Evermore certainly can touch on  Americana, if you placed Taylor Swift’s CD leaflets on a table next to Lana Del Rey‘s and asked anyone on the street to which lyricist better embodied the dictionary.com definition of “things associated with the culture and history of America,” Lana Del Rey would probably be crowned the real “Miss Americana.” But being the real, unrecognized “Miss Americana” can be just as problematic as the tainted past of the great country. Lana Del Rey is no stranger to controversy or acclaim. She is a polarizing star on the pop charts (when she chooses to release a hit) and pop culture.  Sometimes called regressive to feminism, Lana Del Rey has been cancelled more times than most celebrities. Yet there is something about her words that many cling to satirically. 

    THE ONLY THING WE’LL TURN IS THE PAGES OF ALL OF THE POEMS WE BURNED. My first encounter with Lana Del Rey was the 2013 The Great Gatsby   soundtrack with her song “Young and Beautiful.” The anachronistic soundtrack added modern interpretations to the 1925 novel that I would have never made from my several readings of the book, and “Young and Beautiful” deepened Daisy’s seemingly shallow character to me. After hearing “Young and Beautiful,” I delved into Born to Die and discovered a dusty old closet, filled with elegant gowns, talk of old films and books, tales of yesteryear, hiphop beats and sixties style vocals. It was like meeting your grandmother as a teenager. I couldn’t get into her follow up Ultraviolence, although many fans consider it her best album. By her third record, Honeymoon, Del Rey settled into a not-so-Top-40 style of ’60s dream pop, losing the hip-hop catchiness, but keeping up with the lyrical intensity. LP number 6, Chemtrails Over the Country Club sees the singer become a California folk singer and adding higher registers to her normally alto voice.

    TELEVISION STATIC WAS QUITE OVERWHELMING. Bruce Springsteen has called Del Rey one of the best songwriters today. However, as a listener she is not always accessible. Just like you need to sit down to watch a movie, you need time to listen to a Lana Del Rey album. And 2021 is not a year with long flights or car rides. Furthermore, what’s the pay off? One listen may not do it, particularly with the experimental direction the singer takes. And with all that time sitting and listening to these lyrics that could be satire or serious, glorifying the old-timey pop culture built on racism and misogyny that is best left in the past. Having not gone too deep on Chemtrails,   “Yosemite” is a pretty good song, featuring some interesting drumming, a folk guitar, interesting production, and a stunning music video. If you do spend some time with this album, I would like to know–genius or pretentious? 

  • "I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz, Saturday, March 18, 2023 (reworked repost)

     

    In every small town to major city in South Korea, there are private karaoke rooms called noraebang (노래방). These are used by everyone from middle school students escaping the stress of studying for exams to middle-aged office workers, pressured into going out and drinking with their boss. Since I’ve been in Korea, I’ve heard them mentioned in American TV shows or movies in major cities; however, noraebang culture is much more permeated in Korean culture than karaoke is in America. So what is sung in these karaoke rooms? You can spend hours browsing the song selection from old Korean throat music (트롯), a kind of old-timey, often disco-sounding music that Korean ajoshis or ajumas (아주씨, 아줌마), or middle-aged people, love. There are K-pop songs throughout the ages and international songs like Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Spanish, and of course English pop, rock, and traditional songs. When you go to a noraebang, you select the song you want to sing and the lyrics appear on the screen. There’s sometimes the music video, but usually a generic backing video that accompanies the song. After the song, the machine will measure your pitch and timing and give you a score based on how well you followed the song. It’s quite a fun evening, and a karaoke room is usually about $20 for an hour if you have a big group and less for a smaller room.


    HOW OLD IS YOUR SOUL? It was October of 2012 when I first experienced the noraebang. There was a talent show at church on a Saturday night and a bunch of other English teachers came from other parts of Korea. After the talent show a bunch of people went out for dak galbi (닭갈비) a spicy chicken dish that was the most famous dish in the city I lived in Chuncheon (춘천). As the evening drew on, we lost more and more people, the way that all large nights out do, but after dinner and maybe a cafe, we headed to sing karaoke, which, in my American culture of just getting to know people would be terrifying. American karaoke is usually in public on a small stage in a pub, but Korean karaoke is a private event. I sat and watched the karaoke and sang Oasis‘s “Wonderwall” toward the end of the night. The evening consisted of songs like “Diamonds” and “Umbrella” by Rihanna, Alicia Keys/Jay Z, Beyonce, songs from movies, old songs, Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out,” a few Korean songs like “Monster” by Big Bang, “Ugly” by 2en1, and at some point someone sang the new Jason Mraz song “I Won’t Give Up.” I had heard the song before, but seeing the words made them stick out and resonate with me. 

    WE’VE GOT A LOT TO LEARN. At most points in my life, I had carefully curated the influence I allowed in. My blog is a pretty good reflection of that. I grew up allowed to watch R-rated movies when I was 17 (with a few exceptions). I had to hide my record collection from my mom, but I chose to listen to mostly Christian music. I cut off friendships I thought would lead me away from the Lord. In college, I felt a duty to catch up on the culture I had cut myself off from. I started listening more broadly, watching questionable movies, especially if they were artistic, and reading everything I could. I wanted to be well-versed in my Christian apologetics. There was a culture war, and I didn’t want to be an ignorant soldier in it. But when I came to Korea, I met up with some pretty conservative Christians who were all about sheltering themselves from worldly influence. I was very frustrated with that stance, and I felt Christians should be allowed to explore art for what it is while understanding that it is not holy and that the answers come from the Bible. What was interesting about Jason Mraz’s song is his evoking God’s name into his message. Of course, artists do this all the time, calling on the name of God without it being the God of the Bible. However, something about when Mraz declares, “God knows we’re worth it,” reminded me of Christian humanism, a philosophy I had flirted with in college, but ultimately rejected because of the little Calvinism that crept into Adventism, telling us that humans are nothing outside of God. This song helped to spark the journey that I’m on today. Love is worth it. Who I am is who God created me to be. I have worth because I have worth.

  • "Video Game" by Sufjan Stevens, Friday, March 17, 2023 (updated repost)

    March 15th was the Ides of March, the day when Julius Cesar was stabbed. I realized that I didn’t celebrate Casimir Pulaski Day (March 1st, also a Sufjan Stevens song), nor did I celebrate Pi Day with a song about circles on Tuesday, nor am I posting a St. Patrick’s Day song today, but I thought that it would be fun to analyze Stevens’s most ironic song of all, in which he states to his fans that he doesn’t want to be their “Julius Caesar… [nor their] personal Jesus.” The pairing of the two figures I found fascinating because in Dante’s Inferno we meet Judas (betrayer of Christ), and Brutus and Cassius (betrayers of Caesar) in the deepest layer of hell, tortured by Satan himself. Beware indeed the Ides of March.

    I DON’T WANT TO BE THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. Just when we thought we firmly established Sufjan Stevens as a folk singer, perhaps an heir to Woody Guthrie or Gordon Lightfoot, he goes and makes an electronic album. While the singer-songwriter had incorporating synths into his folk sound prior to 2010’s Age of Ads, the album was polarizing to his fans. He did it again for his 2017 Planetarium album, but because the album was largely instrumental, I mostly wrote off the album. But 2020’s The Ascension was what happens when a folk musician record an album in the middle of a move, while all the instruments are in storage. The song “Video Game” uses the metaphor of something popular controlling the masses, yet the singer doesn’t want to partake; however, in the end, he realizes the necessity as a “procedure.” Is it the rules of society? The music industry? social media? 

    I DON’T CARE IF EVERYBODY ELSE IS INTO IT. Every year we gain a few new social media platforms. In the early ’00s, MySpace was so instrumental in building the modern music industry because it was the first time that people could not just follow, but friend their favorite bands and musicians. MySpace wasn’t the first social networking site that musicians used, but it became a preferred medium because band members could share status updates, inform followers of upcoming tours, and even preview their upcoming albums, all between your status updates and photos of your high school friends. MySpace virtually replaced its band predecessors like MP3.com and PureVolume. And although the bands’ MySpace hay-day didn’t last long at all, music’s relationship with social media was just beginning. I remember hearing an interview on a podcast talking about how social media is not optional for musicians today. The example given was that a band could be cryptic and insular between rare insights from interviews gleaned from Rolling Stone articles, but now, fans would feel neglected if they are ignored. Sufjan Stevens has maintained his privacy in this digital age. The rumors of his song meanings have listeners guessing what he really thinks. Yet, while refraining from social media, the star of “Video Game” is viral TikToker Jalaiah, dancing throughout the entire video. “Video Game” is Sufjan’s most pop song in his discography. He’s using pop music to scrutinize the dangers of pop culture. And he’s using a TikToker to help spread his message of non-conformity. Beware the Ides of March, ya’ll.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Hide from the World” by Tyson Motsenbocker, Thursday, March 16, 2023

     

    Today we take another dive into my #1 album from last year, Tyson Motsenbocker‘s Milk Teeth, specifically a song that seems unmatched with the other tracks, “Hide from the World.” The song breaks up the musical themes established in the first four tracks. But “Hide from the World” adds whimsical guitar chords and equally whimsical lyrics. Then it’s back to the serious musical tone by track six, “UC Santa Cruz.”

    I WANT TO HANG IN SNOOPY’S DOG HOUSE AND HE SHOULD BE THERE TOO. Unlike the other songs on Milk Teeth, in “Hide from the World” Tyson Motenbocker chooses easily accessible references. On other tracks, Motsenbocker references locations, alcohol brands, and bands, and uses vocabulary that merits a Genius annotation. But except for extremely sheltered evangelical or ex-vangelical kids particularly with the Harry Potter reference in “Hide from the World” most listeners quickly assimilate the meaning that Motsenbocker suggests with the allusions in the song. The sentiment is shared on other tracks, but most succinctly expressed in today’s song. Some days you’ve just had enough and it seems like there’s nothing else the world can give you. It’s “I Blame the World” 2.0. The music video features a man who wants to be alone, but another man, played by Tyson Motsenbocker, tries to impose on the protagonist with a cheerful attitude. At the end of the video, the protagonist discovers a tent in the middle of the forest where he can be truly alone. 

    I WANT THE TENT FROM HARRY POTTER WITH THE FLAP TIED SHUT. Being a teacher, I have to perform a lot for my students. I have to put on a happy face, and support my students on their good and bad days. It’s a profession I gladly chose. However, I am an introvert. My resting state is not going out after work. And this is especially true when things get busy or I have a bad day. What’s worse is that my workload has steadily increased every year of my teaching. I’ve taken on or have been tasked with more responsibilities, whether it’s supervision or extra classes. This year is a particularly difficult year with incredibly large class sizes. It feels like I’ve been training my entire career for this year when I feel like I’m on all the time. And when things go wrong, they cause other problems. At the end of the day today, I just felt done. I wanted to hide from the world. I wanted to hide from everyone no matter how kind they were today. The last two classes of the day were with pubescent middle schoolers trying to have their way and lying that they didn’t do anything wrong. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world. But the day did end. Thank God tomorrow’s Friday!

  • "I Blame the World" by Sasha Alex Sloan, Wednesday, March 15, 2023 (partial repost)

    The self-identified sad-girl Sasha Alex Sloan made a “mad record” in 2022. There was a podcast I listened to reacting to Sloan’s EP Self-Portrait. While the podcasters enjoyed the EP, they hoped that Sloan would never make a full-length record. She did Only Child is a heart-breaking masterpiece, but it pulls back from the gut-wrenching, sometimes mean-spirited lyricism of her EPs. On last year’s I Blame the World, Sloan is caustic as ever. So, this record may not resonate with you. The title track “I Blame the World” is probably the most catchy, but the other songs are worth a listen. Emo surely is alive in 2022. 

    WHY TALK TO GOD IF I AIN’T GOT PROOF HE’S EVEN THERE? When I counted down my favorite albums of last year, Sasha Alex Sloan’s I Blame the World was my seventh favorite record, which is code in my blog for I didn’t listen to it that much. I think that Sloan writes better when she’s more sad than angry. There are certainly enough things to be furious at in 2022. Sloan was born in 1995, and like all millennials, has watched the world get shittier and shittier since 2016. I Blame the World is the soundtrack of world leaders basically deciding to bring about the apocalypse, slowly. From Donald Trump’s presidency to the erosion of human rights around the globe to the threat of “Global Warming”  to the complete shit show in Sloan’s ancestral countries of Russia and Ukraine, I Blame the World feels like it should be the soundtrack to not only 2022 but for the foreseeable future. But there’s only so much anger the singer can express before sounding monotonous. “Live Laugh Love” takes the basic white girl motto and rejects the Instagram culture of “living your best life.” Sloan says, “Don’t wanna live my best life / Just wanna lay here all night.”  Pandemic lingo also seeps into the record on “New Normal” being a life without the one she loves. I still think that Sloan is one of the best pop songwriters today, but I think that I Blame the World is overwrought with negativity, which makes the record start to rely on clichés and lose the listener’s willingness to invest.

    WHY GET HIGH WHEN EVERYONE EVENTUALLY COMES DOWN? “I Blame the World” as a song sounds halfway between an ’80s New Wave track and an angry girl rock ballad from the ’90s. Sasha Alex Sloan keeps her voice in a low register throughout the song, drawing similarities to Miley Cyrus, yet never belting out the chorus an octave higher, although I had a false memory of Sloan doing that until I listened to the song to analyze it. The video for the song also draws ’90s comparisons. It’s ultra-low budget with Sloan singing into a hairbrush and two members of her band playing air bass and air drumming to the song. The trio is dressed in awful outfits that look like bowling clothes, with tacky flames on the shirt and pants. The flame seems to be related to the video of the album’s lead single “WTF,” which features Sloan singing as her apartment catches fire. I Blame the World is a song cycle of problems as unsolvable as life in the 21st century. And after a long day that’s been longer than it should because everyone is working short-staffed with no significant raise, I wonder, what really is the cost of treating everyone with a little kindness? I want to blame the world for not being able to do anything. I want to blame Elon Musk for transitioning from technologies that could save the world from the impending climate crisis to delving into right-wing politics and crashing the 747 that is Twitter into the side of a mountain. I want to blame Bezos who made more money than ever during the pandemic, yet his company threatened to fire employees who tried to flee a distribution center when a tornado hit. I want to blame every boss who says that you can work 10% harder this year. I want to blame Sasha Alex Sloan’s booking agency for bringing her to Seoul on a Monday night during the busiest time of the year for a worn-out teacher. I want to blame the world, but what comes of that? Tomorrow I’ll be more optimistic.

    Music video:

    Lyric video:

    Live on Jimmy Kimmel:



  • “Bad Love” by Key (키), Tuesday, March 14, 2023 + Bad Love track by track (reformatted post)

     

    Two years ago, I wrote about Key‘s mini album Bad Love.  I decided to reformat my original post as track-by-track, a kind of home for the songs on this record, should I write about the record at a later date. While SHINee has been the singer’s main gig, Key has managed to release music every year as a solo artist. Bad Love is my favorite of his efforts. So today, let’s look at this retro-electro-pop EP by the fashionista from Daegu.

    1.  “Bad Love.” The title track reminds listeners of Lady Gaga‘s 2009 hit “Bad Romance,” speaking about the toxicity of a relationship that may have started under good intentions, but devolved into something toxic. The music video feels like a futuristic vision from the ’80s, in other words, looking futuristic but dated with ’80s technology. 

    2. “Yellow Tape” builds on the theme of entering relationships cautiously.

    3. “Hate that…”  a duet with Taeyeon, was also released as a single from the EP. Unlike “Forever Yours,” Taeyeon appears in the video version of the song. One Shinee fan podcast suggested that “Hate that…” was a follow up to “Forever Yours,” which frankly is depressing, showing the end of a love affair. 

    4. “Helium” is the only track in English. It was written by Clarence Coffee, Jr. The song references the ’60s futuristic cartoon The Jetsons, particularly the teenage daughter Judy Jetson. The song supports the aesthetic theme of Bad Love, retro futurism. 

    5. “Saturday Night” talks about not being able to go to the same places because of a break up. In some ways, the song seems to reflect the lazy feeling many of us got during the pandemic. Even when the world started opening up, we didn’t want to go out. We felt self-conscious about our faces and bodies. We didn’t have the energy we used to for social situations.


    6. “Eighteen” (End of My World) is perhaps the most intimate track on the record. Key describes the song as a letter to his eighteen year old self, just before debuting in Shinee. Key wrote both “Saturday Night” and “Eighteen,” whereas the other tracks were written by other songwriters. It’s a rather melancholy track. K-pop stars are shrouded in a high level of image control by their record labels. There are rarely any “Justin–Britney” or “Jennifer Lopez–Ben Affleck” relationships. Key was in one publicized relationship with Nichole Jung from KARA, but has kept a low dating profile since. “Eighteen” sounds like a song with regret about Key being unable to be himself in the spotlight.


  • “Better Now” by The Juliana Theory, Monday, March 13, 2023 (updated repost)

    Like Further Seems Forever, The Juliana Theory was legendary in the early pop-punk/emo scene. Also like FSF, The Juliana Theory has ties to hardcore. Lead singer  Brett Detar started as the guitarist for Christian metal pioneers Zao, however, as he explains on Theory’s episode of Labeled,  the band was perfectly content listening to Third Eye Blind on the radio in the van while out on tour. When Theory formed, they signed with Tooth & Nail Records but opted not to be marketed to the Christian Rock format. This decision both helped and hurt their career. On the one hand, they toured with other Tooth & Nail artists and performed at Cornerstone, on the other hand, their initial record sales were quite low. 

    IT IS GETTING BETTER NOW. Unlike Further Seems Forever, I don’t have a deep-seated nostalgia for The Juliana Theory. I heard they were a band name, but I wasn’t exposed to their music until college after the band had broken up. While some of their music was catchy, their Tooth & Nail predecessors did a better job at what they set out to do: further the emo/pop-punk genre. However, at the beginning of this year when I heard their two new singles “Can’t Go Home” and “Better Now,” I found two songs that felt on the level of their predecessors. A big factor in this new Juliana Theory is Brett Detar’s growth as a musician. After the Juliana Theory’s initial run, Detar released two country albums and composed music for films. Rejoining with guitarist Joshua Filedler, the band is now a duo, which is in line with where music is going. Last year, the band released an EP on Equal Vision Records, Still the Same Kids, Pt. 1. Similar to now labelmates Anberlin, The Juliana Theory has decided to release their album in two parts. We are still awaiting the second parts of both releases The Juliana Theory’s and Anberlin’s releases, though. 

    HOLD ON. “Better Now” is an inspirational song celebrating the incremental accomplishments a person who is trying to turn their life around makes. The video depicts three situations in which individuals make a decision to improve their lives from bad situations. From a U.S. Forces veteran who regains his ability to walk, to a drug addict mother who chooses to clean up her life because it’s influencing her son, to a mother who chooses to leave an abusive marriage, the message of the video is that change is possible. As the video may be triggering, there are helplines available for various crises. While now may be bleak, music can help us believe that light is around the corner. We just need to hold on a little bit longer. But we don’t need to be in a full crisis to enjoy today’s song. We should learn to recognize and appreciate incremental change in ourselves and in others around us. As a teacher, this is important, especially when dealing with problematic behavior from students. But if we look at where we are on the journey, we can get a more complete picture. There’s hope.


  • “cardigan” by Taylor Swift, Sunday, March 12, 2023 + folklore track by track

    While I think of Taylor Swift’s first lockdown album folklore as an autumn album, I heard an awful cover of “cardigan” yesterday, which made me crave the original. Perhaps “cardigan” could be a spring song, as the video does have springtime vibes. I decided rather than reposting to do a folklore track by track post. As I’m figuring out what this blog means for me in the post-pandemic, I’m realizing that it’s a personal project rather than a hope for mainstream readership. Rather the blog is me fleshing out my thoughts on my favorite topic: music. When I write a track-by-track review, it’s about giving multiple posts a home, in hopes of expanding later. For folklore, my top album of 2020, I will give links to the posts I’ve written before. Enjoy!


    1. “The 1” opens the record, in which Swift announces that she’s “on some new shit”—though the song is probably written from another perspective, describing unrequited love. It’s a soft album opener, which is probably why I didn’t immediately fall in love with this record. But the song does set a tone and begins to place the themes in the record. Also, we see Swift’s love for numbers throughout the album. “The 1” starts us on the 1. 

     2. “cardigan” is today’s song. I wrote about it last fall. It was the lead single from the record.

    3. “the last great american dynasty” is Swift writing the history of her house’s previous owner. This song deserves its own deep-dive, and is said to be the subject of Taylor’s first theatrical film. 

    4. “exile” certainly is a highlight of the record with the Bon Iver feature. 

    5. “my tears ricochet” opens with a kind of Gregorian chant. It’s a slightly anti-climactic compared to “exile” as any song after a highlight. The song is said to be about the falling out between Swift and Scott Borchetta and how he aided Scooter Braun buying her masters. 

     6. “mirrorball” reminds me of the ‘90s female rock songs, particularly the live record by the same name by Sarah McLachlan.  The song deals with how a celebrity is often a mirror to society, rather than an artist’s expression.

    7. “seven” is a childhood memory that again evokes Swift’s love for numbers. 

    8. “august” is the eighth month and the eight track on the record.

    9. “this is me trying” feels like one of the most immature songs on the record, at least from the title. It comes from a spot when you have nothing more to give so you become self-reflective. You start making excuses and apologies for being the way you are. 

     10. “illicit affairs” isn’t a graphic song, but it deals with sexual infidelity in a frank, mature way. 

    11. “the invisible string” is another autumn-feeling track that also seems to be self-referential. 

    12. “mad woman.” Some have criticized Taylor Swift for entering the conversation about feminism late in her career. Some say that her attempts at addressing complex, polarizing issues are her weaker songs. “mad woman” feels sincere coming from a singer who has endured sexism in the industry. The lyrics of the song play on both meanings of the word mad.

    13. “epiphany” is the point of the 16-track standard edition that I’ve zoned out, so I couldn’t recall the track. It’s pretty, though, after listening to it. 

    14. “betty” concludes the teenage love-triangle trilogy. It’s Swift sounding country again through storytelling and a slight twang.

    15. “peace” is a mature love song in which Swift lays her cards on the table, explaining what she can and can’t offer in a relationship.

    16. “hoax” ends the album in a calm way. It’s a break up song in retrospect.