Mixtapemotions

  • “Aftertaste” by Katie Gavin, Sunday, August 11, 2024

     


































    Many of the songs of the Indie pop band MUNA are about breaking up. The trio is composed of lead vocalist Katie Gavin and guitarists Josette Maskin and Naomi McPherson, before releasing their first album Gavin and McPherson dated for three years. What could have been a messy situation turned into a lasting friendship and a critically acclaimed band whose music explores themes of self-acceptance, self-worth, and self-discovery. The band achieved a viral hit in 2021 with the lead single “Silk Chiffon” from their third and self-titled album in 2022.  The band headlined tours in 2022 and the Life’s So Fun Tour taken from the opening lines from “Silk Chiffon” as well as playing a set at Coachella. They also opened for Kacey Musgraves, Lorde, and Taylor Swift. Last month, the band released a live recording of the last date of their tour at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. 


    MY HAIR GOT LONG, YOUR HAIR GOT CUT. After MUNA released their self-titled record in 2022, MUNA released a post-album single “One That Got Away” and several collaborations. In March this year, the band resumed their weekly podcast Gayotic with a new season. Then on July 23, lead singer Katie Gavin released the first single from her upcoming solo album, What a Relief, which is set to be released on October 23. MUNA’s fanbase immediately panicked. Was the band that had so many heart-wrenching break-up songs breaking up? Katie addressed these rumors on the July 31st episode of Gayotic in a conversation with the other members of MUNA, saying that the group is not breaking up. Gavin talks about the upcoming project being a personal collection of songs that sound different from MUNA tracks. As a band, MUNA aims for big choruses and hooks. As the members of MUNA are signed to Phoebe Bridgers’ label Saddest Factory, Gavin first showed the songs to the indie folk singer who then recommended that Gavin work with her producer Tony Berg.

     

    I FEEL NAKED. On Gayotic, Katie Gavin assures listeners that her solo project does not sound like MUNA songs, except for two songs. The other members of the group chimed in, saying that the first single from the album, “Aftertaste” is one of the most MUNA-sounding tracks from Gavin’s solo project. Katie also said that without “Aftertaste,” What a Relief would lack a single. The country-twinged single musically sounds similar to MUNA’s single “Anything but Me” and lyrically similar to their promotional single “Home by Now.” The acoustic guitar-based song highlights Gavin as a vocalist as she seems to channel Shania Twain or even some of The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan. It follows the trend as many Nashville outsiders have taken an interest in the Country sound. The down-to-earth style is an effective mode of conveying heartbreak and it’s always refreshing to hear country-style songs that adapt the style and refrain from twang. It’s unlikely that Katie Gavin will emerge as a queer Country hit producer, but the variety that this sound promises to give to Gavin’s solo career is exciting as we get closer to the release date in October.




  • “Blame Brett” by The Beaches, Saturday, August 10, 2024

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

    I’M DONE DATING ROCKSTARS. The Beaches have been included on a number of Spotify playlists, growing their listenership outside of Canada, the only country in which they have charted. Their sophomore and self-released record Blame My Ex offers summertime vibes punctuated with breezy guitars. Lead singer Jordan Miller’s cheeky lyrics delivered with vocals somewhere between The Bangles, Pretenders, Blondie, or The Motels make the album instantly catchier than their first effort The Late Show. The lead single and first song on the record from which the title Blame My Ex comes, “Blame Brett,” has over 60 million streams and peaked last year on America’s Alternative Airplay chart at number 17. Lyrically the song hides under an almost surf rock summer sound. But once a listener hears or reads the lyrics, the song gets even more interesting.

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



  • “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims, Friday, August 9, 2024 + Inspired by the ‘50s Playlist

    Earlier this year, Teddy Swims scored a Billboard’s Hot 100 number one single with “Lose Control.” The single was released last year and holds the record for the longest climb to number 1 for a single on Billboard’s flagship chart. Jaten Dimsdale, better known as Teddy Swims, has been releasing solo music since 2019, starting with covers which he released on YouTube. Before his solo career took off, Dimsdale started as a rock singer, performing with several Atlanta-based bands. He was in the alternative rock band WildHeart, in which he took the fictional surname Swims, an acronym for “Someone who is me sometimes.”Jaten also performed in a post-hardcore band called Eris and a progressive R&B rock band called Elefvnts.  While he has covered many songs from a variety of genres, many songs on his 2023 debut album I’ve Tried Everything but Therapy (Pt. 1), sound akin to the influences his father introduced him to: Stevie Wonder, Al Green, and Marvin Gaye.


    SOMETHING’S GOT A HOLD OF ME LATELY. The R&B/soul rock sound of Teddy Swims’ hit breakthrough song, “Lose Control” comes at a time of a bluesy, ‘50s and ‘60s revival in music. Irish singer Hozier this year released a similar-sounding song, “Too Sweet,” which also topped Billboard’s Hot 100. It may be safe to say that we may not experience a ‘50s revival in the same way that we’ve been stuck in an ‘80s revival for nearly 20 years. There have been blues/R&B/gospel songs that have sprung up from time to time, whether in the music of Amy Winehouse or Adele.  The production style of doo-wop sounds, 12-bar blues, and the wall of sound appear as songs and entire albums for major and indie artists. This brings me to a long overdue playlist: Inspired by the ‘50s. Something about all these songs seems like they could have been heard at a sock hop on a Saturday night at least to me. This is a growing playlist so check back to see what songs I will add.




     Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Childhood” by The Rose (더 로즈), Thursday, August 8, 2024

    The Rose is an indie rock band formed when two members, Park Dojoon and Lee Jaehyeong, started busking in Hongdae, a college area in Seoul famous for birthing Korean hip-hop and many indie groups. Dojoon, however, had signed with DSP Media, entering a trainee program. Because of his contract, Dojoon could not meet with Jaehyeong until they met when they were rehearsing in the same studio. Eventually, the group added Lee Hajoon and K-pop Star contestant Kim Woosung, who would become the band’s lead singer. Debuting in 2017 on J&Star Company, the band gained recognition in Korea and abroad, including in Woosung’s home country of the United States.  In 2020, the band sued their label for not paying the band since their debut and for keeping the band in a draining promotional and concert schedule.
     

    DON’T LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE YOU HAVE A THOUSAND YEARS. The Rose went on hiatus for nearly two years as three of the members were conscripted into the Korean military, a requirement for all male Korean citizens. Woosung, as an American citizen, was exempted from serving and focused on his solo career, releasing a solo album, Genre, on his own label Woolf Pack, and touring the U.S. with Epik High. At the end of 2021, The Rose released the song “Beauty and the Beast,” breaking their hiatus. In 2022, the band released the album Heal. Just as Woosung had formed his own label, the band formed their own label, Windfall, to release their post-hiatus record. The album was preceded by the single “Childhood,” a wistful piano and acoustic guitar-based ballad reminding listeners not to forget their dreams and not to live in regret for not chasing those dreams. The band also released a music video accompanying the single. LA-based Chinese director Curry Sicong Tian directed the conceptual music video in which interpretive dancers of multiple ethnicities dance in skin-toned underwear.

    SHOULD’VE FOLLOWED MY OWN DREAMS. There certainly is an innocent eroticism in The Rose’s “Childhood” music video. Adult bodies appear nude; they dance around in a kind of Rite of Spring ballet style–a ballet that was controversial at its 1931 Parisian premiere. The Rose is a band composed of handsome young men who participated in K-pop training. The band does not appear in nude costumes but rather spends much of the music video shirtless and in white shorts or frolicking in a body of water. The song is mostly sung in English by Woosung, though Dojoon contributes a verse in Korean with a few Korean interjections throughout the song. Entire genres of literature, movies, and songs are based on missing one’s childhood, and this is no exception for Korean ballads as well. However, childhood looks very different in Korea and other parts of the world, with parents pressuring their kids from a young age to study at private academies late into the night in the hope of a financially stable future. “What do you want to do when you grow up?” I frequently ask my students. “I want to be a doctor.” “Why do you want to be a doctor?” “Because my mom wants me to be a doctor.” “What about you?” Another kid answers, “I want to be an office worker.” “What kind of work do you want to do at the company?” “Office work.” Of course, some kids have dreams; some kids have cultivated an imagination through reading, traveling, or just daydreaming, but unfortunately, Korean culture tries to stamp that out of the kids way too early. Parents, don’t give up on your dreams. Let your kids be their own people.

  • “Birds of a Feather” by Billie Eilish, Wednesday, August 7, 2024

    Billie Eilish released “Ocean Eyes” in 2015. The future star was only 13 at the time. Billie and her brother Finneas O’Connell uploaded the song to SoundCloud, intending it to be a simple sharing for Billie’s dance teacher. Unexpectedly, “Ocean Eyes” went viral, garnering significant attention and leading to her eventual rise in the music industry. The song’s success marked the beginning of Billie Eilish’s career as a major recording artist. Following the viral success, Eilish began recording more songs with her brother, culminating in the 2017 EP don’t smile at me and her debut album WHEN WE ALL FALL SLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? in 2019. Her first song, though, “Ocean Eyes,” is a bright and beautiful song with a touch of melancholy. Following the single, Billie Eilish began to adopt a dark, sometimes gothic, pop aesthetic in many of her songs.

    I WANT YOU TO STAY. Unlike most teenagers who grow out of phases and only have a few embarrassing yearbook photos we’d all feel like we’d die if they ever leaked, Billie Eilish’s gothic phase is well documented in pop culture history. Eilish rebranded her aesthetic on her second album Happier Than Ever. Musically, Eilish’s sophomore album evolves into a slightly brighter electronic jazz older sister to the angsty WHEN WE ALL GO TO SLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? Billie’s third child, or album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT bears a resemblance to its predecessors especially lyrically. Musically, Eilish’s latest offering emphasizes Billie as a singer, particularly on “THE GREATEST,” “L’AMOUR DE ME VIDA,” and today’s song, “BIRDS OF A FEATHER.” Using a mix of guitar-based and synth-based songs adds a different tone than previous albums. Still, today’s song with its tropical house groove is really the glue that keeps the album cohesive. It’s different from all the others in how straightforward it works as a hit. It’s the happiest-sounding song on the record, even if the lyrics pack a characteristic Billie melancholy. Ultimately, “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” adds versatility to the otherwise sad girl-meets-club-banger album. Because of the fourth track, we can take this album to the beach.

    BUT IF IT’S FOREVER, IT’S EVEN BETTER. Musically, “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” is a natural evolution for Billie Eilish if a listener were only familiar with her first song.  But underneath the bright instrumentation, the lyrics hold the dark elements Eilish listeners expect from her recent work. The song is an intentionally misquoted English proverb. The proverb “birds of a feather stick together” means that people with similar interests, values, or characteristics tend to associate with one another. It draws from the natural observation that birds of the same species or similar appearance often flock together. This saying highlights the tendency for like-minded individuals to form social groups, suggesting that common traits or beliefs naturally lead to camaraderie and mutual support. Eilish twists the phrase. Rather than flocking together, Billie suggests “we should stick together” because they may be like birds of a feather, but they are in fact, human. Besides the comparison to birds, the phrase “Till death do us part” from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, commonly read at multiple Christian denominations’ weddings and secular weddings as well as one of the tenets of the song, perhaps stronger than the proverb the title bears.  Elish more graphically explores “Till Death Do Us Part” in gory detail that most songwriters would have shied away from. Eilish has been forthright with her mental health struggles, and if the song is autobiographical, it’s unnerving how the context is “until the day that I die,” never presuming the other person may die before the speaker. While listeners may feel worried about Elish–and they have every right to–, the song is ultimately about either catastrophizing about a partner’s possible exit from the relationship or trying to hold onto a dying relationship. If it’s the first case, the anxiety could be rooted in reality or an unfounded worry. So, just like every song on Eilish’s latest offering, the song can hit both hard and soft. It just depends on how deep you want to go into the “BLUE.”

     Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” by Taylor Swift (repost), Tuesday, August 6, 2024

    If “midnights become [Taylor Swift‘s] afternoons,” then the 3 a. m. edition of Swift’s latest album Midnights are the hours the singer starts winding down for the morning. Today’s song, “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” comes from the Aaron Dessner-produced fan edition of   Midnights, which tonally brings the singer back to her evermore era. In the promotion for Midnights, Taylor released a statement regarding the album’s concept. She wrote in an Instagram post: “Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out October 21.”


    BUT, LORD, YOU MADE ME FEEL IMPORTANT.  Last year, Taylor Swift scheduled three nights in Nashville for this run of the Eras Tour. Playing in stadiums, Swift’s shows have had to be delayed or canceled due to weather; however, the last night of her Nashville show was delayed for four hours when a lightning storm hit the Nashville area, and a shelter-in-place warning was issued. Rather than canceling or shortening her set, Swift took to the stage at 10 p.m. and performed her epic 45-song set, though opening acts Gracie Abrams‘ and Phoebe Bridgers‘ sets were cut. The final Nashville show ended well after Midnight at 1:30 a.m. The reviews of the show applauded Swift for soldiering through the costume changes, choreography, and guitar-picking in the rain, which the singer refused to use as an excuse for lessening the production value of her live shows. One of the features that makes the Eras tour special is the fact that Swift plays songs from every album she has released, and every show contains a few songs she rarely plays in concert. Each show contains a few exclusive songs only performed at that show. One of the songs performed on the final night in Nashville called Aaron Dessner to the stage for a rock-style performance of “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.”

    AND I’M DAMNED SURE NEVER WOULD’VE DANCED WITH THE DEVIL AT NINETEEN.
    The sleepless night that “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” takes Taylor Swift back to seems to be around 2010 when the 19-year-old star broke up with the much older singer-songwriter and guitarist John Mayer. Swift dealt with this break up on her third studio record, Speak Now, which not-so-coincidently Swift announced on Instagram  just before her mini-Nashville residency as the next in her series of “Taylor’s Version” releases. Meyer has been criticized for his relationship with the much younger singer. While Swift initially defended Meyer during the relationship, the song “Dear John” on Speak Now was pretty damning. “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” is a mature look back at a time when the singer thought she knew better than the critics, but now she sees that the relationship was an imbalance of power. And while John Mayer has never been explicitly named in Taylor’s work, fans wonder if there’s going to be more “red scarf” moments in her “From the Vault” bonus tracks when the album is released on July 6th. 


  • “Please, Please, Please” by Sabrina Carpenter, Monday, August 5, 2024

    If you listen to Spotify, you probably heard Sabrina Carpenter’s first Billboard Hot 100 number 1 hit, even if you weren’t seeking out pop music. Complaints flooded the Swedish-based streaming service about the song “Please, Please, Please” showing up in the middle of rock and hip-hop autoplay algorithms. Users on X shared their experiences about the seemingly random places the song showed up. The former Disney star has been recording music since 2015 but didn’t enjoy commercial viability until 2019 on Billboard’s Dance charts. The singer’s popularity continued to increase with the song “Skin” in 2021, her first entry on Billboard’s Hot 100. Last year besides a spot on a remix of FIFTY FIFTY’s “Cupid,” Carpenter scored a top-40 hit with the light pop track “Feather.”


    I KNOW I HAVE GOOD JUDGMENT. I KNOW I HAVE GOOD TASTE. Last year, Taylor Swift invited Sabrina Carpenter to open select dates on her Eras Tour. This undoubtedly boosted Carpenter’s popularity and played into a Swift trend that Taylor has been using throughout the Eras tour: elevate female artists but only those whose star power doesn’t threaten the main attraction. From the rumors that Swift has been repeatedly wielding her popularity as a weapon against other prominent artists to keep their albums below her spot atop Billboard’s 200 Album Chart with her own Tortured Poets Department, Swift’s Eras Tour roster included mostly indie pop acts. The release of the first single “Espresso” from her upcoming album Short n’ Sweet proved to be a major success. Critics perhaps overhyped the single, predicting it to be crowned “Song of the Summer,” a song that spans a considerable number of weeks at number one on Billboard’s Hot 100. The song peaked at number 3 and the much less Summer-y Post Malone/ Morgan Wallen track “I Had Some Help” is set to be the coveted, yet increasingly less relevant title given volatility in tracking music consumption. Carpenter’s second single “Please, Please, Please” did top the charts for one week, perhaps thanks to the boost in Spotify plays, but the song’s popularity hardly qualifies it for “Song of the Summer.”


    I BEG YOU DON’T EMBARRASS ME, MOTHERFUCKER. Spotify’s personnel had a point boosting “Please, Please, Please.” The Olivia Newton John-styled disco country sound of the track fits on many playlists and is kind of a genre chameleon. The Jack Antonoff production gives crossover appeal to the track. That’s not to say that it fits within a Reggaeton or Gangsta Rap playlist. The lyrics of the song are somewhat autobiographical. Carpenter is reportedly dating her music video costar Irish actor Barry Keoghan, who was once arrested for public intoxication in Dublin. In “Please, Please, Please” the speaker pleads with her lover not to embarrass her. It’s a song about not only doubting a partner but doubting oneself. Rather than saying “don’t prove ‘em right” about her boyfriend’s foibles, she says “don’t prove I’m right.” She’s so embarrassed by the partner’s antics that she even suggests not going out and being seen together. If the song is autobiographical, it’s an odd choice to have the subject in the music video. There’s a certain celebrated ditziness in Carpenter’s music that we haven’t heard much of since Kesha spelt her name with a $. Perhaps the song is a broader commentary on the status of big name female pop stars and their love interests who either slink into the corner at a party or leave the worst asshole impression. Whatever the truth is, I hope that none of my readers, or Carpenter for that matter, will sing this song a wedding. 



    Read the lyrics on Genius.


     

  • “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” by Shania Twain, Sunday, August 4, 2024

    Shania Twain’s third album Come On Over holds a Guinness World Record for the biggest-selling studio album by a solo female artist with over 40 million copies sold. Unless physical media makes a massive comeback, even Taylor Swift will probably not beat that record. With a staggering 12 singles released from the record to country and pop radio, the album has been inescapable since its release in  1997. Twain’s first album failed to chart a top 40 country single but caught the attention of legendary hard rock producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange who helped to popularize AC/DC and introduced the world to the imperial period of Def Leppard. Lange produced Twain’s second album The Woman in Me which was a huge success on Country radio with 4 number 1- singles. The album pales in comparison to Come on Over with 3 singles reaching number 1 on the country charts and 3 singles reaching the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100. 


    LET’S GO GIRLS! Crediting Mutt Lange to Shania Twain’s massive success has unfortunately been much of mansplained music commentary on the topic. Twain’s success certainly needed an extra push from a famous producer to bring her music to the masses, but at the core were ideas Shania brought through her own experience as a songwriter. InTwain was born Eilleen Regina Edwards in Ontario, Canada where she grew up. Her parents divorced when she was two and her mother remarried Jerry Twain, who adopted Shania and changed her surname. The family was poor. At eight, Shania began singing in bars between midnight and 1 a.m. for customers finishing their drinks after the bar stopped serving. The $20 she earned each night she gave to her family to pay the bills. While she hated playing for drunk patrons, this was the start of her musical career. She began singing with a local band Longshot until she graduated from high school in 1982 and the band dissolved. She then joined a cover band and toured Ontario. In 1987, Shania’s mother and stepfather were killed in a car accident. She moved back to her parents’ house to take care of her younger siblings and began singing at a nearby resort. 

    MEN’S SHIRTS, SHORT SKIRTS. While working as a singer at Deerheart Resort in Ontario as she was taking care of her siblings, Shania Twain was inspired by a drag performance. Years later, Mutt Lange played a riff on his guitar which Twain added a line that she coined at the drag performance, “Man! I feel like a woman!” While other tracks on Come on Over charted higher than today’s song, the iconic pro-feminist anthem with its iconic inverted Robert Palmer-inspired music video is probably Twain’s best-remembered track. It’s the ‘90s version of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” but with some implied gender-bending. Perhaps the song has always been controversial with a conservative country-music audience for its pro-feminist themes. Twain’s song doesn’t feel like an inauthentic political stance but a celebration of who she is. Twain still makes music today. Her fame began to wane after Come on Over, though the follow-up still produced hits and sold well. After several hiatuses due to vocal trouble in the ‘00s and ‘10s, Twain has released albums with the latest, Queen of Me, being released last year. Today “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” celebrates self-acceptance.

     

  • “The Architect” by Kacey Musgraves, Saturday, August 3, 2024

    Deeper Well is an anthesis to the career trajectory Kacey Musgraves should be on if it follows the progression of her former two albums, Golden Hour and star-crossed. Her latest album is beautiful, dedicated to the path the singer is currently on, which is quite different from her former record. Unlike the previous album, Musgraves opts for stripped-back production and acoustic instrumentation. A hint of her Golden, Texas twang only barely qualifies the singer to remain in the Country genre, rather than moving fully into Folk. On a first listen, the album lacks the hooks of her prior albums, but on a deeper listen, the lyrics fill in what seemed like a musical void. When the listener is reconditioned to the new Musgraves sound, the album takes on its own logic and we realize it’s the same Kacey we’ve come to love, even if there are some fundamental differences. 


    COULD I PRAY IT AWAY? AM I SHAPABLE CLAY? With her more liberal views than her genre of Country music particularly on gender and LGBTQ+ inclusion, Kacey Musgraves’s radio singles often fail to gain Country radio airplay, except her duet with Zach Bryan, last year’s “I Remember Everything,” which is Musgraves’s only number 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100. Kacey doesn’t disappoint fans by aligning with the Bible Belt values on Deeper Well. Songs that deal with non/extra-Biblical spiritualism and astrology pepper the lyrics on the album. It seems that Musgraves is the most confident on Deeper Well in her spiritual experimentation. There is one key difference in Kacey’s path she talks about in the title track, “Deeper Well.” The singer talks about giving up marijuana, the drug she had been outspoken about throughout her career, even famously smoking with country legend and fellow marijuana advocate Willie Nelson. She told People magazine that she’s moved on to psilocybin, which is a “spiritual” drug for her, but as for marijuana she says in “Deeper Well”: “So I’m gettin’ rid of the habits that I feel are real good at wastin’ my time.”

     

    IS THERE AN ARCHITECT? Kacey Musgraves in a (more) sober state tackles several topics on Deeper Well from death and heaven on “Dinner with Friends” to the healing force she feels from the earth and its minerals on “Green Jade” to the death of a friend possibly sending signals from the grave on “Cardinal.” In today’s song, “The Architect,” Kacey ponders the existence of God. The song starts with the wonder of simple wonders of the world, “Even something as small as an apple / It’s simple and somehow complex /Sweet and divine, the perfect design.” She then asks if she can “speak with the architect.” She wonders if the marvelous Grand Canyon got “there because of a flood?” The second verse looks at the speaker of the song. She wonders what is wrong with her, asking “Could I pray it away? Am I shapable clay?” The speaker is asking two fundamental questions, the first of which is asked by the LGBTQ+ community. The speaker is asking if she could pray away her faults or the shortcomings prescribed by a religious order. In the second question, she is asking if it is possible to be malleable to a higher power’s will. The chorus ends the song after a third verse in which the speaker reveals: “I was in a weird place, then I saw the right face / And the stars and the planets lined up.” Musgraves is entering into a discussion of epistemology and by asking about “an architect,” she is harkening back to pre-Second Great Revival times when notions of God were less personal and more theoretical. Musgraves’ song leaves the listeners with an agnostic to mystical answer, unlike the evangelical reactionaries to the Deists of the early 19th century. But a wistful ballad questioning the presence of a creator cannot control followers. There’s no risk of hellfire and no common enemy. That’s why the counter-argument: “I know there’s an architect, and he told me that I’m living wrong and so are you” is so popular today. It’s about controlling others rather than contemplative practices. 


     

  • “Do It Like That” by Tomorrow x Together & Jonas Brothers, Thursday, August 2, 2024

    It seems like after BTS topped Billboard’s Hot 100 with their solo tracks and their features, K-pop has become an unstoppable force in America and Europe. Of course, BTS didn’t fall out of a coconut tree. With over three decades in the making, Korean idol pop music has slowly made strides first in Asia and then to Western audiences. One of the ways that K-pop was able to take hold in America was through collaborations with American recording artists. Singer BoA collaborated with English boyband Westlife in 2003 on the song “Flying Without Wings.” Artists such as Omarion, Lil’ Kim, Snoop Dogg, and Missy Elliott were just a few examples of Western artists collaborating with K-pop idols in the ‘00s and ‘10s. When a Western artist collabor-ated with a Korean artist, the massive K-pop fanbase fell in love with the non-Korean artist, but only a few of the Western artist’s fans became a fan of the Korean artist due to limited marketing outside of Korea.


    MAKIN’ EVERYONE JEALOUS LIKE SEVENTEEN. Something changed in the late ‘10s. Many K-pop collaborations of the past were with artists who had passed the peak of their careers, making K-pop collaborations commercially unsuccessful in their home countries. K-pop idols started collaborating with up-and-coming pop stars. While critically panned, Psy’s 2014 collaboration with Snoop Dogg, “Hangover,” may have reset the popularity of K-pop collaborations. Indie pop singers like Troye Sivan and Lauv, DJs like Steve Akoi and R3HAB, and established musicians like John Legend, Lady Gaga, and Jason Derulo began to collaborate with K-pop stars, boosting K-pop’s momentum in the West. In 2018, BTS featured Nicki Minaj on a version of their song “IDOL,” which peaked at number 11 on Billboard’s Hot 100. Little by little, it was no longer K-pop begging for Western attention, being featured on a K-pop song became a status symbol for Western pop musicians. It’s becoming increasingly harder to find a pop star who hasn’t worked with a K-pop idol group–Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Eminem, and Adele come to mind, though it wouldn’t be surprising to see a K-pop collaboration from any of these artists or to see them as the lone abstainers from the trend.  


    GOT PEOPLE DANCIN’ ON TOP OF THEIR CARS. Last year was the year of Tomorrow x Together (TxT) in many ways. The Hybe Group in many ways filled the void their big brother group BTS left when they went on hiatus to fulfill their military service. As a stop on their second world tour, the band was invited to headline Lollapalooza, the first time a K-pop album ever headlined one of America’s biggest concerts. They also released their third LP, The Name Chapter: Freefall. Before releasing the album, the group released the single “Do It Like That” featuring Jonas Brothers and produced by OneRepublic’s frontman Ryan Tedder. This wasn’t Tedder’s first encounter with K-pop as he had composed songs for JYP’s girl groups Twice and BLACKPINK. Tedder also had recorded the Jonas Brothers’ comeback single, “Sucker.” “Do It Like That” was released last July and was a big digital single. It didn’t impact Billboard’s Hot 100, but the song represents two groups enjoying the peak of their success. For TXT, it’s commercial success and for the Jonas Brothers, the song feels like a celebration that the boyband can do whatever they want–yacht rock to K-pop.


    Read the lyrics on Genius.