Mixtapemotions

  • “Hold on to Now” by Kylie Minogue, Saturday, September 30, 2023

     

    While Troye Sivan was clubbing in his home of Perth, Australia, between COVID lockdowns, the soundtrack may have included songs by fellow Aussie Kylie Minogue, an iconic pop star for a certain demographic for decades. But it’s not just the gay clubs where Kylie is famous. In fact, she is the highest-selling Australian female artist of all time. She is often called the “Princess of Pop” in Europe because of her sense of style and hit-making. In America, mainstream pop audiences probably know Minogue for her 2001 hit “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” the singer’s most streamed song. 


    SOME MOMENTS ARE MAGIC. But pop music is much more than the Weekly Top 40, and the songs popular in Australia and Europe don’t always catch on in America. Kylie Minogue made several hits and even reached her Hot 100 peak before 2002 in the ‘80s with the number 3 hit “The Loco-Motion” in 1988 from her eponymous debut album. The song was a cover of a 1962 pop song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, originally performed by Little Eva and later by Grand Funk Railroad. But after her second single, Minogue only reached the lower regions of the Hot 100 until her big comeback record Fever in 2001. By 2002, Minogue was 34 and returning to popularity, laying a prototype for new millennium dance beats, a staple of her career for the next twenty years. Minogue never followed up “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” for U.S. Top 40 listeners, but her latest album Tension, released last Friday, is what critics and Minogue are calling a return to Fever.   

    DREAMIN’ WE’LL BE DANCIN’ FOREVER. The lead single from Kylie Minogue’s most recent album Tension, “Padam, Padam,” was considered to be a “gay anthem” for the summer. The song is a seriously danceable track. The second single and second track on the record, “Hold On to Now” is an electronic dance song with a sadder song with lyrics that evoke mild existential dread. Kylie’s voice is part siren reassuring her listeners that everything will be worked out someday. Yet somehow, maybe because I’m not dancing at the office or at home when I’m listening to it, I’m pulled back to the questions the song raises. Elsewhere on the album, the fifty-five-year-old singer balances current club sounds with lyrics of falling in love–or lust–and the search for love and being taken care of by a lover. Today’s song reminds us that now is all we ever have. Sort of like my deleted post of Switchfoot’s “Gone”–that’s a story for later–it doesn’t do us any good to stress about what may happen. It also doesn’t help us to live in the past. And yes, most of the time, we have to get to work. But occasionally, we can just enjoy shaking our asses on the dance floor for a bit.

  • "Rush" by Troye Sivan, Friday, September 29, 2023

     

    It’s been five years since Troye Sivan released his sophomore record, Bloom. Next month, the singer will release his long-anticipated third full-length studio album, Something to Give Each Other. In the heat of northern hemisphere summer, on July 13, the lead single, “Rush,” was released with a racy accompanying music video. Along with “Rush” and the album announcement on July 13, Sivan also released the artwork for the upcoming album.  Between the video for “Rush” and the cover art which features Troye Sivan’s head between the thighs of an apparently nude muscular man, it seems that the singer is continuing his horny era which began with his sophomore album. 


    TRUST THE SIMULATION. The time between Bloom and Something to Give Each Other was unintentional. In 2020, Sivan broke up with his long-term boyfriend, model Jacob Bixenman, which influenced several of the songs on the singer’s late-summer 2020 EP release, In a Dream. But Sivan doesn’t spend the whole EP pining about his loss. The song “Rager teenager!” is a song about teenage rebellion recalled fondly by a now grown-up Troye. Then there is the song “STUD,” the most on-the-nose Sivan song in which the singer describes exactly the guy that he wants or who he wants to be. In a livestream special for the EP in 2021, Sivan performs the song as a music video in a gym as buff, shirtless men exercise. “STUD” was never a single and the post-EP singles, “Strawberries and Cigarette,”“Angel Baby,” and others were nowhere near as horny as “STUD” or some of the songs on Bloom. Sivan tells Dua Lipa on her BBC podcast At Your Service that he wanted to begin his third album with an “unapologetic, hot sweaty song to kick off the new album.”

    ADDICTED TO YOUR TOUCH. “Rush” picks up where In a Dream left off. The original version of “Easy” imagines Sivan stuck at home with his heartbreak during the COVID lockdowns in Australia. Sivan tells Dua Lipa on the At Your Service podcast that when restrictions were lifted, he returned to the clubs, partying more than he ever had before. And while Sivan had been releasing other singles and acting as a main cast member on the HBO drama The Idol, the album Something to Give Each Other was being delayed. Finally, in July listeners got a first sniff of the record with Rush. The lead single with its tropical summer vibes, hedonistic lyrics, and sexy music video wrapped carefully hidden references to masturbation, anal sex, and a particular brand of a drug used mostly by gay men to create a sense of euphoria and loosen the anal muscles. That brand of poppers is called Rush. The video was polarizing in the queer community as some views pointed out that there was a lack of body diversity in the video. Sivan, who struggles with body dysmorphia, addressed the controversy when talking with Billboard: “To be honest, it just wasn’t a thought we had — we obviously weren’t saying, ‘We want to have one specific type of person in the video.’ We just made the video, and there wasn’t a ton of thought put behind that.” He went on to tell his fans, “I think that everyone’s body is as beautiful as it is, including my own, and it just sucks to see people talking about other people’s bodies.” Sivan, who is skinny and sometimes identifies as a “twink,” clearly has a type he is attracted to. And while the Internet may try to make you ashamed of your type, it’s certainly a feat of 2023 to have a huge pop anthem about poppers in the club. 

    Remix ft. Pink Pantheress and Hyunjin of Stray Kids:

    Extended:

    Explicit version vs. Clean version:

    Lyric video for Remix:

  • “Car Keys” (Ayla) by Alok ft. Ava Max + Along for the Ride: Apple Music Edition, Thursday, September 28, 2023

    Road trips are an opportunity to listen to music you don’t usually listen to. The hours in the car and the new scenery take us out of our daily lives and let us experiment with something new. Sometimes we even bring part of that vacation home with us. Today’s song is a vehicle to bring my Apple Music edition of Along for the Ride, a playlist I made for road trips. Today is unofficially known as the travel day for Korea’s version of Thanksgiving, 추석, held on the harvest full moon which is tomorrow. Along for the Ride may have a lot of skippable tracks, but maybe you’ll find something you like for driving.


  • ”Tears on My Piano” by Charlie Puth, Wednesday, September 27, 2023 + Rain Apple Music Edition

    Charlie Puth’s third record, self-titled Charlie contains perhaps a higher percentage of mopey songs about being a “Loser” in love.  From “That’s Hilarious” in which the speaker laments losing a year of his life to a relationship that ended in heartbreak to the fast-paced “Light Switch” about a 11:30 booty call. Today’s song, “Tears on My Piano” takes direct inspiration from one of Taylor Swift’s breakthrough hits, “Teardrops on My Guitar.” The weepy song born out of heartbreak and mellow drama. Rather than analyzing this song, I thought it would be a good point to invoke the pathetic fallacy for this rainy weather and make my Apple Music edition of Rain. Enjoy it with a nice hearty soup!
     














  • “Green, Green Grass” by George Ezra, Tuesday, September 26, 2023

    Last year, George Ezra returned with his third album, Gold Rush Kid. Like Ezra’s previous two records, Gold Rush Kid topped the U.K. album charts. The singer-songwriter had interesting stories behind the recording of his previous records from a trip across Europe for his debut Wanted on Voyage and staying with a complete stranger in Barcelona in Staying at Tamara’s. Returning to work with long-term collaborator Joel Pott, his long-term collaborator, Gold Rush Kid doesn’t have quite the backstory as the previous two records. But the otherwise sunny third installment from Ezra was born out of the singer’s struggles with OCD and nihilism.


    THERE’S NO ONE IN HERE LIVIN’ GONNA MAKE IT OUT ALIVE. For the second single from Gold Rush Kid, “Green Green Grass,” George Ezra was inspired by something he witnessed on a Christmas holiday in 2018 to the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. Ezra explained on Instagram that he and friends were sitting on the beach when loud music started playing in the distance. He says, “[T]he curiosity got the best of me, and I had to excuse myself. I ran down these streets in the beautiful sunshine and I got to this kind of high street and there w[ere] different sound systems out and there w[ere] people cooking out and dancing and holding each other and laughing and honestly it was just beautiful, it was an amazing thing to observe.” He asked people in the shops what was happening, and they replied, “[T]oday is a funeral day, and there are three lives in our community that we have lost and that we are celebrating today.” Most European and many North American cultures regard funerals as sad events, but this celebration of what life was for the person struck Ezra. 

    LOADED UP WHEN THE SUN COMES DOWN. The production on “Green Green Grass” features synthesizers and autotune and brass and saxophone in addition to the normal guitars, bass, drums, and occasional keys listeners are used to a George Ezra song. The song is a pop celebration in a way that most of Ezra’s music is not. In his Instagram post about the song, George goes on to talk about enjoying the music and atmosphere of the joyful funeral in St. Lucia even more than before he knew what it was all about. Then he says “I went back to the bar and carried on with the rum punch and the beer and spent the evening with these two people that I love; my two friends.” As Ezra neared 30 when he released Gold Rush Kid, death and the thought of becoming a father one day were on his mind. In the Guardian he talks about his music being successful, though never really making it in America, which he then says that he came to realize he didn’t want because “it’s too big a place to consider mirroring what my work looks like in Europe and Australia” and that “[t]o try to recreate that would kill me.” Fame and success in the music industry certainly looks different for every artist, and George Ezra’s contentment with sticking to Europe and Australia rather than chasing the impossible dream of conquering the American pop charts may leave the singer with fulfillment rather than ambition.



  • “Blame Brett” by The Beaches, Monday, September 25, 2023

    The Beaches are a Canadian indie rock band from Toronto, Ontario. The band consists of sisters Jordan and Kylie Miller, Leandra Earl, and Eliza Enman-McDaniel. They have released two studio albums The Late Show in 2017 and Blame Ex this year. The band has been praised for their catchy hooks, energetic live shows, and feminist lyrics. The band, originally named Done with Dolls, came to fame in Canada when they performed the theme to the teen drama Really Me in 2011. The band evolved into more of a rock sound with the addition of guitarist Leandra Earl. The band has had two number 1 songs on Canadian Rock radio, “T-Shirt” from The Late Show and “Blame Brett” from their latest record.


    I’M DONE DATING ROCKSTARS. The Beaches have been included on a number of Spotify playlists, growing their listenership outside of Canada, the only country in which they have charted. Their sophomore and self-released record Blame My Ex offers summertime vibes punctuated with breezy guitars. Lead singer Jordan Miller’s cheeky lyrics delivered with vocals somewhere between The Bangles, Pretenders, Blondie, or The Motels make the album instantly catchier than their first effort The Late Show. The lead single and first song on the record from which the title Blame My Ex comes, “Blame Brett,” has over 15 million streams. Lyrically the song hides under an almost surf rock summer sound. But once a listener hears or reads the lyrics, the song gets even more interesting. 

    I’LL BECOME AN ASSHOLE DISGUISED AS A BAD GIRL. Lead singer of The Beaches Jordan Miller dated Brett Emmons, lead singer of the band the Glorious Sons, a band they toured with. Miller declares “I’m done dating rock stars / From now on only actors / Tall boys in the [Toronto] Raptors.” But Blame My Ex and its first track “Blame Brett” are not exactly straightforward break-up songs demonizing the singer of the other band. Miller explains, “ It’s not really about my relationship. It’s about feeling vulnerable and afraid to open your heart to someone new. I’m basically talking to my future partners, explaining that I can only offer something casual while my heart heals—a song for all the hot messes out there” she told Hype Magazine. Maybe there are hard feelings, but pinning the speaker’s new casual attitude toward sex and dating on her ex-boyfriend both skirts responsibility in a rockstar fashion but also gives the speaker liberation to experience the good and the bad of casual dating. It’s so easy for us to blame our choices after something traumatic like a breakup on the one who hurt us, but “Blame Brett” seems to have a speaker who is aware of this fact. She’s out to make her own mistakes, and if others are going to judge her, she just pins it on the “guy who hurt her.” But there’s one other element to this narrative that should be addressed. If a man wrote this song and said, “Blame Jordan, my Ex,” talking about getting back out there and enjoying casual relationships, culturally he would receive less judgment. What about the horrible things that Ted Mosby did in How I Met Your Mother grieving the loss of the one he thought was right? Barney tells him to go have a night out; sleep around; take some time off before getting back to the search for Mrs. Mosby. “Blame Brett” is a powerful anthem of liberation–the speaker even gives a disclaimer in the lyrics that “I’m only gonna treat you bad” and that she’s “only in it for the sex.” So this song is not for the faint of heart.




     

  • "High Line" by Tyson Motsenbocker ft. Zealyn, Sunday, September 24, 2023+ Autumn Mix 2023 Apple Music Edition

    Tyson Motsenbocker‘s “High Line” always hits at just the right time when the air gets cooler. While the fall season starts in the United States with Labor Day, yesterday was the equinox which is the calendar mark of the first day of autumn. Two weeks ago I made a Spotify playlist as a harbinger of autumn. It’s my favorite season so I want it to last longer. But I think an Apple Music edition is certainly necessary, too. So today, I present Autumn Mix 2023: Apple Music Edition.  

  • “Vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo, Friday, September 15, 2023

    In today’s pop scene, there are more Taylor Swifts and fewer Adeles, at least in terms of output. Yes, both artists release music in the form of full-length albums, but Swift is constantly releasing music. Adele on the other hand waits years between albums to release new music. But the modern pop artist is continually generating music for their fans. The “post-album” single is now the thing, which may or may not lead to a deluxe edition of the album you paid good money for if you still music, but probably just streamed. Two years ago, Olivia Rodrigo shook up the pop chart, bringing pop-punk to the forefront again, and then after SOUR’s album cycle, the singer kept a low profile. 


    FAME FUCKER. Olivia Rodrigo returned in June with “vampire,” her first single after SOUR with the first single from her album GUTS, released two weeks ago. The song drew immediate comparisons to the lead single from SOUR, “driver’s license,” for its mellow, piano-driven tone, which was only partially true. But on a closer listen, both songs’ formulas are radically different, with “driver’s license” being a straightforward ballad and “vampire” starting as a ballad before evolving into a cinematic experience. The lyrics of the song are rumored to be about Rodrigo’s ex Adam Faze, who works as a media producer. Unlike the subject of SOUR, Joshua Bassett, Faze is a lower profile, working behind the scenes, or “in the shadows” in the spirit of Olivia’s recent Billboard Hot 100 number 1 hit. When Rodrigo accuses the subject of “vampire” as a “fame fucker,” the line has been interpreted as Faze using his connections in the industry, along with his good looks and charm, to get close to celebrities, using them for his own personal gains.

    YOU CALLED THEM CRAZY, GOD, I HATE THE WAY I CALLED THEM CRAZY TOO. The subject of “vampire,” himself seems boring compared to everything else Olivia Rodrigo does with the track. The podcast Switched on Pop does an excellent musical analysis of the song’s music. The musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding give an interesting history of the chord progression used in the song and give some context about what that chord progression does to a song. The chord progression for “vampire” is often called the “Creep” chord progression because the Radiohead hit “Creep” is the textbook example of the I-III-IV-iv chord progression. However, the band was sued for writers’ credit by the writers for another band, The Hollies, who claimed that the song “The Air That I Breathe” was similar to “Creep.” The podcasters look for examples of the progression used as far back as Elvis. Interestingly, Radiohead unsuccessfully sued Lana Del Rey for including the “Creep” chord progression on her 2017 song “Get Free,” losing though because the court determined a musician cannot own a chord progression. What Rodrigo does to the “Creep” chords, though, rather than the usual melancholy take, is to sing the melody fast for a “journaling effect.” But the song never stays in one place, mimicking a chase scene in Brom Stoker’s 1897 gothic masterpiece Dracula. Then the song builds into a crescendo that ends the song. As pop stars today seem like the same variation on a saccurine theme, but it’s interesting to see what Olivia Rodrigo will bring in the future of genre-bending.

     

  • "New Divide” by Linkin Park, Friday, September 22, 2023

    In 2007, despite being toward the end of the second Bush term and being in the middle of a war and high gas prices, the world felt more optimistic than today. It was a simpler time when you thought you could trust the summer blockbuster. But then we learned 1) Michael Bay is obsessed with close up details that disorient the audience. 2) While Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox’s performances were comedically entertaining, neither actor could carry the weight of a 2 hour 24-minute film, and coupled with Bay’s action sequences felt ten times as long.  3) that not every movie based on a nostalgic toy produces a fond memory. While the American public loved Transformers, Hollywood was entering its “exploit the sequel” phase, bombarding us with the same formula two years later.

    GIVE ME REASON TO PROVE ME WRONG. Meanwhile, in 2007, Linkin Park had not released an album since their 2003 critically acclaimed sophomore album Meteora. The lead single from their third album, Minutes to Midnight, “What I’ve Done,” was also the lead single from the summer blockbuster Transformers. The song offered reprieve from the band’s bleak third record and served as the end credits song for Transformers. Then came 2009. Linkin Park had begun work on their fourth studio record, which would be released in 2010. Whereas Minutes to Midnight started where the previous Linkin Park had left off dealing with depression and anxiety, the album began to touch on political and social themes. The title referenced the Doomsday Clock, but it is not widely considered a concept album. But 2010’s A Thousand Suns was a concept record, digging deeper into the theme of humanity destroying itself with nuclear weapons. But between Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns, the band worked with composer Hans Zimmer to score the sequel to Transformers. 


    FILL THIS HOLE; CONNECT THE SPACE BETWEEN. Unlike “What I’ve Done,” “New Divide” doesn’t appear on a Linkin Park studio record. There was no place for it on the concept album A Thousand Suns. And while critics didn’t quite appreciate Linkin Park’s efforts at expanding their lyrics to political commentary in 2007, they praised “New Divide.” The critics, however, panned the film for which the song was commissioned, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Repackage the same film with more Michael Bay disorientation, bank on the awkwardness of Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox’s awkward love story working out. Use the same band to deliver a calculated effect among film goers. Of course the movie made enough money to keep up the franchise, but there was even a difference between the quality of Linkin Park songs between the first and second film. Lyrically, “New Divide” is one of the weakest Linkin Park songs before 2014’s The Hunting Party. The song has several hooks, and singer Chester Bennington delivers the lines passionately, but ultimately the song sounds derivative of their 2007 song for the same franchise. Grammatically, the song lacks coherence. Thematically, it lacks a clear subject, but not in an interesting ambiguous way. The song feels like it was written to support a flat movie. So what is the “New Divide”? It predates mainstream discussion about political division, and including a song about wealth disparity on a soundtrack about robots that try to obliterate each other feels like it’s reaching. Perhaps the song is all vibe, and sometimes that’s okay. Linkin Park certainly didn’t lose it in terms of inspiration after today’s song.

     

  • “Support Group” by Sawyer, Thursday, September 21, 2023 + Heartbreak Mix

    Sawyer is an Indie Pop duet of singers Kel Taylor and Emma Harvey. Based in Nashville, the duo has music on Spotify from 2015. The group’s most-streamed song, 2019’s “Emotional Girls,” is at 2.6 million, and the group only has around 83,000 monthly listeners. Their second most streamed song is a cover of the Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition.” In June, Sawyer released a four-song EP containing three previously released songs and one new song, the title track of Big Deal. Today’s song “Support Group” has been featured on several Spotify discover music playlists. The song employs memorable songwriting. The metaphor in the first verse is quite funny, almost country-style songwriting. The mental image of “gassing up” the listener’s ego, then lighting a fire, standing by the fire “keeping [the speaker’s] hands warm” even “makin’ a damn s’more.” The song imagines starting a support group composed of former lovers of the man the group is singing about, Josh Tucker Must Die style. Today I’m compiling a collection of heartbreak songs.