Mixtapemotions

  • “911” by Lady Gaga, Tuesday, September 10, 2024

    When Lady Gaga returned to dance-pop on 2020’s Chromatica, she didn’t shake off substance from her lyrics. The music of Lady Gaga’s fifth album seems carefree, but on a deeper listen, the singer bears her sole, revealing aspects of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, who lies beneath the surface of the persona. The album is divided into three acts, separated by three instrumental string interludes. As listeners get deeper into the sixteen-track album, Gaga gets more and more honest. One of her most personal moments on the album is “911,” a song that details the singer’s struggles with substances, medicine, and mental health.


    MY BIGGEST ENEMY IS ME. In “911,” Lady Gaga examines her mental state when she uses the antipsychotic Olanzapine. In a similar way that Americans can dial 9-1-1 to receive emergency services, Gaga refers to the drug as her means to escape her “biggest enemy.” When speaking with Zane Lowe for an Apple Music interview promoting Chromatica, Gaga said of “911,” “I can’t always control things that my brain does, and I have to take medication to stop the process that occurs.” The highly symbolic music video directed by filmmaker Tarsem Singh has been said to be an allegorical description of Gaga’s altered sense of reality without the aid of Olanzapine. Singh and Gaga created a music video interweaving Gaga’s message with Southwestern Spanish-Catholic and Native American religious symbolism and the style of the 1969 Armenian film The Color of Pomegranates. Singh’s filmmaking career began with music videos in the ‘90s, notably directing R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion,”  but began working exclusively in advertising and movies. Gaga’s “911” was the first music video the director made in twenty-six years. Though having limited knowledge of Gaga’s music, Singh was able to capture the essence of Lady Gaga’s visual representation. 

    CAN’T SEE ME CRYING, THIS IS THE END. Lady Gaga began experiencing chronic pain after suffering a significant hip injury in 2013. During her Born This Way Ball tour, she had to cancel the remaining shows due to a labral tear in her right hip, which required surgery. This injury marked the beginning of her struggles with chronic pain. Following the surgery, Gaga developed fibromyalgia, a condition characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and other symptoms such as sleep, memory, and mood issues. She has spoken about the intense, debilitating pain that comes with fibromyalgia, describing it as something that affects both her body and her mind. Lady Gaga has not publicly specified exactly when she began taking Olanzapine. However, she first mentioned her use of the medication during her promotion for her 2020 album Chromatica. The song “911” from Chromatica references her experience with Olanzapine, indicating that she had been on the medication for some time leading up to the album’s release. While she hasn’t provided a precise timeline, it is clear that Olanzapine became part of her treatment regimen as she worked on her mental health in the years preceding the album. By sharing her experiences with Olanzapine and mental health in general, Lady Gaga has aimed to destigmatize the use of psychiatric medications and encourage open conversations about mental health challenges.

     

  • "Unholy" by Sam Smith ft. Kim Petras, Monday, September 9, 2024 (repost)

    Between cleaning up at the 2015 Grammy Awards for In the Lonely Hour and 2020’s Love Goes, Sam Smith‘s music lost momentum with listeners. Of course, a lot has happened to the singer since then. In 2015, Smith was an openly gay Grammy-winning artist. In 2019, the singer came out as non-binary, telling the BBC, “I do think like a woman sometimes, in my head. Sometimes I’ve questioned, ‘Do I want a sex change?’” Since coming out as non-binary, the singer has embraced both the masculine and the feminine in their videos, concerts, and album promotions. Not only did the singer’s sexuality evolve, but also their musical versatility, from a gospel-inspired second record (The Thrill of It All), a Bond theme (“Writing’s on the Wall“), featured in a Calvin Harris track (“Promises“), a dance-pop record in 2020–nothing seemed beyond the scope of the singer, though never they quite matching the success of In the Lonely Hour.

    MUMMY DON’T KNOW DADDY’S GETTING HOT AT THE BODY SHOP. “Unholy” was the lead single from Sam Smith’s fourth record, Gloria. It’s a shocking song and video that made our friends over at PluggedIn call it “next-level vile.” Writing about the song before the context of the music video, and taking the lyrics of the song quite literally as a “celebratory tone used to praise a man for lying to his wife, ignoring his children and visiting a prostitute whenever he so pleases,” the critic Kristin Smith lambastes the song. And even though Smith correctly points out the literal message of the song, it seems that there’s something else going on. But because our dear friends at Focus on the Family didn’t have the video at the time of the review, let’s start there. The video (see below) is truly an avant-garde statement complete with an introduction, elaborate costumes, and a Cabaret–styled dance sequence. The Body Shop scenes–a dinner-theater-styled sex club–aren’t too graphic to be censored on YouTube, but the viewers certainly get the idea about what is happening at this club, which is MC’ed by Smith. Famed Italian-Canadian music video and film director Floria Sigismondi directed “Unholy.” She has directed videos for Marylin Manson, The White Stripes, Katy Perry, and other artists as well as directing episodes of The Handmaiden’s Tale and American Gods. 

    DIRTY, DIRTY BOY. The experience for the viewer entering “The Body Shop” is not unlike watching two newlyweds whose car has broken down in front of a Victorian mansion in the 1973 cult classic musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Tim Curry as the “Sweet Transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania” beckons Brad and Janet: “Give yourself over to absolute pleasure.” While The Rocky Horror Picture Show is still shocking today to the Focus on the Family types and even caused my parents to mutter about Tim Curry when my sisters and I watched Muppet Treasure Island and later  Clue. But even some conservative types can see the artistic merit of doing the “Time Warp.” Fast forward to 2022 and 2023 when Smith and Kim Petras performed the song at the Grammy’s, we can ask the question about the artistic merit of “Unholy” and whether or not it meets its goals to promote a conversation. I can think of several merits, though I’m not sure that these are intentional statements. Both statements have to deal with sexuality and sexual/gender identity. In some ways, the video is styled like a sexy hip-hop video–singer Kim Petras acting as the featured singer. Smith is not rapping, but the lines feel like rapping. The video subverts the homo- and transphobia in hip-hop’s past. The video features dancers who are trans, non-binary, and sis-gendered, showing the spectrum that gender can display. And that’s the first point I think the video is making: that gender fluidity is shocking to many these days, but it’s ultimately something we have to come to understand. Drag and alternative gender expressions were once kept in very specific spaces–“The Body Shop,” for example, where people go to have a good time whether or not they are hiding their true identity from the world or even their spouses. Now alternative gender expressions are hitting mainstream culture–even among straight-cis-identifying men like Timothée Chalamet wearing a red dress to the film premiere of Bones and All and Harry Styles wearing a blouse.  Trans and non-binary people are becoming more visible, and it’s creating a backlash among the vocal Evangelical few. The second point I make is the right to exist. In a democratic society, why should the rights of one religion be valued above the rights of other religions and non-religious folks? Pride parades were designed to shock onlookers, to show everyone that the LGBTQ+ community exists and that in a free society, people shouldn’t have to apologize for their existence. When I first wrote about this song, I pointed out that the possibly intended point that the song makes is the hypocrisy of a man having an affair at a sex club and how many repressed conservative Evangelicals and politicians fall into this trap. However, no matter how the so-called “Gay Agenda” is packaged, even if it is as innocuous as a monogamous, churchgoing lesbian couple in a small town on a primetime show, Evangelicals are hell-bound to push their agenda for a closeted to a conversion camp existence for anyone outside of the bounds of a monogamous opposite-sexed marriage. Many in the LGBTQ+ community grew up around this religion. They were told that if they embraced themselves fully, they would go to hell. This has scared many for generations into the closet, into unfulfilling lives. What’s the other choice, but to be “Unholy”?


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    Read “Unholy” by Sam Smith & Kim Petras on Genius.

  • “360” by Charli xcx, Sunday, September 8, 2024

     

    Did you have a good brat summer? This has been another incredible year for women in pop music, from Ariana Grande to Sabrina Carpenter, as women have dominated the pop charts. The competition for a number 1 album has been fierce with so many strong releases by Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, and Chappell Roan so far failing to reach the summit of Billboard’s 200 Albums Chart.  Besides the K-pop idol groups Twice and Stray Kids; country singers Morgan Wallen and the late Toby Keith; and rappers 21 Savage, ¥$ (Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign), Future and Metro Boomin, Eminem, and Post Malone; female pop singers held the number one spot for 22 weeks so far this year. Only Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Beyoncé, and Sabrina Carpenter have occupied the top spot as female pop acts. 


    SHOCK YOU LIKE DEFIBRILLATORS. Of the 22 weeks that the female pop superstars spent atop Billboard’s 200 Albums Chart, Taylor Swift has claimed 17 of those weeks, and her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department holds 15 of those weeks with 1989 (Taylor’s Version) holding the other two weeks. Swift has been criticized for bolstering her numbers with multiple special editions of her latest album, both digital and physical. The Tortured Poets Department prevented Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism and Billie Eilish’s HIT ME HARD AND SOFT from going to number 1. But there was another unexpected pop success this summer. Charlotte Emma Aichison, aka Charli xcx released her sixth studio record, brat. The British singer reached number 2 on the UK album charts and on Billboard’s album sales. Charli had become an indie pop darling after achieving modest success in the 2010s on the pop charts. But brat with its viral TikTok hits, memes, and nods to the “Club classics” was a call back to the discotheque after years of anxiety killed the spirit of the optimistic ‘10s. Coinciding with the album’s June 7 release, hashtags started trending for “brat summer.” The singer talked about the writing process in an Instagram post, talking about “doing whatever the fuck [she] want[ed] to” and saying, “Fuck it, it’s brat,” rather than analyzing the consequences of her musical choices. 


    WORK ANGELS, YEAH. Charli xcx’s writing mantra became a big part of #bratsummer. Other trending hashtags “feral girl summer” and “rat girl summer” took on similar brat vibes. The album continued to keep up momentum in an unexpected way. On July 21, President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek re-election and that he would endorse his vice president Kamala Harris. The next day, Charli xcx endorsed Harris’s candidacy, introducing a new hashtag: “Kamala Is brat.” Although xcx is British and cannot vote in U.S. elections, young American voters began to get excited about having a candidate more interested in young voters. Memes of Harris spread across Instagram, TikTok, and X, particularly of her saying “You think I just fell out of a coconut tree,” often with Charli xcx’s songs playing in the viral clips. Last week, Charli declared an end to #bratsummer, something that many fans weren’t ready for. The singer’s tweet made international news due to the impact the singer had made this year. Fans are scrambling to figure out what the end of this era could mean. Charli xcx doesn’t seem to be planning a retirement and cutting the promotion of the summer album after three months seems counterproductive in the extremely competitive music business. It seems, though, that Charli’s definition of brat will live on for quite some time. Will it pay off at the polls?


  • “Man” by Relient K, Saturday, September 7, 2024 (Repost)

     For some musical acts, it takes a while for their audience to take them seriously. Take for example Relient K. After three records of lyrics about Marylin Manson eating girlfriends, manipulating emotional girls to wear mood rings, and fantasizing about showing up to an ’80s-themed prom in a pink tux listening to Tears for Fears, the band scored two mainstream pop hits from their not-quite-as-cheeky Mmhmm album. 

    TOO OLD TO BE GROWING UP.  Relient K’s latest effort Air for Free was released in 2016 and the band continues to tour with the record. While the band gets playful with songs like “Local Construction,” “Cat,” “Mrs. Hippopotamuses‘” and “Elephant Parade,” there are serious moments on the record. One of the most serious songs is “Man,” the fifth track. Relient K’s early music was almost exclusively punk rock–electric guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. But little by little, Relient K began introducing other instruments–acoustic guitars, piano/ keys–and production elements. Now the band freely incorporates piano without fears of not being punk rock. Today’s song is both lyrically and musically masterful. Starting out at a laid-back pace, “Man” gradually gains tempo. In a 2016 interview, lead singer Matt Thiessen stated that “Man” is a follow-up to the band’s album-closing tracks for Forget and Not Slow Down, “This Is the End” and “(If You Want It).” To signify the growing urgency in the song, the tempo continuously speeds up until the final chorus which presents the lyrics as a swirling round. 

    I SPENT THE LAST SIX YEARS LIKE HOFFMAN IN THE SWIMMING POOL.“Man” is, coincidentally, the third track this month that references Peter Pan following Tyson Motsenbocker‘s “Wendy Darling” and Anberlin‘s “Godspeed.” Peter Pan is often used in songs and literature as a symbol of the struggle between staying young and growing up. The beginning of the song references Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, spending his summer in the pool, eyes locked on Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), waiting to see where life will take the young man. The song also subtly references one of the band’s covers, the Veggie Tales silly song “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.” In “Man” the speaker feels the gravity of waiting around for life to happen. As time is slipping away, the speaker has many impulses: hide from it, try to delay it, die prematurely, but ultimately he realizes he has to face it. There also seems to be some regret for the singer’s careless attitude in the past alluded to in the song’s lines. With millennials and Zoomers demanding accountability for misogamy and homophobia in Christian and secular media, many songs and artists have suffered losses in streams and have become irrelevant. Just this year, Matt Thiessen apologized for the problematic lyrics in “Mood Rings” after a TikToker went viral with a message about how the song stereotyped young women as emotionally turbulent forces in a young man’s life. While much of Relient K’s most remembered tracks may be muddied by some of their past statements, it seems that the band is waking up and seeing the role they played in it and taking accountability. 

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Asking” by Anberlin, Friday, September 6, 2024






















    Last month was the first month that I didn’t include an Anberlin song since I started my blog. It also happens to be the month the band released their eighth album, Vega. These facts are related, though my exclusion of Anberlin last month was more of a symptom of the underlying problem than a deliberate exclusion. Anberlin is still my favorite, and skipping one month of them still makes them my most blogged-about artist. I’ve talked about the choices they’ve made over the years from the break-up to the reunion to the lockdown livestreams to the new music to the indefinite hiatus of frontman Stephen Christian and the joining of Memphis May Fire’s frontman Matty Mullins. Now the band has entered their Vega era–a chaotic time that guitarist Christian McAlhaney has said in multiple interviews that the band is “making it up as they go.” 


    I WANT TO BE THE QUIET IN STORMS I SILVERLINE. On the Church Jams Now! Podcast in 2022, the hosts mostly “flopped” Silverline, the EP that spearheaded what would become the Vega era. I’m glad that Anberlin’s latest project exists. I think that many of the songs are great individually. I would have given anything for the hope that Vega could exist when I was dealing with a very hard 2014, and my favorite band also decided to break up. I also admire that Anberlin seems to be more of a DIY band these days. This aspect has improved their music videos. Their album art, however, seems to lack the classic Ryan Clark look that we expect from an Anberlin album. The post-Tooth & Nail Records, Equal Vision Records period of Anberlin seems to be AI-generated artwork. The band seems personally involved rather than an expensive team making Anberlin a brand. Silverline and Convinced featured ethereal forms on the cover, but Vega looks like a pair of earrings from Claire’s at first glance. Looking closer, it could be two stars or two electrons. Anberlin hasn’t always been a visually-driven band. Their first music video “Readyfuels” will testify to that. 


    AM I ASKING TOO MUCH? The problem with Silverline was ultimately a lack of focus that all of Anberlin’s albums contained in their discography. Every album had a cohesive sound, often following a formula modeled in their early works. Silverline, as the first part of a two-part EP project, lacked a formula and ultimately lacked cohesion. The band diverged into hard rock–heavier than most of their discography– and alternative pop. All of these elements had been bread-crumbed throughout their discography, but they seemed to have worked harder in the past to make seemingly contradictory sounds mix together well. For example, Devotion was a compilation of Vital, B-sides, and experimental new tracks, but they sold the concept by mixing the songs together in a flowing progression. Silverline, Convinced, and Vega don’t flow, and maybe they need more songs on the EPs and the LP to lead the listener on that journey. What made me the most disappointed was the lack of original content Vega contained. Just three more songs could have made the album both cohesive and exciting for longtime fans who would be eager to see where the ten songs fit into the full record. What may have been better, though, is EP-only tracks. As Vega took shape, the final tracks “Body Language,” “Asking,” and “Nothing More” felt tacked on at the end. Vega was an album that was screaming to be heavy, but the band didn’t want to waste the calmer moments. I wish that band had given us more content, using their two EPs as source material. But I think I’m asking too much. 



     

  • “Running Out of Time” by Paramore, Thursday, September 5, 2024

    Last year, when promoting Re: This Is Why, the remix album of Paramore’s sixth studio album This Is Why, lead singer Hayley Williams talked to Jimmy Fallon about her teenage friendship with Taylor Swift. Williams describes the friendship as coming from a time when Swift and she were pursuing music while growing up in Nashville. According to Williams, Taylor Swift’s mother was looking for a friend for Taylor, particularly someone else in music. At this point, neither Taylor nor Paramore were household names, but even as teenagers both Williams and Swift were focused on their goals, which allowed for little time for normal teenage things, especially socializing. The singers’ friendships and careers have intersected several times before Paramore’s opening slot on the Eras Tour. On their latest album, Swift inspired a lyric from an impression she left on Williams.


    THERE WAS A FIRE (METAPHORICALLY). After releasing three pre-release singles for This Is Why, Paramore released the album and promoted the single “Running Out of Time.” Musically, the song is consistent with the guitar-driven sound Taylor York had composed for the singles before the album’s release. Some listeners were shocked by the band’s shift in musical direction. The once pop-punk band had shifted to pop rock on 2027’s After Laughter, but last year’s This Is Why trades pop hooks for guitar licks, jazz chords, and frenetic drumming. “Running Out of Time,” is one of Paramore’s most unique songs.  When she introduced the song in a concert in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Hayley Williams expressed how she was surprised about how the song turned out. In only three minutes and 11 seconds, the song accomplishes what a similarly styled 70s psychedelic acid rock tune would receive a radio edit of four minutes, cutting down a seven-minute or longer album track. This is not to say that Paramore is better than a ’70s psychedelic acid rock band, but in the 2020s, being economical with time is a must. The song’s bridge offers a bit more freestyle to the already loose song. The song serves as a bridge between the album’s hits and the more experimental album cuts like “Liar” and “Crave.” The song also makes the remix on Re: This Is Why “Big Man, Little Dignity” with its hot Jazzstep keyboard finish feel like it isn’t coming out of nowhere.  


    I HIT THE SNOOZE ON MY ALARM TWENTY TIMES. Hayley Williams told the audience in Tulsa that the lyrics to “Running Out of Time” “aren’t that deep.” She explained the lyrics in a video for Genius. Rather than concealing Easter eggs, Williams gives anecdotal examples with each line, from a neighbor that she tried to do something nice for to the watch she wears “for only decoration.” She elaborated on the lyrics when talking with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, specifically about the song’s inspiration coming from William’s friendship with Taylor Swift. Williams talks about a 19-year-old Swift with a closet full of gifts that she collected to give whenever the moment called for it. Williams contrasted herself with Swift’s togetherness. Hayley said, “There are still Christmas cards or gifts at my house that I have not sent to my friends.” She also said that her “idealized self” is the person who had some extra time, “so I bought my friends some flowers.” In the song, Williams complains that her bad time management skills make her seem like a “selfish prick.” Perhaps those that have their shit together may feel that way, but I think many of us can sympathize with Williams–if not empathize. I, too, admire people who have a clear focus and get things done. I would be one of those people, except I love to be distracted. It’s the distractions that inspire me. But I guess we have to deal with the consequences.


     

  • “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World, Wednesday, September 4, 2024 (repost)

    While Jimmy Eat World purists cite Clarity as their favorite and their true breakthrough album, most of us humble music listeners would have never heard of one of the defining bands in the pop-punk/ emo scene if it wasn’t for their 2001 record Bleed American. It was specifically their second single from the record, “The Middle” which is the band’s most well-known hit. When you’re talking about hits from your childhood and bands you like, many people won’t recognize the name of the band but they know the song. Jimmy Eat World had released two albums on Capitol Records when the first wave of emo sparked by bands like Sunny Day Real Estate became popular. Jimmy Eat World, though, underperformed and was dropped by Capitol. The band then recorded Bleed American independently but signed to DreamWorks before releasing the record. 


    DON’T WRITE YOURSELF OFF YET.  First Jimmy Eat World released the title track “Bleed American” to rock radio before releasing “The Middle.” The second single reached #5 on Billboard’s Hot 100, an unheard-of success for the emo genre at the time. Steering away from controversy Jimmy Eat World changed the title of their fourth record Bleed American to Jimmy Eat World following the September 11 attacks, but changed it back in 2008. The band never duplicated their success, though continued to gain rock radio airplay. The band continues to play, but seems to be more of a “band’s band”—more of an influence on the scene than one that is listened to regularly. Still, the Jim Adkins-fronted band will forever be remembered in the fall of 2001 for their radio single, which was certainly boosted by the song’s popularity. The video shows the band performing at a house party where all of the attendees are in their underwear except for one guy. Toward the end of the video, the young man is about to give in to the peer pressure and strip down to his boxers, but he sees a girl who is also uncomfortable with the peer pressure.


    IT JUST TAKES SOME TIME. I remember an interview with MTV or another music channel that Jimmy Eat World said that they actually played for house parties like the video early in their career. The video has sometimes been called “The Underwear Song” or “The Underwear Band” because of the video. Another cool effect that viewers liked was that during the guitar solo, an actor jumps into the pool, and the solo sounds blocked like hearing it from underwater. Besides the popularity of the video, the song resonated with teenagers and those going through a transition in life. Being “in the middle of the ride” can be a frustrating time. We feel that angst especially during and after puberty, but there are definitely periods in our lives where we also feel trapped on the ride. We tell ourselves just a little further; that we can endure anything as long as it’s temporary. However, I’ve started to worry about the end of the ride. Someday, the ride will be over, but doesn’t that mean death? I think it’s time to start enjoying the middle. Heck, let’s enjoy it all because once it’s over it’s done. And someday, we’ll be too old to be going to underwear parties!


    Read the lyrics on Genius.

     

  • “Walking in My Shoes” by Depeche Mode, Tuesday, September 3, 2024 (repost)

    In 1985, Depeche Mode called their sound industrial pop. The group had similar pop aspirations as synth-pop groups that littered the ’80s music scene, but there is certainly a difference between the band’s early and later discography. This is partly due to the departure of keyboardist Vince Clark who left the band after their first album to form the electronic group Erasure. When the band from  Basildon, England, debuted in 1980, they started in the new wave scene that was breaking worldwide, including in America. Their earlier albums are often classified as synth-pop and garnered modest hits in Britain and America. 


    FORBIDDEN FRUITS FOR ME TO EAT. The dark sounds of later Depeche Mode gave the band their biggest hits. The band’s minor hit career in America started with 1984’s “People Are People,” the band’s first entry to Billboard’s Hot 100. The song became an anti-war Soviet-era anthem as well as an LGBTQ+ pride song. The band got darker on a single later in 1985 with “Master and Servant,” a song alluding to a BDSM relationship. After “People Are People” until 1990, Depeche Mode’s singles fared better on Billboard’s newly introduced Modern Rock chart, later renamed Alternative Airplay. It was the dark sound in the band’s music and lyrics that pushed them to stand out from contemporaries in synth-pop like Pet Shop Boys and Duran Duran. Depeche Mode took their place in a pantheon of mostly British bands that dominated the Modern Rock sound of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s before grunge and post-grunge took over in the early to mid-90s.


    I’M NOT LOOKING FOR ABSOLUTION. Depeche Mode’s peak was in 1990 with the release of their seventh album, Violator, which brought the band back to the Top 40 with the album’s lead single “Personal Jesus,” released several months before the album’s release. The band then beat their peak of 13 for “People Are People” with the 1990 number 8 hit, “Enjoy the Silence.” The band’s next album, Songs of Faith and Devotion, released in 1993, also produced hits with the lead single “I Feel You” topped Alternative Airplay for three weeks, and today’s song “Walking in My Shoes” topped the chart for a week. The band’s impact on the Top 40 had started to wane with “Walking in My Shoes” only reaching number 69 and the lead singles from subsequent albums reaching only the lower rungs of the Top 40.  Depeche Mode’s lyrics have been called blasphemous as the band often takes religious imagery to repurpose it for social and political messaging. But listening back to Depeche Mode, especially after hearing Anberlin’s cover of “Enjoy the Silence,” it seems that the tension between the religious and the secular is a major part of Anberlin’s lyrics. Whereas U2 may be called the band that brought faith mainstream, I think that Depeche Mode’s lyrics introduce a nuance that has us challenging our deep-seated biases.






     


    Read the lyrics on Genius. 

      

  • “Maniac” by Conan Gray, Monday, September 2, 2024

    With the release of Found Heaven, Conan Gray has been embracing a glam rock era. Listening to his two previous studio albums, there are hints at the future Max Martin-produced third album, but the singer seems to be more comfortable with the slower lyric-driven real instrument songs. But much like the other Dan Nigro-produced artists, such as Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan, the genre only appears to be a tool to help artists present themselves in their most authentic ways. It’s not a new concept in pop music and it’s becoming more and more common. Some call it the death of genre. For Conan Gray, one of those moments is on his first album Kid Krow, on the song that has been called a “bedroom pop banger,” “Maniac.”


    TELL THEM YOU HATE ME AND DATED ME JUST FOR LAUGHS. “Maniac” was Conan Gray’s third single from Kid Krow. The genre seems to follow the subject matter of the song. The lyrics of the songs suggest that the speaker’s ex has been partying all night, so underneath the poppier-than-usual Gray song, is a club beat. The song masterfully builds a story about a crazy lover who has turned on the speaker. This person has turned to their “rat pack” to defame the speaker, saying he “is trash.” What makes the subject of the song so dangerous, though, is their ability to claim that the speaker is actually the “psychopath” by calling him a “stalker and a watcher.” Gray has said that the song is actually based on one of the singer’s exes. He told Apple Music that he wrote the song in the shower after receiving a text message from someone he hadn’t talked to for “months.” The other person accused him, saying,  “You’re so manipulative and crazy and you’ve been telling all my friends this and you’ve been saying this and this and that.” Gray released the song around Halloween in 2019 along with the music video, which was themed after a zombie movie and co-starred The End of the F***ing World’s Jessica Barden as a girl whose ex-boyfriends have come to attack the two who are movie theater workers just before midnight on October 30th. 


    THAT I’M SUCH A STALKER, A WATCHER, A PSYCHOPATH. The term “gaslighting” has been around since the mid-20th century, but it became an everyday word in more recent years, especially in the 2010s and 2020s. The word “gaslighting” comes from the 1938 play Gas Light and its subsequent 1944 film adaptation Gaslight. In the story, a husband manipulates his wife into doubting her own sanity by making small changes to their environment (like dimming the gas lights) and insisting that she is imagining things. The term “gaslighting” began to be used metaphorically to describe psychological manipulation where a person makes someone question their reality. The word was mostly used academically until the 2010s when it started trending on social media. The word was further popularized when journalists confronted President Donald Trump with an obvious lie. Today, the word feels overused, but that is actually a victory for the victims of gaslighters. Because of the word’s popularity, even if it is overused, victims can more easily identify the behavior. Furthermore, social movements, such as #MeToo have given light to patterns of gaslighters. The power of having a word to define an experience gives the victim more power. And while people will continue to gaslight and fall for gaslighting, the chances of identifying the practice are raised with public awareness of the practice. Hopefully, in 2024, we’ll be better at telling those toxic maniacs goodbye.


    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears, Sunday, September 1, 2024 (repost)

    I’ve talked about “Shout” and “Head over Heels,” but neither of those massive hits is the most remembered song from the post-punk band Tears for Fears. You’re unlikely to hear a track from their follow-up to Songs from the Big Chair in the grocery store, not the album’s title track that is subtly about ejaculation, “Sowing the Seeds of Love.” Nor would you hear the later Gary Jules–covered “Mad World” for the film Donnie Darko and featured on every nighttime drama from Tears for Fears’ first album. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is Tears for Fears’ biggest song, yet the lyrics seem to contradict the easy melody of the song, making it slightly misunderstood. 
     

    ONE HEADLINE, WHY BELIEVE IT?  The syncopated guitar riff, the airy keys, and the somewhat chill vocals of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” act as a siren song, distracting listeners from the truly sinister theme of the song. Lyrics that sound like they could have been lifted from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four wrap around the repeated title hook: “Everybody wants to rule the world.” But if you are my age or younger, the doomsday theme of the song failed to sink in as we were listening to the song while choosing a coffee in aisle 13. I loved maps and the globe when I was growing up, but in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the boundaries changed significantly. The Soviet Union was no more. Germany was reunited. Zaire became the Democratic Republic of Congo. Czechoslovakia split. Communism was crushed by American democracy and all was peaceful and right with the world. Until 9/11. But those ten years between the end of the Soviet Union and 9/11 gave my generation ten years of a childhood free of the fear of nuclear war–something my parents’ generation and grandparents’ generation lived with. Nuclear war seemed theoretical, but it seems that generations before me saw it as a real threat. 

    THERE’S A ROOM A ROOM WHERE THE LIGHT WON’T FIND YOU. But today, nuclear war seems more and more likely with Russia’s revived interest in getting the old gang back together. But perhaps this fear of nuclear war comes from more provocative world leaders playing to the voyeuristic urges of the public that views news as entertainment. Who hasn’t written about the antigens in the blood of democracy after shocking election outcomes in the mid-’10s? But the heart of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is just that everyone thinks that they could do a better job. Everybody thinks that they will be the leader who gets a different outcome. And today, in America and other countries, elected officials have shed the belief in self-governance by the people. Instead, there should be a list of rules to micromanage the public. Maybe you see this at work, too. If you have a work ethic and know your job fairly well–fully trained–you can find something to do and maybe do it well. A supervisor can share a vision, take feedback from well-trained constituents, and hold meetings to discuss the progress of the product. But sometimes, the supervisor has another agenda and would rather tell you exactly what to do, step by step. The product you are creating is being dictated to you and you are in no way part of that product, just a machine in its assembly. Which situation breeds better workers? The supervisor who holds the information uses it as a weapon against the workers. And that’s how you get a work environment where you say, “I could do her job, only better!” Indeed everybody wants to rule.