Mixtapemotions

  • “So Contagious” by Aaron Sprinkle, Monday, February 19, 2024

    Aaron Sprinkle began his musical career as the guitarist for Alternative Christian Rock band Poor Old Lu. The band released albums between 1990 and 2002, starting as BellBangVilla before changing their name in 1991. As the Chronicles of Narnia–inspired band was winding down, releasing In Their Final Performance in 1998,  Sprinkle started the band Rose Blossom Punch, releasing two albums before disbanding. Next, Sprinkle began releasing solo records, starting with Moontraveler in 1999. He released albums consistently until 2004’s Lackluster. In 2006, Sprinkle released The Best Worst-Case Scenario by a new band called Fair.


    COULD THIS BE OUT OF LINE? Fair only released two albums, concluding with 2010’s Disappearing World. In 2013, Aaron Sprinkle released Water & Guns, his first solo album in nine years. Readers of my blog will know that what Sprinkle lacked in building a concert and solo record franchise he was more than prolific in his songwriting and producing for other artists. Beginning with 1994’s debut MxPx record, Pokinacha, Sprinkle has produced some of the biggest Tooth & Nail Records albums in the early ‘00s to early ‘10s. While his production credits range from Kutless to Demon Hunter, there are several albums Sprinkle says he gets asked about most. The first was Pedro the Lion’s  2002 album Control, on which Sprinkle has writing and recording credits. The second is Anberlin’s Cities, which we’ll talk about tomorrow. The third is the cult favorite 2005 album Phantoms by Acceptance. While Anberlin and other bands have said that Sprinkle is “like a sixth member,” Sprinkle performed with Acceptance when they played When We Were Young in Las Vegas in 2022. 


    YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE I WOULD TAKE A SHOT FROM. “So Contagious” was the second track on Acceptance’s Phantoms. It’s the most popular song on Spotify, thanks to an inclusion on Demi Lovato’s Emo Nite Takeover playlist. Aaron Sprinkle covered the song and included it as a bonus track at the end of Water & Guns. The song was also covered by the band A Loss for Words, which was a band that convinced Acceptance’s lead singer Jason Vena to reunite with the band. Phantoms is a bit of a strange album in that it starts off slow before becoming an alternative rock album. The first two songs sound like the band is going to be another version of The Fray or OneRepublic, but on deeper listens, even these two songs, “Take Cover” and “So Contagious” reveal musical striations among the complexity of picking apart and enjoy one hook at a time.  The second song is about an incandescent love that is impossible to resist. There is a little bit of Christianese embedded in the bridge: “On account of my transgression / Will you welcome this confession?” The musical variety Sprinkle uses to mix up the simple pop song keeps it a contagious song like Clostridium difficile. 

    Acceptance version:

    AOL sessions version:


    Aaron Sprinkle version:

    A Loss for Words version: 

  • “Wildest Dreams” (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift, Sunday (Updated Repost), Sunday, February 18, 2024

     In 2021 the 2015 hit “Wildest Dreams” became a TikTok  trend. Of course this was in the middle of Swift’s massive project to release re-recordings of her studio records due to her inability to buy the rights to her original recordings. In the spring of last year, she released a massive re-recording of Fearless, the album that propelled the then teen singer to being one of the biggest internationally-recognized music stars. Responding to the TikTok trend, Swift posted her own take on it with the re-recorded version, despite the fact that the singer had stated that she would release her version of Red, 1989’s predecessor and the album that transitioned the singer’s style from Country to Pop, before any of her versions of songs from 1989 would be released. 

    SAY YOU’LL REMEMBER ME. Last year was the year of Taylor Swift, which culminated with the release of  Taylor’s Version of 1989. In 2014, the album officially marked Swift’s leaving Country music in full pursuit of a pop stardom. That pursuit started during Fearless and had become a bit of a split identity on Red, with half of the songs sounding organic and the other half synthetic. It’s still hotly contested whether the Jack Antonoff interpretations of Max Martin/Shellback productions match or exceed the originals. I wrote two years ago that I thought that Swift would release 1989 as the last of her re-recordings because it was her biggest album. The album, with its seemingly infinite merchandising options, has already been projected to outsell the massive 2014 record. The critics at Switched on Pop, when reviewing Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) wondered about the future of Taylor Swift re-recording, particularly in light that 1989  had already been announced at the time of the review and that the remaining albums in the re-recording series Reputation and the eponymous debut record, feel the least relevant today.  What does a teenage Taylor and a dated EDM record have for a 2024 audience?

    HIS CLOTHES ARE IN MY ROOM. “Wildest Dreams” wasn’t immediately a standout track from 1989, particularly on a Max Martin/Shellback-produced album calculated for the maximum amount of bangers. But just as a good perfume has three notes—top, middle, and base—Taylor Swift’s 2014 record has immediate catchiness and a lingering effect. More specifically, I’m pretty sure that I’ve been humming both songs “Wildest Dreams” and “This Love” for years without actually identifying them as Taylor Swift songs. You know when you’re walking and you get an ear worm from out of nowhere and you might even thing it’s an original melody? That’s what some Taylor Swift songs do. Another thing that makes “Wildest Dreams” familiar is that it sounds similar to Lana Del Rey’s 2012 song “Without You” from Born to Die.  Songs like “Wildest Dreams” introduce more sexual innuendo than her previous work, and 1989 and Reputation seem to have some similar influences with Lana Del Rey’s earlier work.   I’m interested in reading more about Kutter Callaway’s theory about Taylor Swift’s music’s influence on evangelicals and non-evangelicals in America. In a way, 1989 is the album that Taylor Swift declared that she was an adult and that she was more in charge of her destiny. I just wonder what effect this newly grown-up Taylor had on her  fans who were raised more conservatively? Personally being two and a half years older than Swift and raised in a conservative context, it was just prior to 1989’s release that I started taking charge of my destiny outside of my conservative context. My wildest dreams were no longer so far off.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.
    Original video:
    Taylor’s version:




  • "Sugar" by Paper Route, Saturday, February 17, 2024 (repost) + The Peace of Wild Things Track by Track

     As we wind down on “love month,” I thought I’d share one of my favorite albums  filled with love songs, Paper Route’s sophomore record The Peace of Wild Things. I’ve written about many of the tracks before, but here I’d like to give a home for future posts as well as give a brief reflection on each song. As I’ve discussed, The Peace of Wild Things takes its name from a poem by poet, farmer, and conservationist Wendell Barry whose themes discuss the importance of people returning to nature and reducing reliance on the industrialized world. However, Barry’s more radical themes do not seem to impact the record. The songs that I’ve written about before will have a link. 


     1. “Love Letters” starts the record with the imagery of Adam waiting for Eve in the Garden of Eden. The song isn’t quite a straight-forward love song, with singer JT Daly claiming, “This time I’m different.” The rhythmic drums also distract listeners from thinking in terms of genre—is it rock or is it pop? 

    2. “Two Hearts” is a beautiful love song with much less nuance than the previous track. While The Peace of Wild Things is a complex album telling a love story from beginning to end, “Two Hearts” is one of the tracks that makes the record seem simple as a boy meeting a girl.

    3. “Better Life” was the first single from the album. I think the single came out at least a year before The Peace of Wild Things. “Better Life” is about a break up when one partner still loves the other. Despite the end of a love story, the hope of a “Better Life” rings through the chorus. The ‘80s new wave pop sound make the song both sad and uplifting at the same time. This song is probably the most impactful Paper Route song as it helped me see that a better life could come even after everything I had put my hope in had failed my senior year in college. I’ve written about this time before, but I’m sure that “Better Life” will have its own post one day.  

    4. “Glass Heart Hymn” Track 4 takes the album even in a darker direction. Returning to the Genesis allusions, the song evokes biblical story of Cain and Abel, in which the older brother kills his brother. The sorrow in the song is at its pinnacle when Daly asks, “Lord, have you walked away from me?” He is answered by a choir singing “Hallelujah . . . Let it rain, let it pour down on you.” 

    5. “Sugar” brings the album back to optimism with a beautiful love song. First released on Noisetrade’s 25 Love Songs in February 2012, “Sugar” is one of the most uncomplicated love songs that Paper Route has written. This is not to say that it’s fluff. 
    6. “You and I” was the single released along with the album. It was the only track on the album to get an official music video. The song is about two lovers who never seem to mesh. Their love is ill-fated and ultimately both continue to hurt each other, though the speaker of the song takes the blame. He tells her, “Run for your life” when there’s an opening.

    7. “Letting You Let Go.” While the speaker may have given his lover an out in the previous track, “Letting You Let Go” turns to accusation. It’s a faster track than most of the songs on the album, though it doesn’t come off as angry. It’s a lamentation while moving quickly. 
    8. “Tamed” is a haunting track. It’s the shortest track, 2:48 and features uncredited vocals from Cacie Dalager, lead singer of indie rock band Now, Now. The track also features harpist Timbre. The band preformed the track on BYUtv’s Audio Files . Unfortunately, the artistic performance can no longer be found on YouTube. 



    9. “Rabbit Holes.” One of the most mysterious tracks on The Peace of Wild Things, “Rabbit Holes” constantly looks for peace but fails to find it. This song is also the basis of my Year of the Rabbit Playlist.                                                                     10. “Calm My Soul.” The last song on the record gives the album gospel finish in the way that all three of the Paper Route albums do. The band has brought its listeners on a journey and it ends with a message of hope. 

  • "Madness" by Anchor & Braille + Lovers’ Quarrel Playlist (Apple Music Edition), Friday, February 16, 2024

    Sometimes love feels like work. Sometimes conflicts aren’t so easily resolved. I once heard a saying on a podcast from a marital counselor: “Do you want to be right or do you want to stay married?” I’ve themed many of my songs for this month around love as a kind of cheesy Hallmark countdown to Valentine’s Day—my thirteen-year-old self doesn’t understand me. Today, though, we’re focusing on the hard times, the fights and the make ups. Here’s the Apple Music Edition of a playlist I made two years ago. Enjoy it with some dark chocolate. It’s going to be a long night on the couch. 

    Listen on Apple Music

  • “Oh, No” (Regarding Panic Attacks, 2016-2021) by Tyson Motsenbocker, Thursday, February 15, 2024 (Trigger Warning: Anxiety)

    I don’t know anyone who can’t understand if not relate to the title of today’s song, “Oh, No” (Regarding Panic Attacks, 2016-2021).  I’ve talked about several of the tracks from Tyson Motsenbocker’s Milk Teeth, and I’ve yet to exhaust inspiration talking about the album. A lot of the source material I’m talking about comes from interviews cited in my posts for “Carlo Rossi” (Love In the Face of Great Danger,”“Wendy Darling,” and “Hide From the World.” Those pieces were based on two interviews, The Black Sheep Podcast “Tyson Motsenbocker” and Labeled Podcast’s “Oh, No.” These interviews give context for Milk Teeth, which feels esoteric at times. Motsenbocker explains in the Labeled interview that he included concrete images to balance the deeply personal stories behind the songs.


    THREE IN THE MORNING. Furthermore parentheses explain songs that are especially vague. “Carlo Rossi”‘isn’t just about a bottle of cheap wine, but about falling in love at a volatile time. “All the Old Bars” (Whose Names Have Changed) paints a picture of getting stuck in a small town and false hope that things change. I often skip today’s song, “Oh, No” (Regarding Panic Attacks, 2016) when I listen to Milk Teeth. The tonal difference of the song makes changes from an anxious lullaby to a panic attack by the end of the song. Unlike every other track on the album, which can fade into the background at a coffee shop, the instrumental at the end of “Oh, No” demands to be listened to. But the biggest reason I often skip the first track is that the lyrics feel too real. While the rest of the album offers contributing clues to what may cause a panic attack at “three in the morning,” the cold tone of the piano and the lyrics place me in bed, awakened from a religious-fueled nightmare. At that time alone, my rational daytime brain lies dormant while the worries of what could happen keep me awake. I think about getting old and the lack of a financial safety net I’ve laid for myself. I think about the people that I love dying and being alone. I think about how climate change may kill us all or how another Trump presidency may end American democracy, and about how all the social structures in place, like social security, are crumbling.


    LIKE GOD IS A BARTENDER. Sometimes when I’m doom-scrolling through Yahoo! News, my guilty pleasure collecting stories from a variety of sources I still have no idea how they are marketed to me, I read a headline from supposed financial experts Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey, shaming American young people about all the ways they are fucking up their finances. It always makes me thirsty for an overpriced latte. I know I need to make better choices. I know that I should be saving for retirement. But regarding those panic attacks between 2016-2021, I can’t speak for Tyson Motsenbocker or other millennials, but I think 2016 is probably a good year to pinpoint when our panic attacks started. Maybe we thought that the banking crisis of 2008 was just a minor setback. We were young and resilient. For me, seeing the rise of gun violence in the late ‘10s in America, the lack of any kind of safety net for the poor and middle class, the rise of racial and sexual minority hate crimes, and political attacks against the LGBTQ+ community fueled my anxiety. Then there was Covid, which was the hurricane that hit the already battered island. I’m sure that previous generations had things bad, too. And of course other generations dealt with all of the aforementioned events, but damn, 2016-2021, seems like a lot. Maybe 2022 and 2023 felt like a new normal. Obviously, Motsenbocker ended writing about panic attacks before the album was released in 2022. I’m sure there’s a better way to deal with the world, and maybe I’ll finally finish that BetterHelp application.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “About You” by The 1975, Wednesday, February 14, 2025

    The 1975 released their fifth album Being Funny in a Foreign Language in October 2022. The production of the album had been delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The album was slated to be produced by BJ Burton. Lead singer Matty Healy was a fan of Burton’s production work on Bon Iver’s 22, A Million and Low’s Double Negative and Hey What. However, there were creative differences between the producer and the band. The 1975 began working with producer Jack Antonoff; known for his work with Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, and Lorde; which ended the production sessions with Burton. Antonoff builds on the art rock direction The 1975 had been working on throughout their discography. Their previous album, Notes on a Conditional Form, had experimented with classical music. Antonoff took the band in a jazzier direction.


    THERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT YOU THAT NOW I CAN’T REMEMBER. Jack Antonoff brings a more even sound to The 1975’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language. Previous albums have been an eclectic mix of noisy rock and cafe music you might find suited to listening to a coffee shop while snacking on pizzelle. Being Funny in a Foreign Language falls on the cappuccino and Italian waffle side of their discography, smooth, at times flirting with yacht rock. And while the song titles have been trimmed to fit on your MP3 player without scrolling over and heavy rock influence has become almost obsolete, the album’s singles wouldn’t be showing up on Adult Contemporary stations. In fact, even when calm, the band keeps their sound interesting with shifting tempos and off-hand lyrics, delivered by one of the most provocative voices in music today, lead singer Matty Healy. Today’s song, “About You,” is the penultimate track on the band’s latest album. Healy duets with Carly Holt, the wife of the band’s guitarist Adam Hann. Pitchfork compared Healy’s vocal delivery to Morrissey. I’ve talked about slowly getting into The 1975, and their latest album is no exception. So many bands that I respect praise the English band, which makes me want to connect with them. “About You” was even added to a Tooth & Nail curated Valentine’s playlist called “Tooth & Nail Is For Lovers.”

    I’LL MISS YOU ON A TRAIN. Rather than praise The 1975 like I know what I’m talking about, I thought I’d spend the rest of my post considering how their influence seems to be influencing veteran bands. Of course The 1975 is influencing up-and-coming acts. Last year, singer-songwriter Knox released a song called “Not The 1975,” using lyrics from the band’s greatest hits in the voice of his biggest critic, a girl he has a crush on to say: “I like your confidence, but you’re not The 1975.” The song has bubbled under the Alternative Airplay chart in America, but it already had over 10 million streams. As for veteran acts, the best example I’ve heard was a few years ago, Aaron Gillespie talked about how Underoath spent a lot of their time on tour listening to The 1975 records. In 2014, Stephen Christian told ChorusFM, speaking of Anberlin’s legacy, the Anberlin lead singer told interviewer Jonathan Bautts, that Anberlin had played a show with The 1975. Christian said “The singer was so stoked to be able to talk to us and meet us because he had been a fan. That, to me, is so humbling.” While I can’t find a source that suggests that Matty Healy was a fan of Anberlin’s, though it’s possible, I would suggest that The 1975 have influenced my favorite song of last year, which happens to be an Anberlin song. To make the loose connection a little tighter, Anberlin’s Convinced, their EP released last June was co-produced with Chad Carouthers, JJ Revell, and Underoath’s Tim McTague.  

     Any guesses which song? I’ll be announcing it soon!



     

  • “My Love Mine All Mine" by Mitski + Top 23 of '23 Honorable Mentions and song #2, Tuesday, February 13, 2024

     

    Last year, the charts were filled with mostly the same multi-platinum stars, making it a rather boring year in pop music. There were a few break-out hit songs. One of the most interesting breakthroughs was Mitski’s “My Love Mine All Mine,” a slow, moody track that sounded almost like it was transported from the ‘50s. The song didn’t make my top 23, but I think it deserves an honorable mention. That’s what I’m posting today, my honorable mentions and a reason why they didn’t make the list. Then I’m going to post my #2 song of the year. I’m always discovering songs from years past, so always take this list with a grain of salt.


    “Speed Drive” by Charli XCX, “Choose Your Fighter” by Ava Max, “I’m Just Ken” by Ryan Gosling, or maybe “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish. I didn’t blog about any of these songs. I prioritized songs I blogged about, but the Barbie soundtrack was excellent.

    “ceilings” by Lizzy McAlpine. This song would be in my Top 5, but I disqualified it because I stuck to songs released in 2023, even though it charted last year. 


    “I Can See You” by Taylor Swift. I told you last week that I cut this one at the last minute. Ultimately, while I thought it was an authentic 2023 song and even seemed like Taylor may have written it more recently than the original Speak Now sessions, I thought it wasn’t quite as lyrically interesting as it was musically.

    “So You Are Tired” by Sufjan Stevens. This song will probably get a post at some point. I think this song sums up Javelin in a digestible way and gives us more sad boy Sufjan we’ve been waiting for, but we didn’t wish the tragedy on the sensitive singer-songwriter. I think the album needs to sit with me a bit more, though.


    “Cupid” (Twin Version) by Fifty Fifty. This is a pretty good anti-love song that would be better when I was on the path to being an angry lonely white man. The group is a mess, and it’s a little fun to see how it’s playing out. But this song stands as an interesting effort in K-pop on mainstream American radio. 

    “Super Shy” by NewJeans was a critical darling last year. It’s school-girl simple but quite catchy.  There’s not much more to say about it.


    “Not Strong Enough” by boygenius. Phoebe Bridgers is the biggest name in boygenius, but it is Julien Baker and Lucy Ducas who bring the faith deconstruction to the iconically-queer critical darlings. There’s a lot to dig into on the record, and the guitar riff makes “Not Strong Enough” a good entry point. 


    “Talk to Me” by Mike Mains & the Branches. Memory Unfixed was another release that I wanted to get into. Following up 2019’s When We Were in Love was a tough act to follow. It’s listenable pop, and it seems to deal more directly with Mike’s faith and doubts, but the lyrics feel less poignant than the band’s third LP. 


    “Gloria” by Sam Smith is a beautiful composition. I feel like the disjointed fourth Sam Smith album, Gloria,  could have been very interesting. But rather than developing musical motifs in “Unholy” and “I’m Not Here to Make Friends” or “Gloria,” it was a genre mashup. Maybe it needed to be longer. And “Gloria” certainly needed to be longer. 



    2. “Waffle House” by Jonas Brothers. Sometimes I get a little paranoid that content is designed just for me, and this song was it. It’s by three former fundie brothers on a deconstruction journey. The subject of the single, meeting up late at night at a Waffle House, presumably after a show. Whether their “determined mother” and “headstrong father” were present or if it was just brother time and their parents were the topic of conversation, the song gave me way too much nostalgia not to include on my list. The Album was surprisingly good too, bringing back yacht rock in a way that I couldn’t cringe off as a flaw. 







  • “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2, Sunday, February 12, 2024

     

    When I was a teenager, a guest speaker came to my church to teach the congregants about Satanism in Rock music. The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC–the greatest hits of the master of darkness and the half-truths of his servants. “What about Christian Rock?” asked a smug congregant, who already knew the answer. “It’s all the same,” the shiny-headed guest speaker retorted. He didn’t give a specific example to back up his claim but then went into an asinine theory about syncopation causing hypnosis, which if true, we couldn’t shop in a grocery store without being overpowered by demonic forces. I have to admit that I spent way too much time laughing over conspiracy-riddled websites attacking CCM and Christian Rock artists, finding loose connections to the Satanic world. 


    I HAVE RUN THROUGH THE FIELDS ONLY TO BE WITH YOU.  By the 1980s, Rock music was about 30 years old and had earned a reputation as “The devil’s music.” Growing out of blues and jazz, especially integrating African American styles with performers, rock music slowly pushed social boundaries growing along with counter-culture. Sex and drugs became synonymous with the genre. While many early rock singers like Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and Aretha Franklin began their careers as gospel singers, rock ‘n’ roll offered superstardom in a way that church music couldn’t satisfy. I’m sure there’s an interesting dissertation here.  In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Jesus movement in California had birthed Christian Rock, though the boundaries of the genres seemed to come after hippie singer-songwriters like Larry Norman, Keith Green, Randy Stonehill, and company didn’t chart like their secular contemporaries. Radical counter-counter culture lyrics made the Christian Rock movement insular. 

    I BELIEVE IN KINGDOM COME. I’d argue that U2 was the first successful (long-lasting Classic Rock status, hit producing) band that came from and stayed (more or less) rooted in Christianity. For the purpose of this argument, we’re looking mostly at lead singer Paul David Hewson, better known as Bono, his statements of faith (and doubt), his lyrics, and his humanitarian work. This is more of an idea for a book than a blog post. I hope to explore this more when I blog about other U2 songs.  The Jesus Movement grafted Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash into the fold, and both musicians have had an off-and-on relationship with Christian music. But U2 avoided American evangelicalism, even though, for a time, they were heroes of the Christian Rock movement. U2 were culturally Irish Catholic boys. Bono noticed hypocrisy in the Irish conflict between Protestants and Catholics, yet his faith seemed not to be about group identity, but rather about personal piety and societal change. The band’s biggest album, 1987’s The Joshua Tree, reads as a statement of faith, especially the opening track and third single “Where the Streets Have No Name.” The second single and abutting track, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” though, douses the anthemic optimism of the first track. It seems sacrilegious, but Bono lifts many of the lines from David’s psalms of doubt. Later on the album Bono criticizes Regan, the evangelical’s hero, for the mess America created in Central America in “Bullet the Blue Sky.” U2 became a prototype for the “Christians in a band” model. Of course, their lyrics make it quite easy to identify Bono as a practicing Christian, but there are other bands like Slayer, Alice Cooper, Creed, OneRepublic, Colony House, and many other bands that straddle Christian Radio and drop an occasional F-bomb. 


    Scene from Sing 2:

  • “Up All Night” by The War on Drugs, Sunday, February 11, 2024

    The War on Drugs released A Deeper Understanding on August 25, 2017. It was the band’s first major-label record as they had signed to Atlantic Records after releasing their previous music on the indie label Secretly Canadian. The album received critical acclaim from many publications, giving it a score on Meta Critic of 81%. The band doesn’t push for mainstream or crossover appeal, keeping their songs long, ranging from 3:59 on “Knocked Down” to the longest track “Thinking of a Place” at 11:10. Most of the songs are 5:30-7:20. Unlike the jam and progressive rock bands that listeners think of as commercially unviable, The War on Drugs’ sound is unpretentious by sticking to minimalism rather than ornate chords. Instead, the band builds an atmosphere often between two chords.

    IF I HOLD ON, SHOTS MAY RING. What’s a greater irony than a stoner rock band named The War on Drugs after Nixon’s extremely uncool, failed, documentedly racist program? The band’s latest album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore, is notably more lucid than their back catalog. The band’s breakthrough began with their 2014 record Lost in the Dream. The War on Drugs’ singer and chief songwriter Adam Granduciel was left adrift in a procellous sea as the band toured, leading to deteriorating mental health leading up to the band’s 2014 album. His songwriting reflected the clinical depression and alienation he felt. Lost earned positive reviews and exposed the band to a broader audience than their previous albums. The depression and alienation that Granduciel wrote about seem to still be present in the band’s follow-up, A Deeper Understanding, with the opening track, “Up All Night,” addressing paranoia directly in the lyrics. 

    I DON’T KNOW WHY I’VE BEEN AWAY. Unlike most of The War on Drugs’ discography, the music of “Up All Night” is up-tempo and the beat is uneven, speeding up and slowing down at times, creating a frantic sound. If The War on Drugs is a stoner rock band in the classic rock sense like ‘70s Pink Floyd, many listeners enjoy the band with a joint or an alcoholic beverage. The music of “Up All Night” is more in tune with cocaine or at least a strong cup of coffee. The speaker can’t sleep. Overthinking is keeping him awake, causing him to feel paranoid about a relationship. He’s “been away” from this relationship for a while, either physically or emotionally, but as the morning comes and “it’s just stopped raining,” he “steps into the light,” presumably to deal with what he’s neglected. “Up All Night” isn’t the most comfortable spot. It’s not a bad trip, but it’s not fun. It’s a cup of coffee you shouldn’t have drunk even though you were conversing well with a friend. Maybe we all have our drugs, our indulgences we need to war against. It’s an open box of See’s Candies; it’s one more episode on a work night. And overindulgence may cause depression and paranoia. 

  • “Magic” by Coldplay, Saturday, February 10, 2024

    Ghost Stories was Coldplay’s sixth studio album. The album follows Coldplay’s most avante-garde record Mylo Xyoto, an album that seemed to revel in Coldplay being one of the biggest bands in the world. But sparse was the tone of Ghost Stories. Rather than extraverted stadium anthems, melancholy piano and synth drums rule the record except for the Avicci-produced “Sky Full of Stars.” Lead singer Chris Martin received no vocal help from featured artists like Rihanna or JAY-Z as Coldplay’s star ascended during Viva La Vida and their previous record. While the album may have not been what audiences were expecting from the charismatic band, Martin wrote the lyrics as he healed from the dissolution of his marriage to actress Gwyneth Paltrow.


    CUT ME IN TWO. In March 2014, actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay’s Chris Martin announced that they were “consciously uncoupling.” The term was coined by author and psychotherapist Katherine Woodward Thomas, building on sociologist Dianne Vaughn’s 1976 “uncoupling theory.” Vaughn identified that some relationships reach a dead end where both partners feel that there is no salvaging the relationship. Thomas’s work went further, releasing the book Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps for Living Happily Even After in 2015. Thomas’s guidelines laid a foundation for married couples to end their marriages amicably. Paltrow popularized the term when she and Chris Martin split. Along with the start of their separation, Coldplay released “Magic,” the first single from their album Ghost Stories, released later in May.  The minimalist instrumentation of the song comes to life by the end of the song in typical Coldplay fashion. The lyrics are an extended metaphor of stage magic. Martin sings about being “cut in two,” yet believing in magic. Beyond the metaphor, the lyrics rely solely on the listener’s connection: “Love is like magic. Magic can’t be explained; therefore, I won’t attempt to explain the deep sense of loss as the mother of my children has decided to leave me.”


    CALL IT TRUE. Maybe that’s a little too harsh of a critique of Chris Martin’s relationship. The issue is Chris Martin isn’t a great lyricist. He’s a charismatic frontman to one of the most successful bands, and until Ghost Stories, the band had been one of the most positive bands on the radio. It wasn’t through deep lyrical analysis that we came to trust Martin as our narrator. He simply gave us blatantly obvious signs and wonders like “Look at the stars and how they shine for you. They were all yellow.” The band’s instrumentation filled in the rest and made us believe that the song was deep. Furthermore, nothing up to Ghost Stories was personal to the band, at least in an obvious way. Martin wrote songs about Paltrow and fatherhood without ever identifying his subject. Now, amid a very public divorce, Martin is starting to feel very sad feelings, but as a lyricist he relies on the same vague metaphors, leaving the band to fill in the space. And yet, if I hadn’t broken down this song, it would have just sat as slightly sad background music. And that’s the testament to Coldplay as a band. They are certainly not as bad as the critics and the haters say. They’re fine. Their music never offends the ear. You can listen to them for hours, not realizing that time is passing. And that’s the magic of Coldplay: to disappear into the background.