Lizzo is a polarizing artist, but tonight we’re going to put all of that aside and just enjoy the false sense of positivity “Juice” gives us. It’s an anthem of pride, body positivity, self-love, acceptance, and sexual positivity. The funky bass is perfect for a drag show, and quirky, arrogant lyrics still feel like a shocking, acidic cocktail. It’s Saturday night, so I’m bringing back my Cheers playlist, refreshing it with a few more rounds. Let’s have a night filled with connection, conversation, flirting and not with overthinking. That’s what the weekdays are for. Drink responsibly, and remember to drink some water.
When a successful band records a new record and the announces the departure of their lead singer— the face of their band, it can be industry suicide. That’s exactly what happened when Flyleaf’s front-woman Lacey Sturm quit the band soon after releasing their third album, 2012’s New Horizons. After the car accident and death of the band’s sound engineer Rich Caldwell and after reevaluating her life, Sturm decided to quit the band to focus on her family. Before leaving, though, she and the other band members selected Kristen May, formerly of the band Vedera, to replace Sturm.
PULLING ME FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD. Momentum for the third Flyleaf record withered with the departure of the signature sound of their front woman. Dropping out of Flyleaf meant dropping out of all album promotion, save for the singer’s farewell videos, “New Horizons” and “Call You Out.” Kristen May stepped into touring duties immediately following Sturm’s departure. The next year, Flyleaf released an EP with Kristen May on vocals. This was the first exposure for many fans to the new sound of the band. The EP featured a new song with P.O.D.‘s Sonny Sandoval, but the rest were live songs, mostly from New Horizons, but one track from the band’s self-titled, “Sorrow.” Many fans failed to see the continuity of the band. May, the band’s new lead singer was more akin to Paramore‘s Haley Williams or Fireflight‘s Dawn Michele. Whereas Sturm’s voice is low and her stage persona mysterious and somewhat tortured, May’s voice is upbeat and her stage presence is like a pop-punk star, more like Sara Dallin or Keren Woodword of Bananrama than of Lacey Sturm, and the EP Who We Are sounded like a pop band covering Flyleaf.
ALWAYS GONNA FIND EACH OTHER SOMEHOW. Flyleaf then released a full-length record with Kristen May on vocals in 2014, titled Between the Stars. The album continued to deviate from the band’s dark original sound, dealing with lighter subject matter. Critics and fans agreed that the new Flyleaf sounded nothing like the original band though Between the Stars received “generally favorable reviews” according to Metacritic. For me, the only redeemable song is “Magnetic,” the album’s second track. It’s a love song with a killer bass intro, a kind of evolution of Kirk Patrick Seals‘ “I’m So Sick” intro. Still, it’s not Flyleaf. Although Kristen May was selected by the band, the singer felt insecurity being in the group. She stated in an interview with Cryptic Rockthat she felt that fans judged her on how she showed her Christianity. And compared to her predecessor, the charismatic Lacey Sturm, who practically brought a church service to the intoxicated crowds, fans probably noted a stark difference between the lead singers. There could only be one Lacey Sturm and she was the voice of Flyleaf. May left Flyleaf following Between the Stars, like Sturm exiting to take care of her newborn son. Of Flyleaf, she said that she never really felt like a part of the band. Sturm had left Flyleaf on good terms. As her children grew up, she began to focus more on her music and writing. She has continued to collaborate with bands such as Breaking Benjamin and Skillet as well as releasing a full-length record in 2016 called Life Screams and singles since then. Just like pure magnetism, last year, Sturm announced that she and Flyleaf would be performing a show together. Now the band is touring with Sturm. What this means for the future of the band, we have yet to find out.
Berlin‘s 1986 light-rock hit “Take My Breath Away” in its somewhat cheesy ascending scaled-note chorus speaks to the common human experience of falling in love with someone. The old aphorism, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away,” speaks to the times when life surprises us so much that if the shock of the good surprise were to kill us, we would have died happy. In other words, I may feel “so happy that I could die.” These moments are breathtaking, like seeing a Van Gogh in person, seeing a beautiful woman, or experiencing a new life. Perhaps this is what The Weeknd intended for his lead single from Dawn FM, “Take My Breath,” but in typical Weeknd fashion, the video and the lyrics hint at a darker side of those breathtaking moments.
YOU’RE OFFERING YOURSELF TO ME LIKE SACRIFICE. SinceBeauty Behind the Madnessbrought The Weeknd to the forefront of popular music back in 2015 with songs like “Can’t Feel My Face” and “The Hills,” Abel Makkonen Tesfaye has been disguising adult themes as catchy pop tunes, talking about substance abuse like it were a love song. Growing up in Toronto as the child of two separated Ethiopian immigrants, Abel started smoking pot at the age of 11 and turned to harder drugs, and shoplifting in his teens to support his habit. In the past, he claimed that he couldn’t write music without drugs. His masterpieces came from the inner turmoil of broken relationships and his love for mind-altering substances. However, in August of 2021, he claimed that he was “sober-lite,” meaning that he would no longer use hard drugs, calling them “a crutch.” Dawn FM, Abel’s latest full-length offering is the end of the drug-filled saga, and maybe the end of The Weeknd as Abel recently announced that he would begin releasing music under his real name.
MAKE IT LAST FOREVER. The video for “Take My Breath” depicts a dark club in which the attendants are involved with erotic asphyxiation, a potentially deadly practice, yet is said to produce euphoria by those who practice it. Just as in “Can’t Feel My Face,” listeners question where is the line between healthy and toxic. Viewers question the line between reality and metaphor. Whenever I listen to The Weeknd, I have many questions: at what point does it turn from fun to tragic? At what point does the binge become less about fun and more about dependence? And are listeners part of the problem? Do we have front-row seats to a train wreck–a potential Amy Winehouse situation? Are we enabling young Abel’s downfall by funding him as he produces messed up, devilishly divine art? “How do you end up in the backroom of a BDSM club?” daytime Ed Sheeranmight ask. It might sound judgmental, but it’s a valid question. Why do people get into kink? From housewives readingFifty Shades of Greywondering what it would be like to be tied up to underground sex clubs in New York City to whatever is on the dark web to something as mild as foot or sock fetish(see Honest Trailer’s “Every Tarantino Movie”), many people experience a cold sweat from something those who don’t share the attraction would deem abnormal, unnatural, immoral, or hilarious. There’s little funnier than the punchline of someone’s sexual fantasy being misread,like this scenefrom the movieHorrible Bosses, when the crew thinks that they have hired a hitman, but instead, the man is a professional urinator. And you better believe that there’s a whole category of humiliation fantasies. But on a serious note, “Take My Breath” uses imagery from erotic asphyxiation, which brings up questions about 1) the practice 2) the dangers 3) the line between euphoria and suicide 4) metaphorical implications, like trust, vulnerability, a person’s mental state when being in love/lust, suicidal tendencies, the line between partying and breaking down, etc. The practice of erotic asphyxiation is dangerous. In the case of autoeroticism, many times it’s misruled as a suicide rather than an accidental death. Sometimes partners can be charged with murder if something goes wrong. Wikipedia lists several notable examples ofdeath by erotic asphyxiation, though I didn’t recognize any examples: an 18th-century Czech composer, a geisha, and a conservative British MP in 1994. In 1983, a mother suedHustler after her 14-year-old son died from the practice. She claimed that he learned about it from the magazine. Autoerotic asphyxiation was the shocking death of a recurring character onBojack Horsemanseason 2, and it was even one of the ways that Kenny died in aSouth Parkepisode. The Weeknd wakes up on the club floor at the end of the video, gasping for life-giving air. We breathe a sigh of relief. That could have been an embarrassing way to die. Undoubtedly it would be a shameful death. Then again,SNL’s Halloween skit with Chance the Rapper has an erotic asphyxiation death beat. Stay safe everyone!
Closing 2019’s heart-wrenching When We Were in Love, “Swamp” perhaps sums upMike Mains & the Branches‘ third album in a single song: love, depression, and religion. Like the songs “Breathing Underwater” and “Around the Corner,” Mike Mainsgave an intimate insight into his writing process onLabeled. Mains talked about earlierTooth & Nailreleases frommewithoutYouandAs Cities Burn,which helped to inspire him to write darker Christian songs and push the genre of Christian Rock lyrically to open an honest conversation about mental health, depression, and questioning one’s faith.
YOU HAD ME AT MERLOT. “Swamp” is the conclusion and the title-bearer of the album. Mike Mains asks his wife, bandmate Shannon Briggs Bolanowski-Mains, “Do you remember when we were in love?” On the Labeled podcast interview, Mains talks about “Swamp” being about a fear that his wife were to leave him. Mains wrote “Swamp” after spending time in therapy and in couple’s counseling, when things were starting to pick up. The first line from the song was what his wife wrote on a Valentine’s card. While things seem to be getting better, Mains imagines that all the progress the couple made was for naught, and Shannon becomes fed up with him and leaves anyway. In this dark fantasy, after leaving Mike, Shannon finds a man who is everything that Mike is not: a fearless, strong Christian who satisfies her every need. Continuing the narrative Mains talks about in “Breathing Underwater,” “Swamp” sees the singer graphically imagining his suicide by “pull[ing] the garage door shut and let[ting] the engine run.”
DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE IN LOVE? Speaking directly about “Swamp” in the interview, Mains quotes the song “Poison Oak” by Bright Eyes: “I’m drunk as hell on a piano bench/ And when I press the keys, it all gets reversed /The sound of loneliness makes me happier.” Mains says, “I wish it wasn’t, but it’s so true, but I love sad songs and they do make me really happy because they remind me that I’m not alone.” Interestingly, “Swamp” subverts the Christian art trope of writing a song in a minor key but ending on a major chord. “Swamp” ends with the lines: “Every day feels like waking up in the swamp/ Every day feels like waking up at the bottom.” Not only does the song end with that line and the sad, wandering piano, but the album ends with that line. Mains could have ended the album with “Around the Corner,” a song that could put the grief in a positive context, but instead, “Swamp” is a song about processing the grief and it’s our realization that we are not alone when a day just flat out sucks. Some days you don’t want to be told that everything is going to be okay. And that’s okay. Also, mental health is not always as simple as illness and recovery. And that’s not a spiritual illness, just reality. “Swamp” ends the Christian Rock record we all needed back in the ’90s, but wasn’t released until 2019. Better late than never.
Sufjan Stevens‘ 2015 album Carrie & Lowellis a heartbreaking album in which the singer-songwriter deals with the death of his mother. The opening track, “Death with Dignity,” is the beginning of an album that chronicles Stevens’ grieving process and the real and imaginary conversations between Stevens and his estranged mother. Carrie & Lowell was a rare peak into the personal life of the elusive singer, and unfortunately, grief was necessary to make a personal project.
WHAT IS THAT SONG YOU SING FOR THE DEAD? Earlier this month, Sufjan Stevens revealed an album borne out of another tragedy. And while I have yet to dig into Javelinand grieve anew with Sufjan, this time for his late partner who died last April, I feel that “Death with Dignity” would get me ready to digest this incredibly sad album. The song with its wispy plucked guitar in five chorus-less verses introduces folklore and Biblical imagery to memorialize his mother. While the song is specifically about Carrie, Sufjan’s schizophrenic, negligent mother, there’s enough universality to make the listener empathize and feel whatever grief is in their soul. Perhaps that’s why the song was selected for the emotional premiere of NBC‘s This Is Us. The song both conveys joy and sorrow–the upbeat picking in a major scale pairs well with the cinematography of the show–Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) in the ’70s conceiving and their triplets on a sunny morning, the warm autumn morning sunbeams peaking in through the shutters. The sadness is also conveyed when the family doctor convinces Jack and Rebecca to say something about “life handing you the sourest of lemons and using them to make something that resembles lemonade.”
AMETHYST AND FLOWERS ON THE TABLE. Forgiveness is somewhat of a dirty word. I grew up with a fear of not forgiving. The pastor said in a sermon that if there is anyone you’ve not forgiven, you can’t go to heavenwith the bitterness in your heart. At that time, I wondered if we should forgive the person who is unremorsful? How do we make sure that we’re not taken advantage of again? Thinking back on that, I realize how many vulnerable people were in the congregation; people suffering from truly evil things done to them. Forgiveness is a process, and it can’t be forced. Carrie & Lowell is a beautiful portrayal of forgiveness as it naturally happens. Learning to forgive your parents for the mistakes they made when raising you is always a process, and when there are clear signs of abuse, forgiveness may be impossible. I’m in no position to say that a victim must confront his or her abuser with forgiveness. I think that anyone who forces forgiveness on a victim adds another layer to the abuse. Music, church, scripture, and poetry are no substitute for mental health professionals, and it’s criminal how pastors have assumed that role. However, just as an album like Carrie & Lowell helped Stevens deal with his grief, so can art and religion be a supplement to our healing.
Around 2015, I started hearing an answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” that would have made the same teachers that I told “I want to be a rock guitarist” come out of retirement and give my current students detention. These students didn’t want to grow up and be musicians or professional athletes. They told me that they wanted to be a “pro-gamer.” It took me a while to realize that a pro-gamer wasn’t a mispronunciation of a programmer. A pro-gamer is a professional game player. And while there are pro-gamers who play card and in-person role-playing games, and sometimes professional gamblers are also categorized as progamers, my students were only concerned with video games. Beginning around 2000, electronic sport, or esport, competitions became a global phenomenon. No longer were video games something to play with friends after school; they had become a billion dollar industry, and winning an esports competition could be a profitable career.
ONE MORE STEP; YOU’RE IMMORTAL NOW. One of the biggest esports is League of Legends. The game was first developed as a modification of a Warcraft III expansion pack before becoming a standalone game in 2009. The game originally was notorious for its “toxic online community.” According to a 2020 survey conducted by the Anti- Defamation League, a New York-based Jewish NGO, 76% of players had experienced in-game harassment. The developers have put in place a code of ethics and a system to report players who violate it. Furthermore, the developers have put in place an algorithm that censors profanity and other forms of abuse. League of Legends is one of the most addictive video games today with gamerant.comlisting it as the second-most addictive game as of September 2023. Also last year, the game reported an average of over 10 million concurrent players, according to The Spike. Most of the players of the free-to-play game are just hobbyists, but some aspire to be professional players. League of Legends holds 12 regional leagues, and in 2016 held a larger combined viewership and attendance than the NBA, the World Cup, and the Stanley Cup.
THEY’RE GONNA CRUMBLE ONE BY ONE.NewJeans was asked to sing the theme to the 2023 League of Legends World Championship held in Seoul and Busan, South Korea in October and November. According to the theme song “GODS” genius page, the song references several features of the game, which is based on horror elements and medieval sorcery, and the players and the competition itself. The K-pop group sings the song completely in English. The song is interesting for its apparent usage of Christian terminology. Usually, the idea of “playing god” is talked about negatively. In Jurassic Park Dr. Ian Malcolm scolds park founder John Hammond for “playing god” when he creates a park of dinosaurs that end up killing several of the humans on the island. But in today’s song, playing god is a form of in-game boasting. In the context of a game and a tournament, the song seems to be fun, but in almost any other context, the song feels like uncomfortable hubris. Maybe it’s just my Christian upbringing, but this kind of bragging makes me feel like the fall is coming to answer to this kind of pride.
In 2005, As Cities Burn released their intense post-hardcore debut, Son, I Loved You at Your Darkest. The record was recorded with legendary producer Matt Goldman, former Norma Jean frontman, and then-frontman of The Chariot,Josh Scogin. The band gained acclaim after the album’s Solid State release and their touring. After touring for a year, in 2006, the band announced that they would break up, but they decided to stay together after seeing the fans’ disappointment at the announcement. The band continued touring, though their bassist Pascal Barone left the band and Robert Chisolm of Jonezetta joined the tour to finish up before the band headed to the studio to record their sophomore album, Come Now Sleep.
NOT ESTRANGED TO REGRET. The stylistic differences between Son, I Loved You at Your Darkest and Come Now Sleep shocked listeners. The band’s leader TJ Bonnette had departed to spend more time with his wife. The touring lifestyle had been incompatible with his marriage. Without a lead “screamer,” the band turned to guitarist/clean vocalist, TJ’s younger brother Cody to front the band. Fans were shocked by the change in the band’s style and lack of screaming, but the band was able to take their fanbase on their new path. In retrospective reviews and discourse, Come Now Sleep carried fans through the band’s stylistic change and even brought new fans of a more alternative rock and less grating vocal style than TJ’s at times shrill scream. Come Now Sleep had only a clean vocalist, but it replaced the harsh vocals with lyrical intensity, which made the album not only distinct from their first album but from every other Christian Rock album released in its era.
LEAVE YOUR BAD LIMBS BEHIND. None of the songs on Come Now Sleep sound like Christian Rock songs. Every song is encapsulated with honesty and doubt. The ethereal opener “Contact” questions whether the speaker hears the voice of God or if it’s “really my own [voice] / Bouncing off the ceiling back to me.” The lead single “Empire” is maybe the most Christian radio ready, though it deals with self- righteousness and the conundrum of those who grow up “good” in the church. Few songs in the Christian Rock cannon explore this perspective in earnest. “The Hoard” talks about grace and the “good boys who keep their livers clean / And smoke out of their lungs.” The other album tracks work between a dichotomy of ambient musings and hard rock heart-wrenchers before ending on the nearly 13-minute closer, “Timothy,” a song about the suicide of the band’s friend Timothy Jordan II, a touring member of The All-American Rejects and the keyboardist for Jonezetta before their debut popularity. Today’s song “Tides,” along with the album’s preceding track “New Sun,” has more of the rock formula but includes ambient guitar elements. It’s one of the least lyrically accessible tracks on the album. Whereas many of the other tracks are mostly about boys and the “sins of the flesh” pulling boys away from the church, “Tides” and “New Sun” are much more metaphorical. In “New Sun,” the lady is either dead or a symbol for sex. In “New Sun,” the speaker claims: “soon she’ll be my new sun,” and in “Tides,” he claims: “she’s now my new sun.” But as “Tides” goes on, the speaker states: “Automated exchanges make us not lovers / But feigners, we are only strangers.” Whereas whoever this woman is is interpreted as the “sun,” the moon in the song is not defined, though the song is more about the moon than the sun as the song is called “Tides.” The song ends with the speaker saying: “leave your bad limbs behind / For they are conduits . . . To our hearts.” When Josh Taylor, a reviewer of JesusFreaks Hideout.com gave the album 4.5 stars out of 5, he admitted: “Honestly, I’m fairly hesitant to say much of anything final about the lyrical content of Come Now Sleep because, in the same way that Son, I Loved You at Your Darkest rewarded you with repeated listens, Come Now Sleep deepens in meaning and substance with each and every listen.” I must admit that, while I’ve sat with the more sardonic, straightforward songs on the album, the pair of “New Sun” and “Tides” still have an obscured meaning to me. Maybe I have to sleep on it.
In Western North Carolina, we had two modern rock radio stations. From upstate South Carolina there was 93.3 “ The Planet,” an Active Rock radio station that played lots of ‘90s rock and neo-90s rock. They loved grunge and post-grunge. They played Nickelback, Seether, P.O.D., Flyleaf, Puddle of Mudd, and that kind of music. Then there was Charlotte’s 106.5 “The End,” an Alternative rock station. While playing much of the same music, they also featured some newer groups, such as Silversun Pickups, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and the occasional The Almost or Saosin song. The Starting Line was one of those emerging bands that was starting to be picked up on radio. The first single, “Island,” from the band’s third and final (latest) LP, Direction, was a kind of break out for the band to mainstream alternative rock. The band had toured on their two previous albums and built up a fan base thanks to venues like the Vans Warped Tour, but some band members grew tired of touring, while others got involved with other projects.
WAITING TOO LONG FOR A SHIP TO COME. I wasn’t fond of other Starting Line albums, but the songs on Direction had a lot going on. Whether it was the summery campfire sounding song “Something Left to Give,” the too-old-for-my-youth song “21,” or the tongue-in-cheek “Birds,” Direction was on of my favorite summer of ‘09 albums. “Island” is a great example of layers in alternative rock. Based on what lead singer/bassist Kenny Vasoli calls a “pretty-ugly chord,” the song builds with some interesting drumming and with some Calypso-sounding elements. The song talks of the urge to “sail away” with a loved one and leave their old lives behind. The music video finds the band shipwrecked on an island that seems to have suffered a hurricane. In one scene, there’s a guitar case and in another the band gear is floating out to sea. The video version differs from the album version in that the video ends on a fade out, whereas the album version ends with a more dramatic drumming and chorus.
Tornado damage near Ringgold, GA, April 27, 2011: source.
IT SEEMS THAT THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER. This line was my mantra in college for a while. However, whenever I uttered it, it seemed the opposite happened—from credits not adding up to housing falling through. There was even the April 27, 2011–ten years ago yesterday— tornado outbreak that devastated the community the semester before my student teaching. Looking back at this song, I certainly missed the point. The message of the song is that life is hard and you rarely catch a break. Some days things start off pretty good, like waking up fully rested before your alarm and listening to a good song. The sun is shining and you realize there’s not too much pressing this day. However, quickly problems start piling up, and everything starts resolving the exact opposite way. A few fruitless missions too many and you wind up angry with the world, with the old man who’s not wearing a mask, with the department store for having a crappy selection, and you just want to be home–those are the times when you need to “keep a hold on and don’t let go.”
Today, I will update my Angsty Aughts playlist. Rather than solely focusing on Emo, I decided to expand to the angsty sounds of Nu Metal, post-grunge, and even pop that touched on that high school nerve of some of us growing up in the ’00s. There are certainly some great angsty songs from the ’90s and the ’10s, but today we focus on the ’00s. So if you’re ready, throw up your fist and enjoy the music of youth culture from the turn of the millennium!
In 2022, Relient K’s official account posted a comment on TikToker Kirby MacKenzie’s video pointing out the problematic lyric to the band’s 2003 once fan favorite, “Mood Rings.” The video’s caption reads “Therapy isn’t enough[.] I need Christian punk band Relient K to apologize for this song from 2003.” Relient K wrote back: “We had a lot of growing and learning to do, still do!” While some Christian bands have doubled down on problematic messaging regarding issues of homo/transphobia, nationalism, and sexism; Relient K has taken the stance with many of their deconstructionist listeners at not taking their joke songs too seriously. A song like “Mood Rings” transported into the 2020s feels completely out of place. But in 2003, was part of a sexist zeitgeist that existed both in the cultures of pop-punk and in evangelical youth culture.
AND I’VE CONTRIVED SOME SORT OF A PLAN TO HELP MY FELLOW MAN. “Mood Rings” is the second track on Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right . . . But Three Do. The quirky album is mostly filled with tracks that don’t make a theological point, at least until later in the tracklist. But when lead singer Matt Thiessen isn’t making statements about God, he’s talking about relationships. Relient K’s lyrics in retrospect feel like trashy teen magazine column advice that no mature adult would heed. But to the millennial teens listening to Thiessen crafted a worldview about sex and gender based on stereotypes. “Mood Rings” was an especially damaging song as it showed an emotionally immature speaker reducing girls to their emotions. The song’s speaker comes up with a plan to “get emotional girls to all wear mood rings.” In the song’s bridge, the speaker interprets what the different colors of the mood ring mean. Of course, mood ring readings are based on body temperature, and there is no scientific evidence that a person’s mood can be read based on the ring’s color. If “Mood Rings was just one of the scores of problematic jams from the angsty aughts, we probably would only talk about it along with other damaging songs like Paramore’s “Misery Business” and 30h!3’s “DONTTRUSTME” are a couple of examples of sexist lyrics that seem out of place in the 2020s. The biggest problem with Relient K’s “Mood Rings” is how the lyrics were a baptized version of sexism, particularly for Christian youth groups.
SHE SAID TO ME THAT SHE’S SO STRESSED OUT THAT IT’S SOOTHING.For some youth groups, the ‘90s and ‘00s youth pastor sermon illustrations citing episodes of Home Improvementand the fundamental misunderstanding between husband and wife Tim and Jill Taylor were commonplace. Rather than youth leaders teaching a path to understanding and compromise, boys were taught women’s minds were “a complex infrastructure,” inscrutable to a simple male. To make the misunderstanding even worse, Relient K lent their name to a book titled The Complex Infrastructure Known as the Female Mind: According to Relient K, the name taken from the final lines of “Mood Rings.” Rather than categorizing the moods of women, the book categorizes girls based on characteristics, for example, “The Overachiever” and “The Homecoming Queen.” The band later stated that the writer Mark Nichols wrote the book and sent it to the band for an endorsement. Just as the band apologized for “Mood Rings,” guitarist Matthew Hoopes apologized for the book based on “Mood Rings.” Sexism in the church has been harmful to all. I’m inclined to say that Relient K’s participation was youthful inexperience thanks to a culture that perpetuated it. With maturity, the members of the band could see how harmful their participation in it was. And how ridiculous were all those arguments in youth group? “Mood Rings” claims that changing one’s emotions drastically (as teenagers often do) is feminine. Boys never do that. Girls are too emotional because of their hormonal imbalances, that’s why one can never be president. They can never have access to the nuclear codes! I think of the youth group leaders and Christian school teachers who said this and who probably voted for the most emotionally unstable president in American history, who just happens to be male. So, while “Mood Rings” is a toxic song, I like that there is a redemption story. Even if it messed us up for twenty years.
Mixtapemotions 