Mixtapemotions

  • “Lilith” (Diablo IV Anthem) by Halsey ft. SUGA of BTS, Sunday, September 10, 2023

    Music promotion is very important, especially since there are more and more albums, EPs, singles, music videos, limited-edition vinyl pressings, and deluxe editions all cluttering our Spotify updates.  One of the most common ways that artists grow interest in their albums is by pre-gaming their listeners with singles.  Back when radio was the primary way listeners heard pop music, an artist may have released a single shortly before the album dropped. Sometimes delays in the release would cause the artist to drop another single to keep up momentum. These days artists commonly release three or four singles, sometimes up to half the album before the album’s release. 

    “Lady Lilith” by Dante Gabriel 
    Rosetti. 

    I DON’T NEED A FUCKIN’ INTRODUCTION. In 2021, when Halsey released her record If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, she decided to forego singles, instead releasing the album at once. Lyrically, the record is filled with statements of empowerment. Musically, producers Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross transform Halsey from a pop star to a dark rock god. While the album wasn’t preceded by a single, an account associated with Halsey posted an image on Instagram before the record’s release: the painting Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The singles released from the record after its release haven’t become classics in the Halsey canon as her radio-ready pop. After releasing two singles, “I Am Not a Woman, I’m a God” and “You Asked for This,” Halsey recorded other songs and seemed to move on from her fourth album cycle. However, earlier this year, she collaborated with Blizzard Entertainment, remixing her track “Lilith,” which would become the theme song to the game Diablo IV and her third single from her fourth record.


    I’M PERFECTION WHEN IT COMES TO INDISCRETION. In Diablo IV, a character named Lilith plays a pivotal role in the game’s plot. Though Halsey’s song “Lilith” and the game character are mutually exclusive, both characters draw from Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology. According to the Jewish folk tale, the satirical Alphabet of Sirach, Lilith was Adam’s first wife, even formed from the same class as Adam. Recall Eve was made from Adam’s rib. When Lilith refused to be subservient to her husband, she left Eden. This account was not canonized in Jewish or Christian scriptures. The interpretation of Lilith’s refusal to serve Adam has made her a symbol of rebellion and even of the occult as she has been referred to as a demon This is even alluded to in Halsey’s lyrics as she embodies Lilith.  Jewish folk legend claimed that Lilith roamed the night, acting sexually promiscuous and stealing babies. In fact, it is only a passing reference that the word Lilith appears in the Old Testament. In Isaiah 34:14, the Hebrew word for Lilith has often been translated as a kind of monster screaming in the night or some translations call the phenomenon a “screech owl.” With all the patriarchal baggage that comes from a divorce in paradise, it’s no wonder that Lilith has become a symbol of feminism, which is exactly what Halsey channels in today’s song. It certainly feels like a 2023 version of the ‘90s Nine Inch Nails in terms of how provocative this message is. 





     

  • “Hymn for the Weekend” by Coldplay ft. Beyoncé, Saturday, September 9, 2023 (repost)

    It’s pretty easy to think of only the frontman or front woman when thinking about bands like Coldplay. Chris Martin is featured prominently in the band’s music videos. He is certainly the most charismatic during the band’s live performances. He’s kept himself in good shape and is arguably the best looking band dude in Coldplay. However, this didn’t give the band’s fearless leader complete creative reign for their seventh studio album, A Head Full of Dreams. When Martin presented the idea for a late-night club hit “Drinks on Me,” influenced by Flo Rida, the rest of the band shot Martin down.

    LIFE IS A DRINK AND LOVE’S A DRUG. Every February or March, the first full-moon day of spring according to the Hindu lunar calendar, cities and towns in India shutdown for a very colorful celebration that lasts two days. This festival is called Holi, or The Festival of Colors and this year it was celebrated on March 8 and 9. During this festival, everyone, old or young and of every caste, wears old clothes and meets in the city streets. They throw colorful powders in the air and at each other. When Coldplay was shooting their video for “Hymn for the Weekend,” they decided to feature scenes of Indian culture from several cities and feature Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor. The highlight, though, is when Chris Martian runs through the streets as he is pelted with the colored powders of a Holi celebration. Later the band is performing in this colorful explosion. While nothing compares to the a real-life Holi celebration, Coldplay’s live shows during their seventh album cycle were inspired by this bright multi-colored event. And while you might call it generic pop, it certainly was uplifting.  

    I’M FEELING DRUNK AND HIGH. While Martin’s party anthem was shut down, “Hymn for the Weekend” certainly is good weekend vibes. Known better in the US by its “Seeb Remix,” however you choose to enjoy the song, it’s perfect for feeling great. Rather than being a song about alcoholic hedonism, the second single from AHFoD says that life itself is a drink and that love is a drug. The speaker then feels “drunk” on life and “high” on love. Rather than partying and saying “Drinks on me,” Beyoncé sings “Drink from me,” offering restoration after the “divorce record” that was Ghost Stories. “Hymn for the Weekend” may be the only song that just casually features Beyoncè. She even appears in the music video, yet the song and the music video aren’t even billed as “featuring Beyoncé” whereas two albums before the band listed “Princess of China” as “featuring Rihanna” and on track six on AHFoD the song “Fun” features Tove Lo.  Coldplay is often criticized for their “trying too hard” popstar antics, their features being one of them. BTS, Selena Gomez, The Chain Smokers–the band of dads trying to stay relevant. While those pop collaborations might be artistically suspect, I truly think that Beyoncé in “Hymn for the Weekend” was the best choice. Furthermore, Beyoncé doesn’t outshine Coldplay with her power vocals, which could have easily happened. Instead, “Hymn for the Weekend” is an excellent, balanced composition. And that’s something to feel pretty good about. 

    Music video:

    Seeb Remix:

  • "Run (운영) by Nell (넬), Friday, September 8, 2023 (updated repost)













    After a hiatus that allowed each member of the group to complete their conscription for the Korean military, Nell reappeared in 2012 with their fifth album Slip Away in April. By the end of the year, the band started their 3-EP Gravity series. Their second EP in the series, Escaping Gravity, was released on June 10, 2013. Escaping Gravity gave the band a different tone. The lead single, “Ocean of Light” was the most optimistic Nell track they had released up until that point. On August 7th, the band released a single that they recorded for the MBC drama 2 Weeks. The upbeat song sounded like it could have been recorded during the same sessions for Escaping Gravity with its guitar and keyboard production and fast tempo. “Run” sets up the show as the song appears in the action sequence before the story begins and also is played at the end of the episode as we see the protagonist framed for murder.

    I FALL AND BREAK EVERY DAY. Airing on MBC between August 7- September 26, 2013, the sixteen episodes of 2 Weeks tell the story of a gangster, Tae-san, who had given up a life of crime because he fell in love. But when the romance doesn’t work out, instead of going back to a life of crime, he works in a pawn shop. At the start of the drama, though, he finds out that he is a father and that his daughter has leukemia. He is a match for his daughter’s bone marrow transplant and is scheduled for surgery two weeks later, but his old gang boss, together with a politician, decides to frame Tae-san for the murder of a special agent infiltrating the gang leader’s operation. The series has Tae-san on the run from the law and from his former life in order to save his daughter. While “Run” may not be Nell’s most poetic song, the lyrics about a tortured existence from which the singer must fight every day fits well into the drama during the action scenes. The drama currently isn’t available on Netflix in Korea, but a poor-quality version, sped up to dodge the copyright police, is available on YouTube. The quality issue makes it hard to be sucked into the storyline, and the sped-up song is very hard to enjoy.

    I HOLD ONTO MY SCAR, WHICH DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TIME TO HEAL. The writers and producers of Korean dramas know how to hook their audience. However, there are so many dramas that I’ve started and quit. These are just a few problems that I’ve noticed when attempting a Korean drama. First, the episodes are just too long. An American network series can be up to 24 to 50-minute episodes, but a Korean drama is well over an hour in length. There are usually less than 20 episodes, so they cram more than a season’s worth of story into a mini-series. This could be an advantage; however, it often seems that the writers run out of “fun and games” in the middle. The dramas that I have stuck with in the end add interesting characters or plot twists that make sense for the characters they’ve developed. But there’s nothing worse when you get a few episodes in and the plot starts repeating itself. And a single love interest isn’t enough to make a drama flow. So often it seems that the writers focus too much on the love story and not enough on the premise that made viewers love the show. We want more action, more bizarre cases, and more conflict between other characters. The last reason I give up on dramas is entirely my fault. I’m terrible at sitting down and watching something. I have to move around–clean, prepare something a class, cook dinner. All of these things make it hard to sit down and read subtitles. I’ve watched so many Episode 1s and so few Episode 16s, but there are a few I enjoyed. My favorite is Reply 1987 (응답하러 1997), and I also enjoyed Netflix‘s Move to Heaven earlier this year. And Prison Playbook had a lot of fun characters. There are several others I’ve finished, but those are three I fully endorse.
    Video with English translation and scenes from Two Weeks:
    Nell performing the song at their annual Nell’s Room concert in 2013:

    Two Weeks Episode 1 with English subtitles (poor quality):

     
     

  • “Grace” by Adoy, Thursday, September 7, 2023 (repost)

    “Grace” was one of the first hits for the South Korean electronic indie band Adoy. The song opens their 2015 debut EP Catnip.  In a recent interview with Front Row Live lead vocalist Oh Ju-hwan and keyboardist Zee talked with Rob Herrera  while they were on their first U.S. tour.  The two musicians talked about their writing process in Adoy. Although Ju-hwan is the lead singer and sings in English, he is not fluent in conversation, so Zee often handles the English questions and translates the interview questions and answers. So why then, would a band choose to write their songs in a language their lead singer wasn’t fluent in?

    WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME? At Cornerstone 2011, the year before the festival folded, Blindside flew from Sweden to sub-headline on Saturday, July 2nd, just before Anberlin closed out the main stage. The show was incredible. The band had just released their first album since 2007’s Black Rose EP,  With Shivering Hearts We Wait, an album that pushed the band into electronic and pop influences. One of the things I remembered from the show was that guitarist Simon Grenehed rather than lead singer Christian Lindskog introduced all of the songs. I wasn’t sure why. I’d seen interviews with the band and Lindskog had spoken. Now Adoy is not Blindside, nor is Korean Swedish, but I find it interesting when bands from non-English speaking countries make an artistic choice to sing in English, whether it’s A-ha or Scorpions or the Japanese pop-punk band ONE OK ROCK. And then you find yourself traveling, even just a few miles north of the border in Quebec, listening to French DJs playing American music with a few French rock bands that seem to be everything that’s missing in the American scene. 

    I WAS ALWAYS WAS DREAMING OF A DAY LIKE TODAY. In the interview with Rob Herrera, Zee explains that Adoy tried writing in Korean, but felt that the sound of English better illustrated their lyrics and the concepts behind their songs. The concept? Zee explains that an Adoy song is about “lifting” and “floating in the air” because they feel that sound promotes a feeling of youth and vitality. Zee explains that he usually writes the lyrics, but sometimes Ju-hwan or other members will write in Korean and Zee will translate the lyrics. A few years ago, the band was on a radio show on a Seoul English K-pop/indie station talking about their upcoming record  Love and performing songs from Love and Catnip. Before playing the song “Grace,” Zee told the listeners that the song was about an impending serious conversation in the car when two lovers were about to break up. But does the relationship still stand a chance? So the “floating in the air” feeling that Adoy’s music gives the listeners is contrasted with the melancholy of the fear of a breakup. “Grace,” lyrically, is similar to “Bike” on the band’s follow-up EP in that both the happiness and the inevitability of the couple’s breakup are told in a calm and positive tone in the nostalgic song. Still, the twinge of sadness in the lyrics isn’t intended to kill the vibe of the song. Played in a largely non-English speaking country in trendy cafes and restaurants, the smooth sounds of Adoy can serve as furniture music, music that sets a mood but not a conversation piece. Well, today, Adoy, you set off the conversation, and we’re all a little sadder because of it!

    Live version:

  • “Mad World” by Michael Andrews ft. Gary Jules, Wednesday, September 6, 2023

    When completing the score for the 2001 cult psychological thriller Donnie Darko, score composer Michael Andrews produced a cover of the 1982 Tears for Fears minor hit “Mad World.” The film, set in 1988 the month preceding the election of George H.W. Bush, features a soundtrack of post-punk bands and even includes Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels” in a scene toward the beginning of the film. “Mad World” serves as the film’s emotional climax; however, the original version was extremely ill-suited for that role in the film.

    ALL AROUND ME ARE FAMILIAR FACES. Before every grocery store in America played “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and Tears for Fears became a household name in America because of their major hits on the record Songs from the Big Chair, the band released their 1983 debut, The Hurting. This album included several singles the band had released the year prior, including the band’s third single “Mad World.” The song was successful in the UK and a few other countries. It reached number 3 on the UK singles’ chart, but Americans wouldn’t get a taste for Tears for Fears until their follow up single, “Change.” But as for “Mad World,” the song is a melancholy track in both lyrics and melody. However, the song’s tempo is fast, making it arguably ineffective in delivering its bleak message.  The experimental synth sounds certainly wouldn’t translate to the somber climax in which the titular character Donnie Darko decides his fate. To convey this message, Michael Andrews recorded a slower cover with singer Gary Jules. 

    WENT TO SCHOOL AND I WAS VERY NERVOUS. With a limited theatrical release in October of 2001, following the September 11 terrorist attack, the film’s box office success was severely limited after the film’s trailer was not shown on television. The film’s premise involves a plane that loses an engine, which was shown in the film’s trailer. After 9/11, America didn’t want to see anything that reminded them of the recent tragedy. The film was critically acclaimed and grew a cult following with its home video release. Unaffected by the film’s commercial failure,  Michael Andrews and Gary Jules’ “Mad World” became a major hit. The song was featured in many television shows from CSI to Smallville. It became a bit of a musical cliché of forced emotional scenes in dramas. I mean, seriously, how many episodes can end with Clark Kent brooding over his unrequited love for Lana Lang? But if you follow the film Donnie Darko until its conclusion, “Mad World” might just become one of your favorite songs. 

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

    Michael Andrews & Gary Jules’ version:

    Tears for Fears’ version:


    Scene from Donnie Darko (Spoiler Alert):


  • "Move Along" by The All-American Rejects, Monday, September 5, 2023 (updated repost)

    When Jonezetta released their 2006 debut record, Popularity, they dedicated the album to their recently deceased fifth member. Keyboardist Timothy Jordan II took his life in 2015. Jordan had been a promising young musician from Arkansas, which had a small but notable musical scene since acts like Living Sacrifice, The Juliana Theory, Evanescence, As Cities Burn, and others got their starts in the area. Jordan became a touring member of The All-American Rejects just as their career started blowing up with TV performances and bigger tours. However, just before releasing TAR released Move Along, Jordan announced his departure and joined an up-and-coming band on Tooth & Nail Records–Jonezetta. Popularity is a very dancy, upbeat album and featuring Jordan on the keys. 

    THESE HANDS ARE MEANT TO HOLD. Jonezetta never memorialized Timothy Jordan in their two albums other than dedicating Popularity to him. However, The All-American Rejects wrote the song “Believe” about him, and fans also say that “Move Along” pays tribute to Jordan, as the song is an anti-suicide song. The best tribute, though, is As Cities Burn‘s album closer “Timothy” from their 2007 album, Come Now Sleep. Two years ago, for my after-school ESL music listening class, we listened to Jack’s Mannequin‘s “Swim,” a song I covered last month. I called the song a per aspera ad astra song, a Latin phrase translated as “through hardships to the stars.” The meaning of this phrase is that by enduring difficulties, we will overcome and become great. “Move Along” is a great pep talk of a song, particularly for a hard day. The video depicts the band going through a variety of hard, uncomfortable, or seemingly hopeless situations. However, the song begs the listener to “keep . . strong, like I know ya can.” 

    WHEN YOU FALL, EVERYONE STANDS. Often pushing through the difficulty can make it bearable. Moving on to the next thing can distract us from the failures we can’t fix. But in the moment, that failure is glaring. Relationships end, car accidents happen, tickets are issued, fights occur–“days when you’ve lost yourself completely” are painful to reflect on at night. Certainly, you want to redeem yourself or escape the misery. But holding on and reaching out makes us realize that we’ve all been there. Sometimes I’ve said, “I’d rather die than face what tomorrow holds” only to have something happen, like almost stepping in front of a bus, and I find myself instinctually fighting for my life. No, I guess I’d rather face tomorrow. I won’t doubt that this song has saved lives and helped many people through hard times. However, I do worry about “moving along” as a blanket-prescribed solution. The saying “Fake it until you make it” has some merit, but at some point, you have to be able to say, “I’m not happy. I need to talk with someone about why I’m unhappy.” Sometimes we “move along” too quickly. Just like you shouldn’t put off other emergencies, dealing with our mental health should be the top priority. For my mental health, I found that my close friends have gotten me through my darkest times. However, there are times when a friend is not enough. And that’s when it’s time to stop and seek help from a professional.

    Read the Lyrics on Genius.


  • “Time” by Day of Fire, Monday, September 4, 2023

    My Christian school took an annual mission trip in the spring to Chattanooga, Tennessee. The school had partnered with a church in the inner-city that had a Habitat-for-Humanity sort of outreach. It was one of those “I feel more ministered to” type mission trips. We end up doing a lot of grunt-work for ongoing projects, but we were made to believe that we were of some use. Of course, this was before I learned that most of the churches built on mission trips overseas have to be torn down the minute the missionaries step on the plane because of course unskilled builders don’t know how to build–but I digress.


    DO YOU HAVE THE TIME TO WASTE AWAY THE DAY? One of the rules of the mission trip was that we were only allowed to listen to Christian music. It could be any genre, but it became a time for some of us to show off our CDs of the hard rock, metal, punk, and Emo Christian records that made their way to the Family Christian bookstores. Sometimes we’d listen to Grits because a van full of white kids from a school in the foothills of North Carolina that taught racist history felt that we all should become more culturally sensitive for a week. But after a few songs from Grits‘ The Art of Translation— “Here We Go” and “Ooh Ahh“–, it was back to rock and metal in the form of old-school Disciple, Skillet, and P.O.D. In 2005, my junior year, the self-titled album by Day of Fire was one of the biggest hits in the vans traveling to Chattanooga. The band didn’t have a video on TVU for their debut, but they had hits on RadioU so I was aware of them before the trip, but had never bought the record. After the trip, I bought the record and listened to it throughout the summer. Then in the fall, I took a Sociology course at the local community college with my sister on Tuesday nights, and we listened to the record every Tuesday night. It was eventually replaced in late October when Falling Up released their sophomore record, Dawn Escapes. 
    SOUND THE ALARM FOR JUDGEMENT DAY. September nostalgia hits me differently every year. This year it’s taking me back to my Christian rock youth. I listened to Day of Fire last October when I talked about the final track on their eponymous record, “To Fly.” The band’s selling point was lead singer Josh Brown‘s conversion story, from drug-addict lead singer of the band Full Devil Jacket to acclaimed Christian rocker. It was similar, though lower profile than when Korn‘s guitarist Brian “Head” Welch became a Christian and started making Christian nu-metal. Day of Fire had a run from 2005-2010. In 2007 or 2008, there was a band member from a little-known Australian band, JaeL, who visited our campsite for some reason and was talking about who knew in the Christian industry. There are two details I remember from the conversation. The first was how he worried about Showbread showing their Nine Inch Nails/Marylin Manson influences on their twin records Anorexia and Nervosa. The second was about his hanging out with Josh Brown. “Sometimes he accidentally swears when he gets really excited about something.” I can’t find JaeL on Spotify and something makes me think that they aren’t still around, at least under that name. I suspect this guy didn’t actually rub shoulders with many Christian rock stars because I have a hunch that more of them were swearing than just the former-hardened converts. We now have more access to band members thanks to social media and podcasting, and during the explosion of Christian and post-Christian podcasts, we started to realize that “Christian Rock stars” were just like us, cursing and all. Of course, Christian Rock is all but turned into worship music these days. Isn’t time interesting?



  • “Lost” by Red + End of Silence Track by Track, Sunday, September 3, 2023

    I talked about my history with Red back in 2021 when I talked about their single “Breathe Into Me.” The band’s debut album, End of Silence, starts strong before getting monotonous. Somewhere after the album’s hooky hit songs “Breathe Into Me,” “Let Go,” and “Already Over,” the mysterious “Lost,” and the worshipful “Pieces,” the album suffers a sameness that makes it a little hard listen to in its entirety. Today, we’ll look at what went wrong on this album.

    1. “Intro” (End of Silence). In terms of albums with introductions, The End of Silence does well at establishing the mood of the album. It’s not a skippable track. The unintelligible voices are probably studio conversations dubbed mysteriously, though Spotify has lyrics posted. A melancholy piano plays and strings are added to the short piece. The song leads into “Breathe Into Me.”

    2. “Breathe Into Me” was the lead single from the album and an introduction to the band Red. Active Rock was certainly in a time of epic orchestration-based Rock thanks to bands like Evanescence, Apocalyptica, and Skillet.  But End of Silence and “Breathe Into Me” also featured a Middle Eastern sound, unlike the aforementioned bands.

    3. “Let Go” ups the hard rock sound of the previous song. The soaring chorus leading into the abrasive second verse shows off the vocal prowess of lead singer Michael Barnes, who interestingly isn’t credited as a writer for many of the songs on the record. 

    4. “Already Over” feels like a pop song in the Evanescence vein. In some ways, the song sounds like wrestling with God, but the speaker feels the object of the song is “suffocating” him. The band, though, has talked about the song being about addiction and the chorus being a different “you,” meaning giving the addiction over to God. The introduction with the strings and the piano are blended with distant-sounding screams of lead singer Michael Barns to remind us that we’re not listening to garden-variety Top 40 when the driving beat takes us into the first verse. The chorus brings back the guitars, and the song no longer sounds like a ballad. 


    5. “Lost” Red again takes down the momentum on this track. The lyrics seem to be a worship song but also seem to be about a struggle with identity. Completely “lost in you” seems like a positive thing in the context of the song, but there is a clear struggle. And how is this erasure of identity any different from the “suffocating” in “Already Over”? It’s interesting to think about how I feel about this song now versus in 2006.

    6. “Pieces” is the slowest song on the album other than “Already Over, Pt. 2.” The song talks about the Christian theme of being broken before finding Christ, a common theme on this record.

    7. “Break Me Down.” The record picks back up with “Break Me Down.” The elements of the first half are present in this song, but it feels bland.  In fact, 

    8. “Wasting Time.” Copy and paste the description from “Break Me Down.” The back half of the album has a few different parts–acoustic guitars on “Break Me Down,” beginning a song with a breakdown on “Wasting Time”–but it’s mostly the same tempo, screaming, strings for effects, piano adding a haunting effect. It feels like a “Waste of Time” to talk about. 

    9. “Gave It All Away.” Ctrl + V. Interesting experiment: Put “Gave It All Away” after “Pieces” and see if the album feels slightly less dull. Maybe if I could have done this I would have listened to the album the whole way through in the car.

    10. “Hide” adds a bit extra vulnerability in Michael Barnes’ voice, mostly absent since “Let Go.” The song turns into an instrumental called “Nocturne,” which essentially ends the album. Was it a memorable album for anyone who doesn’t have nostalgia for it? Even when it came out, I felt that Christian Rock was losing my attention as I started listening to other, non-nu-metal-influenced bands. Rob Graves created a nice composition and a cohesive album, but I think the failure is the lyrics. There’s nothing specific about the struggle or addiction. The hits often give us the general idea, but a great album fills in specifics with its non-hit tracks. So tracks 7-10 feel like the same vague struggle with nothing new to say about it. 

    11. “Already Over, Pt. 2” changes some of the lyrics and plays the song acoustically. It’s an epilogue for the album that seems to feel like a kind of salvation.  My review of this album stands as just okay, a little monotonous, but bursting with potential. But rather than closing the matter, I’m interested in some of the themes of music production and lyrics, and the history of this band that I want to explore in either a reworking of this review, exploring another song in-depth from this album, or tracking the progression of the band on future albums. But for now, this review is over. 







     

  • “You’re Still Waiting” by Spoken + Spiritual Apple Music Edition, Saturday, September 2, 2023

    After listening to the guys at Church Jams Now reviewing Spoken‘s 2005 record, Last Chance to Breathe, I revisited their Tooth & Nail catalogue today. I think that the podcasters gave a fair read to the album, and I talked about it last September when discussing the song “September.” I decided to make my Apple Music Spiritual playlist public today, so my blogging time is mostly cleaning it up. On this playlist, I tried to include Christian and non-Christian songs that I can still listen to today even though my faith has changed from when I started. Some of the songs are guilty pleasures. Others are just good. I’ll be updating this playlist a bit, so stay tuned!

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • "Seven" by East West, Friday, September 1, 2023 (updated repost)

    East West was a Christian hard rock band that released two albums in the early 2000s. The most successful single from their debut album The Light in Guinevere’s Garden was the guitar ballad “She Cries,” in which the band didn’t scream the lyrics. East West’s two releases are between two very important releases in Hard Christian Rock: P.O.D.‘s Satellite and Underoath‘s They’re Only Chasing Safety. The band’s follow up, Hope in Anguish was produced much better than TLiGG. The grungy sounds of slow songs and the gut-punching screams of the heavy songs met the drums, effects petals, and truly depressing lyrics–dealing with addiction, child abuse, and the music business. Four of the songs–three of the non-screaming tracks–made there way to Christian Rock radio. East West was a band that showed that they could write a hit and have a heavy album. 

    I COULD NEVER REALLY FIND THE ANSWERS. Three years after the release of Hope in Anguish, East West dissolved. Lead singer, Mike Tubbs had become disillusioned with modern evangelical Christianity as witnessed both in and outside of the Christian music scene. By 2008, Tubbs converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, rejecting contemporary Christian practices in favor of tradition. In an interview with Ancient Faith Radio, Tubbs talked about how modern Christianity led him to the point nihilism. Hope in Anguish seems to be talking about that faith journey to some extent. In the song “Seven,” the speaker “could never really find the answers” which were “always locked in something so close.” Tubbs sings about “the ones who consume” whom he is “becoming just like them.” When I was growing up, I assumed this song was about drug or alcohol addiction; however, this consumption could be anything from fashion to faith. But the biggest question of the song is: who is you? The speaker can’t find the answer and “just assumed it was you,” but he also fears that this hellish state he is in “will find its way to you.”  Is it salvation? Is it nihilism? Is it just utter frustration at failing to solve the mysteries of the universe? Either way, this song encapsulates an inability to see beyond one’s prison cell, a truly relatable topic–but not one that’s left so raw in Christian music.

    AND I CAN READ THE STAINS INSIDE YOUR MIND. Joseph Campbell writes this truly horrifying line in his magnum opus, The Hero with a Thousand Faces when talking about the difference between comedy and tragedy: “The happy ending is justly scorned as misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved” (19). Every fiber of my Christian upbringing wants to shout that Campbell is wrong. And yet, he states: “the world, as we know it, as we have seen it.” We have not seen anyone transcend death with our own eyes. We may hold a faith that death is not the end, but on earth, everything ends. At sixteen years old, I felt I had the answer. I could listen to nihilistic music and say, with a childlike faith, “You just need to pray harder and get your mind on other things.” Still, listening to Hope in Anguish in my car on the rare occasion when a girl from school invited him to see a movie with a bunch of people, wasn’t great for my social anxiety. Somehow I believed that this blind faith in God would make him popular among the Christian kids. But as every good tragedy ends with the crucifixion of our hearts, the tragedy of kids who haven’t been socialized and reinforce weird religious piety with nihilistic emo songs is they don’t naturally make friends.