On October 1, 2021, signs and wonders and rumors of a fourth album by international superstar Adele appeared around the globe. The singer has been dropping hints of a new record since 2019; however, the recording process was delayed in 2020 due to the pandemic. Adele is a relatively reclusive pop star, taking long breaks between albums and rarely offering fans singles in between. In 2020, she emerged 100 lbs lighter, flexing her acting and comedy muscles hosting Saturday Night Live. Fans were shocked at her acting range as she wasn’t even the featured musical guest. But in true Adele fashion, the British singer kept a low profile after the comedy performance until Fall 2021. Billboards and holographic writing appeared on the Empire State Building, at the Louvre, and the side of the Colosseum among other landmarks with the number 30. Adele fans around the world began to speculate about the singer’s follow up to her Diamond-certified 2015 masterpiece, 25.
I KNOW THERE’S HOPE IN THESE WATERS. The teaser went like this: a return to social media platforms, a black-and-white video teaser in which Adele gets in the car to the tune of a melancholy piano, she puts a tape in the car’s cassette player, we see that she is moving—the house is sold, her belongings in trucks—then sheet music comes flying out of the moving truck ahead. A few days later, Adele sang the first verse of the song on Instagram Live. Then, Adele released the full-length video and the single on streaming platforms. Adele’s age series means something special to the artist. The songs reflect the artist’s perspective at that age. On the artist’s 31st birthday, in 2019, Adele uploaded black and white photos to her Instagram with the caption: “30 will be a drum n bass record to spite you.” Adele had separated from her husband in 2018, and 30 would be the record that she would process the unhappiness she felt in her marriage.
BUT I CAN’T BRING MYSELF TO SWIM. “Hello” was a follow up to “Someone Like You.” Likewise, “Easy on Me” is a follow up to “Hello.” The music videos for “Easy” and “Hello” were both directed by Xavier Dolan, and “Easy on Me,” depicts the singer moving on with her life—full make-up, almost Lana Del Rey style. Adele’s plea is for the press and the people in her life to go easy on her for the mistakes that she’s made. She fell out of love with her partner. The press only wanted more details. But most of all, her now 10 year old son didn’t understand why the couple divorced. Adele’s new single and upcoming album will attempt to explain to her son why she left a relationship that was “going through the motions” in order pursue happiness and the possibility of true love.
People that complain that there is no talent in music today are overlooking quite a few artists. My blog is full of talent young musicians from Betty Who to Charlie Puth who may not be the most popular musicians, but they have used classical and technical training to write and produce their own songs. Of course there are tons of other examples, but I mention both Who and Puth because, like Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir, Icelandic singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, these artists are all alumnus of Berklee College of Music, a prestigious school that has just as many famous graduates as famous dropouts.
ME AND YOU AND AWKWARD SILENCE. Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir, better know by her first name Laufey, was born to a Chinese mother and an Icelandic father. Laufey was raised on classical and jazz music. Her mother is a classical violinist, and her grandfather, Lin Yaoji was famous a violin instructor at the Central Conservatory of Music in China from which he graduated and also studied at the Moscow Conservatory of Music in Soviet Russia. Laufey followed in her mother’s footsteps, but rather than violin, she plays cello, even performing as a soloist when she was 15 with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. But classical music is only at most half of the 24-year-old artist’s influence. Today’s song, the latest single from her upcoming album Bewitched“From the Start” sounds somewhere between bedroom pop and jazz. It’s her father’s jazz records, particularly female artists such as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, that inspire this sound. With a steady start to her career, including participating on Ísland Got Talent(a national talent search the equivalent of America’s Got Talent for the nation of Iceland), recognition from Willow Smith and Billie Eilish, and Spotify playlist inclusion of her latest hit, “From the Start,” music is certainly ready for a jazz revival.
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. Laufey described “From the Start” as “the ultimate friends to lovers song for all your delusional daydreams.” It’s a summery sort of tune that feels both easy on the ears and taxing on the soul. The calming bossa nova guitar is a constant sense of calm. Laufey’s voice is wistful, taking listeners along on a mostly smooth journey, though there is a bit of turbulence the way that she sings a few of the phrases in the song. The first example occurs in the first verse. When she sings “awkward silence,” Laufey emphasizes kw sound and adds an extra nasal sound to the end of word awkward. The song sounds awkward again when the speaker says “she’s so perfect. Blah, blah, blah.” While I don’t find these lines annoying, they certainly take you out of the flow of the song. And that’s the point because a slow piece of music like “From the Start” probably wouldn’t be remembered without the singer’s vocal performance. And certainly fewer people would think about the words–about the theme of falling in love with your best friend. The inner monologue proposed in this song contrasts to the kind of girl who plays the best friend when the person she loves falls for someone else. Still, regardless of the awkward bits, the song is certainly going to be a nice song to listen to by the pool with an ice cold beverage this summer.
We haven’t heard a rock song from English Alternative-turned-pop act Coldplay since…ever, come to think of it. Even when the band was considered cool in the early ’00s, they weren’t exactly known for distorted guitars or thundering bass. And years of refining their sound in a time when rock music’s cultural impact retracted into the underground solidified Coldplay as the 21st century’s definition of pop-rock. But in 2019, the band decided to break with their established sound and put out something a little more experimental, a two-disc record titled Everyday Life. The album was released with only three sparsely promoted singles and no planned tour to support the record, which didn’t really matter since all tour plans would be canceled early the next year, anyway.
THERE’S A MAN WHO SWEARS HE’S GOD. Coldplay’s most recent album, Music of the Spheres, doesn’t hold to a set genre. Lead singer Chris Martin has called the invention of genre as a racist categorization of music, thus Coldplay now feels free to use genre as if it were a mood on their latest album. While the signature sound of the album lies in the two biggest hits, “Higher Power” and “My Universe,”–ebullient Max Martin produced electro-pop–Coldplay delves into what would be considered “World Music” in the ’90s ambient and album-oriented pop/rock. Today’s song, “People of the Pride,” though is an angry rock song in the way Coldplay has never gotten in touch with that emotion. Martin says that the song started out as a demo during the Viva La Vidasession. Originally titled “The Man Who Swears,” Max Martin encouraged the band to revisit the song for their latest album. The band used some of the original lyrics, and if they had released it without modification, they would have become a band that swore earlier than 2019, as the song contains a rare use of the f-bomb. Lyrically, the “People of the Pride” uses purely figurative language, but given the current political climate of the world, this figurative language seems all too clear.
YOU GOT A LION INSIDE. The word pride in Coldplay’s “People of the Pride” seems to imply three distinct meanings of the word. First, the song begins by addressing “People to the left” and “People to the right,” most likely discussing political division. These people have a “lion inside” and can revolt against the “man who swears he’s god.” The first use of pride refers to the people who are lions that surround the “man who swears he’s god.”The “man who swears he’s god” has too much pride to admit that he is wrongfully using his leadership by making the people “march around” his “homemade cuckoo clock.” The song’s speaker also talks about religion: “It’s all work; it’s not easy / And we could all be blown away / And Heaven is a fire escape / You try to cling to in the dark.” Whether or not God is equated with the dictator mentioned in the song or if religion is merely his tool is up for interpretation. Certainly, religion, historically, has been a means of social control, and the promise of heaven and the threat of hell have been the carrot and the stick that has kept a certain social order as well as a few bad actors in power. But the song implies one more meaning of pride. The line “We’ll be free to fall in love / With who we want and say” most likely refers to LGBTQ+ pride. And this is the message wrapped in the mixed symbols: love is love no matter what governments and religions may try to manipulate or force away. It’s certainly a less radical message than when U2 started swinging a pride flag around at concerts or even making a music video telling the story of reconciliation between a father and his gay son in the 1991 video for “One.” In 2021, the message wasn’t radical, yet very little has changed in the political and mainstream religious landscape. So few realize that they are being manipulated by the powerful to keep themselves down. When will the people of the pride understand what’s really going on?
Kelly Clarkson‘s over twenty year career since winning the first season of American Idolhas made the singer one of the most successful voices in music today. Twenty years ago, her debut album Thankfuldebuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 album sales charts. Clarkson was both the first Idol winner, the most successful, and the most lasting, and she has worked hard to keep her music and her overall brand in the spotlight for twenty years, doing so without much controversy. Later this month, twenty years after her debut, she will release Chemistry, her tenth studio album.
TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT. Kelly Clarkson has entertained her fans with a wide-range of sounds. American Idol helped Clarkson sell the sounds she was unable to market prior to the show. She told The Guardian in 2015 that she was turned down by every record label and she was told she “sounded too black.” But with American Idol and the management she was signed to because of the show, Clarkson wasn’t exactly free to make the music she wanted. So by her sophomore album, Clarkson signed a new management deal and ventured into an edgier rock sound. With the exception of her third record My December, which took a darker sound, the rock sound proved to be a successful musical endeavor for Clarkson. But as rock music’s favorability diminished in the ‘10s, Clarkson’s music returned to her R&B and soul roots. The late ’10s proved successful for Clarkson as a singer and as a television personality. Her 2017 albumMeaning of Lifeis a gem of a mature singer all the more comfortable with her vocal virtuosity.
RUSHIN’ THROUGH ME LIKE A FIRE. But Kelly Clarkson will only truly followed up Meaning of Life with Chemistry. While Clarkson did start writing the follow up to Meaning of Life, a whole lotta life happened in between the releases. For starters, Clarkson separated and divorced her husband after seven years of marriage. Clarkson also served as a judge on the hit show The Voice. The busy schedule of the show keeps all of the celebrity panelists busy from their musical careers. Then in 2019, Clarkson got her own talk show on NBC, eventually taking Ellen Degeneres‘ time slot in 2022. While Clarkson recorded an EP of covers last year, Kellyoke, and a Christmas album in 2021, her busy schedule may be a reason why we haven’t had an album of original songs since 2017. Clarkson has released several singles from Chemistry including today’s song “favorite kind of high” along with a remix by David Guetta and even a track with comedy legend Steve Martin called “i hate love,” with Martin even playing banjo on the track. If you wonder why “favorite kind of high” sounds so bouncy and refreshing, look no further than the credits, which lists Carly Rae Jepsen as one of the three writers on the track. While divorce and break ups are in the singer’s past, love has a healing, euphoric power. I hope to be pleasantly surprised with a great album later this month.
Taeyeon released the first single to her third album almost three years ago. It’s a light, airy disco song all about taking it easy. And after a week like this one, I need to stop over thinking and let my stress melt away. So here’s an updated Weekend Vibes playlist filled with tracks formulated to give you an awesome weekend. I’ve expanded and substituted some of the tracks to make the playlist better. Let’s enjoy the smooth sounds!
Like Rick Beato explains in his provocatively titled video “What’s Wrong with Charlie Puth‘s Single” (see below), I was shocked that such an earworm didn’t chart very well. Beato’s commentary in the video is a dig at other musical trends–trap beats, explicit lyrics, and multiple songwriters–which contribute to a pop song’s success. I don’t completely agree with Beato’s assessment of “Light Switch” and pop music in general, but the question remains why such an instant sing-along melody didn’t chart higher than number 27 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Of course, there’s just so much music out there vying for our attention.
ALL THE SUDDEN I’M HYPNOTIZED. Beato’s liking for Charlie Puth is even puzzling for some of the YouTuber’s viewers. There are many other music YouTubers and Podcasters who call out Beato’s biased views. Maybe it’s pop music filtered through his kids’ tastes that he got turned on to Puth and the young artist’s song production; however, Beato does not extend a lot of praise to other artists like, say, Ed Sheeran who arguably has a comparable approach to songwriting and production only with a much larger song catalogue. For example, of “Light Switch,” Beato said that because Charlie Puth has perfect pitch, the autotune he uses on his voice is an interesting effect. But another time, Beato criticized Sheeran who also used autotune on the single “Bad Habits.” But rather than harping on the unfairness in Beato’s assessments, we can celebrate the talent that Puth brings to music. His fans get an insight into how music is recorded when Puth releases videos showing his “voice notes”–ingredients–samples–that mix into a delicious finished musical entree. It’s often very, very sweet. But there’s a lot going on.
I DON’T WANNA FIGHT THIS. While there might be a lot going on musically in “Light Switch”–disco guitar, an extremely fast beat, uncommon chords in pop music–the lyrics are quite simple. Like many of the songs on Charlie, Puth’s third album, “Light Switch” deals with the same themes of “We Don’t Talk Anymore” and “Attention.” This theme: a girl who gives mixed signals, showing the speaker signs of admiration in private but acting as if it never happened when the speaker meets her in public. The story depicted in the music video, though, is worth some discussion. In the video, we see a transformation of a young man, played by Puth, from a chubby shut-in, depressed about a girl who broke his heart, to a fit powerhouse of energy. The transformation? Billy Blanks, a famous Tae Bo martial artist and aerobic personality from the ’90s, trains the young man, guiding him to make positive decisions. Eventually, Puth stands outside his ex’s door singing only for her ex’s new boyfriend to come to the door. Ironically, she’s with a man who looked like Puth before the transformation. Today, the video has an existential meaning to it. I wonder how much I’ve been training for the wrong thing? How much have I been training for the a past, pre-pandemic reality. I finely got off my couch and put down the potato chips and set a new goal, but as I get closer to that goal, I realize how much farther away it is than in 2019. What does Blanks encourage Charlie to do next? Sometimes these major setbacks make us want to go back to the couch, but isn’t it much better to be young and healthy? Isn’t there a new goal you can chase?
In 2000, Nelly Furtado became an international star. In a music scene inundated with teen pop, Furtado was a singer-songwriter who fused international folk, Latin pop, and hip-hop in a sometimes radio-friendly way. The Portuguese-Canadian singer had two incredibly successful non-consecutive records, her debut Whoa, Nelly!in 2000 and Loosein 2006 before almost disappearing from the pop charts.
YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL, THAT’S FOR SURE. “I’m Like a Bird” was the first of three major hits from Whoa, Nelly! The song talked about the speaker’s transient existence, assuring the listener that her “love is rare though . . . true” she really longs to fly away. She doesn’t “know where [her] home is” nor “where [her] soul is.” In other words, the speaker cannot be tied down to the cages of what most of us would call a normal human existence. And if this was true of Furtado’s personal life, it was certainly true of her musical expression. Rather than making the obvious follow up to Whoa, Nelly!, the singer opted to write an album that doubled down on Portuguese folk songs in her sophomore flop, Folklore. But looking purely at the first three singles from Whoa, Nelly!–“I’m Like a Bird,” the sexy “Turn Off the Lights,” or the radio edited “Shit on the Radio” (Remember the Days), which was censored with a DJ scratch and a title “. . . On the Radio”–these singles took us out of the old millennium and into the new somehow linking us with the angsty queens of alternative pop radio in the ’90s and foreshadowing the alternative “sad girls” of the ’10s. If we look to the Adult Pop and Alternative Pop of the early 2000s from Michelle Branch to Vanessa Carlton, it now seems clear that women would become the dominating force on pop radio.
YOUR FAITH IN ME BRINGS ME TO TEARS. I’ll always rememberNelly Furtado as my middle school crush. At least that’s what I told my friends. Furtado was certainly pretty and exuded sexuality–albeit a more grown up sexuality–than most of the other pop stars of the day. A few years later, it was J-Lo, and in high school it was Kierra Knightly or Natalie Portman. These girls were certainly pretty, but I actually had to pretend to have a crush on them. It was those late night camping conversations when the boys would start talking about girls, in low tones, whispering so camp counselors wouldn’t hear. “What I’d do to her on our wedding night. . .” kind of sanctified horny conversations. You have to play along. You can play super righteous for a time, but eventually you have to play along to avoid the questions, to avoid the rumors and shame. So you throw out a name. And try to give that name as much passion as you think about Ricky Martin or Ben Affleck.
Lauv is somewhere between a household name and an sad-boy indie pop star. With 18 million monthly streams on Spotify, the singer-songwriter certainly has a large fanbase. And with his inclusion on many playlists, he also gets many passive listeners as well. One of the ways that Lauv has collected so many fans is through collaboration. Besides today’s collaboration with Troye Sivan, Lauv has collaborated with BTS, Anne-Marie, LANY, Alessia Cara, and many other artists who also have active fan bases.
HURTS LIKE HEAVEN. In April 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, Ari Staprans Leff, better known as Lauv, spoke with Silverstein‘s Shane Told on his podcast Lead Singer Syndrome.Told usually interviews rock singers, usually part of the emo and punk scenes, but as Told explained, during the pandemic many musicians had more time on their hands to interview, including Lauv who was mostly at home pondering “Modern Loneliness.” But through the interview, Lauv revealed his origin story making music on MySpace, listening to screamo bands like The Devil Wears Prada and pop-punk bands like The Starting Line, though it was bedroom pop sensation singer, song writer, producer Adam Young, better known as Owl City, that influenced Lauv’s successful musical path. In early 2019, Lauv released the first single from his debut record, ~how i’m feeling~with Troye Sivan. The album wouldn’t be released for another year. “I’m So Tired” only made it to number 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 despite reviews in Rolling Stone, a late night performance on Jimmy Kimmel, two visualizers, and a music video–release on Valentine’s Day.
JUST WANNA GO HOME. Like Troye Sivan, Lauv’s Billboard Hot 100 hits are limited. His highest charting track was also his debut single, “I Like Me Better,” reaching number 27 in 2018. But not everything that Lauv writes gets recorded by him. He has penned tracks for a number of artists bigger than himself such as Demi Lovato and Charlie XCX. Lauv has called “I’m So Tired” as an “accidental duet.” Sivan had sung on the track and Lauv admitted Sivan “sounded too good sing it.” The mellow pop song’s melody feels almost lullabyesque with the two singers listing their complaints with love songs and love in general. It’s that feeling of not being able to find that thing you’re looking for, even when alternatives present themselves trying to entice you. Love songs tell about idealized love that is supposed to exist, but after a going to the same parties, meeting the same crowd, dating for a few weeks–those love songs either are a lie or those possibilities don’t exist for you for some ill-fated reason. For me? But what if it’s not about a love song? What if it’s the last straw of a terrible day? No, the fact that Starbucks got your order wrong is not the reason for you leaving in a huff. It’s much deeper than that. It’s the culmination of work, existential threats, love, family, whatever that make you give up on the day. I’m so tired.
Sadie Jean is another up-and-coming singer-songwriter like Dylan Conrique. She began garnering a following on Soundcloud when she posted a cover of Radiohead‘s “Creep.” In 2021, her song “WYD Now?” went viral on TikTok and eventually charted in the UK, Canada, and New Zealand. This 21-year-old music student at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music has scored a few more singles since then, including her latest single, “Just Because.”
YOU HURT ME JUST BECAUSE. “Just Because” feels like a spiritual cousin to MUNA‘s “Stayaway.” It’s a song about the mixed feelings of getting out of a toxic relationship. You start to think that it wasn’t all bad, but in the end you hopefully trust that you made the best choice. But it’s still hard, and we still want to wallow in our misery for a bit. So, put on your comfy clothes–we’re staying in with the rain, sitting on the couch with a tub of ice cream and a good cry, this time on Apple Music. Here’s my Sad playlist!
Dylan Conrique got her start in acting in web series called Chicken Girlson YouTube in which she plays a teen dancer. Since 2020, she’s been releasing music, and her most recent EP Pieceswas released this May. The single “down from the high” has made some prominent Spotify playlists, garnering the singer with over 2 million monthly listeners. Conrique talks about the song taking country influences and being about experiencing falling in love after being in unstable relationships. The song is about waiting for it to go wrong, but it never does. Today’s song kicks off my Summer Mix ‘23. These songs have at least a taste for the sunny side of music. Let’s enjoy it until Labor Day!
Mixtapemotions 