Mixtapemotions

  • “Who” by Jimin, Saturday, December 21, 2024

    BTS went on hiatus in 2022 in order for its seven members to complete their military service as required by South Korean law. The boy band has been the most successful K-pop act to date, conquering not only Korean charts but also Billboard’s Hot 100. However, the height of their success coincided with the members approaching their late 20s. Normally, South Korean males are conscripted before the age of 30. BTS’s success prompted lawmakers to question whether or not pop stars could join the list of those exempted from serving their country in the military because they served the country culturally. Olympic gold medal winners, for example, are exempted from military service. 


    WE’VE NEVER MET, BUT SHE’S ALL I SEE AT NIGHT. In 2022, Jin was the first BTS member to join the military. J-Hope was next in April, and then SUGA in September. In December, Jung Kook, V, Jimin, and RM enlisted. This June, Jin was the first member to finish his service, and J-Hope followed in October. With the hurdle of fulfilling their legal obligations to the South Korean government, the group decided to focus on solo projects. The members had previously released singles and albums, starting with RM’s self-titled mixtape. Just before enlisting, Jin released “The Astronaut,” a song written by Coldplay’s Chris Martin. While solo efforts by each member of BTS have proven successful, Jung Kook and Jimin each topped Billboard’s Hot 100, first Jung Kook’s “Seven” and then Jimin’s “Like Crazy.” Following up “Like Crazy,” Jimin released the album Muse. The single “Who” became a Billboard Global 200 number 1 hit for two consecutive weeks. Just as BLACKPINK has seen new levels of success with Rosé, JENNIE, and LISA’s solo careers, perhaps BTS’s future success is solo.


    TELL ME WHY I HAVEN’T FOUND HER. For some rock-leaning music critics, the K-pop universe and the BTS galaxy feel like novelty acts. After all, you can throw money into production and get a listenable product. K-pop tends to follow Western music trends, and this year, rock was a clear influence on Jimin’s “Who” as well as Rosé’s “APT.” and a growing number of K-pop rock bands like DAY6, which gained popularity this year. But BTS had been flirting with rock since their 2018 Love Yourself ‘Answer’when they included rock remixes of two singles, “DNA” and “Fake Love.” The group’s moody 2020 single “Black Swan” included a guitar riff similar to Jimin’s 2023 hit “Like Crazy,” which went in a more rock direction when “Black Swan” took a more trap-beat hip-hop direction. “Who” received rock remixes, and BTS’s continued association with Coldplay has made Coldplay more of a pop act and BTS more of a rock act. SUGA’s inclusion on Halsey’s remix of “Lilith” further acted as a bridge between the synthetic pop and rock. Whatever genre BTS or its members claim, “Who” was a big hit this year on Spotify, especially in South Korea. Even after Rosé’s “APT.” became a global hit, “Who” continued to sit atop Korea’s Spotify charts and is even at the top of today’s daily chart. Time will tell what the future of BTS will look like, but in 2024, Jimin is king. 


    Read the lyrics on Genius
     



  • “Car Keys” (Ayla) by Alok ft. Ava Max + Along for the Ride: Apple Music Edition, Friday, December 20, 2024

     


    Road trips are an opportunity to listen to music you don’t usually listen to. The hours in the car and the new scenery take us out of our daily lives and let us experiment with something new. Sometimes we even bring part of that vacation home with us. Today’s song is a vehicle to bring my Apple Music edition of Along for the Ride, a playlist I made for road trips. Maybe you have a lot of travel for the holidays and want a break from Christmas music? Hope you have a great trip!


    Listen to Along for the Ride on AppleMusic.

  • “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish, Thursday, December 19, 2024


    I’ve been ruminating on the Barbie movie for a year and a half now. I didn’t write about it after I watched it last August, though several of the film’s themes have sat with me, and I think it’s time to look back at this film as a deciding moment in America’s culture war that has culminated in the re-election of Donald Trump in November. Greta Gerwig’s allegory, Barbie, is the antithesis of the America in the Republican future just a little over a month away. To be clear, neither Barbieland nor the real-world Venice Beach is utopian. Barbieland is matriarchal until Ken (Ryan Gosling) teaches the other Kens about patriarchy. The film shows a world of smart Barbies, doctors, lawyers, judges, astronauts, scientists —and Ken dolls who “beach” as a profession, waiting for a Barbie to give them attention. Margot Robbie as the archetypal blonde Barbie feels dissatisfied with living in a place where “Every day is the best day ever, and every night is girls’ night, from now until forever,” venturing out where the world is not plastic.



    I USED TO KNOW, BUT NOW I’M NOT SURE. Released on July 21 in the United States, Barbie was the highest-grossing film of 2023. As a PG-13 comedy, the 2001 campy Legally Blonde feels like an obvious influence on Barbie. The strong-female-driven cast builds on the trend of films like Spy, Ghostbusters, Ocean’s Eight, and Greta Gerwig’s previous films like Ladybird. Many reviewers have probably given a great interpretation of Barbie as a feminist allegory, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the symbolism. A film like Barbie could fill volumes due to its multiple levels of interpretation. However, I would like to focus on the backlash to the film, particularly by men who felt that the film was either attacking them or simply not for them. I think that both of these issues are related. Of course, not every film is made for everyone, and a strong female cast often guarantees low male turnout. But why is that? A strong male lead in a film doesn’t necessarily mean that few women will watch the movie. I think it’s a difference between how girls and boys are raised. In today’s world, girls are educated much in the same way as boys. While opportunities may not actually be the same, most educators and school systems have a disposition of equality, yet for decades, the math and science careers were mostly dominated by men. When picking role models, it wouldn’t be unheard of for a girl to pick a famous male in a field she hoped to enter one day. But how many straight-cis-gendered boys had female role models? What about today? If we have met any benchmarks in an equitable society, this question feels asinine, especially when women have pioneered work in previously male-dominated fields. But still, there are fathers, pastors, uncles, and even teachers who would discourage a young man from taking a female role model, may turn the otherwise straight boy gay. It’s an absurd belief given that girls have been educated with male role models. 


    JUST SOMETHING YOU PAID FOR. There were at least four factors that made the live-action adaptation of Barbie work. First, the nostalgia for the Mattel doll and some of its history is woven into the story, creating, bringing back old fans, creating new ones, or at the very least giving the viewer an appreciation for Barbie culture. Second was the smart writing. Greta Gerwig uses multiple levels of interpretation and irony to develop Barbie as a feminist symbol, reappropriating the doll from its sometimes arguably subversive history. Gerwig created characters with different views about who Barbie is and what she symbolizes, and all viewpoints seem valid in the film. The third success is the cast. The top-billed actors, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, are not just pretty faces. Gosling’s performance as the himbo Ken is arguably one of his best roles. Besides Gosling, most of the actors do not stray much from the types of characters that they have played in other roles. The handsome Simu Liu is an innocent dancing Ken doll, not too unlike an action figure without the superpowers of his Marvel character, Shang-Chi. Kate McKinnon,  Michael Cera, and America Ferrera similarly bring a connection to their past work. But I would argue that Will Ferrell’s role as the Mattel CEO blesses Gerwig as a new generation of comedy writers. Ferrell spent the ‘90s and ‘00s playing some of the most ridiculous roles on Saturday Night Live and the silver screen. It’s not that Ferrell’s talent outshines Robbie, McKinnon, Ferrera, or the others in the movie; it’s a kind of passing the torch to a new generation of actors, and in this case, actresses. 


    LOOKED SO ALIVE. The final ingredient that made Barbie work is the music. Leading up to the film’s release, singles were released from the album. Much of the music in the film is original and features some of the current top pop artists. The first single, “Dance the Night Away,” came from Dua Lipa, who also appears in the film. Other artists such as Tame Impala, Khalid, Lizzo, Charli xcx, Sam Smith, Haim, and Ava Max rounded out the soundtrack with different genres. Aqua’s 1997 hit “Barbie Girl” made an appearance on the soundtrack, sampled in the Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice track “Barbie World.” Matchbox Twenty’s 1996 song “Push” also makes a hilarious entry into the film, though only the film’s score includes a version of Ryan Gosling singing the “man anthem.”  The biggest single from the album was the last single, Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” Eilish earned a second British chart number 1 and a second Academy Award. The song was a hit before the film was released, but featured in the movie, “What Was I Made For?” represents a meta-awareness Barbie has when she meets the dolls’ inventor, the late Ruth Handler. A review of Eilish’s hit by the fundamentalist Christian site PluggedIn.com failed to read the lyrics of “What Was I Made For?” outside of the context of Christianity. On a literal level, Handler is like Barbie’s god; she created playthings for her children and started Mattel with her husband to sell the product to parents and children who adult-styled dolls to fantasize about the child’s own grown-up life. Yet, Eilish’s god metaphor isn’t the only way to read the lyrics. The song also seems to have something to do with transactional relationships, when Eilish talks about “Something you paid for.” It also seems to deal with pop-stardom. Eilish has sometimes been called an industry plant which is a term that belittles a star’s efforts and focuses only on the money record labels pour into artists who “came out of nowhere.” “What Was I Made For?” could be interpreted to be a discussion about fame, essentially, what was the point of a star’s meteoric growth? Is there a purpose? Finally, the song could be about the human experience, especially the feminine side of humanity. The ‘50s style that Eilish evokes along with the “classic Barbie” aesthetic the song’s music video depicts certainly conjures images of the kept housewife of that era. What is the point of life? What is the point of being made for someone else? Barbie was not just a celebration of the doll but an invitation to a deeper discussion, just as “What Was I Made For?” was an amendment to the film’s discussion and a stand-alone discussion. 



     Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Gravity” by John Mayer, Wednesday, December 18, 2024


    Continuum was John Mayer’s third critically and commercially successful album. It combined soft rock, blues, and folk rock. After a series of tours and the live album Try! with Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan billed as the John Mayer Trio, Mayer had become a renowned musician’s musician. Drawing comparisons to and striking alliances with classic rock artists such as Tom Petty and Eric Clapton, Mayer was a presence on pop charts and adult contemporary radio. Continuum contained one of Mayer’s biggest pop hits, “Waiting for the World to Change.” Still, Mayer’s reputation as a pop star in the public eye would suffer from a series of cringy statements and not-so-age-appropriate associations following his 2006 album.  


    STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME. In 2005, John Mayer teamed up with Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan to cover classic blues songs on the album Try! Mayer also included two songs from his album Heavier Things and two songs from the upcoming album, Continuum. One of the new songs was “Gravity.” A year before recording Continuum, Mayer determined the name of the album and decided to explore the theme of time. He told Esquire: “I’m obsessed with time lately, constantly crunching the numbers to get some sense of where I stand in the continuum.” The title “Gravity” has nothing to do with time, but the song’s themes explore what it means to be stuck in a rut. Gravity symbolizes the speaker’s limitations, and while not directly stated, time still appears to be the enemy, limiting the speaker’s immortality. In concert, Mayer said that “Gravity” was the “most important song [he’s] ever written” and that the song is “a time capsule.”


    JUST KEEP ME WHERE THE LIGHT IS. “Gravity” is an adult rock song with blues and folk rock guitars. It’s a simple, lazy afternoon musically with a bit of an existential crisis in the lyrics. While John Mayer has called the song his most important song, the one that synthesized his ideas and themes from Continuum, “Gravity” feels quite straightforward. Maybe it was an artist’s struggle. Mayer was by critical acceptance at his peak, but perhaps he felt that he could have been doing more musically. Many people, even when, they feel they are trying their best feel like they are in a rut, whether it is language learning or mastering the fretboard. Sometimes the most complex idea that you try to explain comes in a synthesized explanation. Maybe that’s the gravity we’re trying to escape, or maybe just defy. 


    Read the lyrics on Genius.


     

  • "Ain't It Fun" by Paramore, Tuesday, December 17, 2024 (repost)

     

    Paramore‘s second album Riot! made the pop-punk emo band of late millennials famous with the summer Alternative Rock and pop radio hit “Misery Business,” which is still arguably the band’s signature hit. Usually, though, a band’s signature hit is either their highest charting song or they’re located within the era of the band’s commercial peak. However, seven years after the summer of “Misery Business,” Paramore charted the highest with their 2014 final single from their eponymous record, “Ain’t It Fun.” This shift from emo to more conventional pop was in line with fellow bands Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco, which also did. Just as the scene kids were growing up as every generation of rebellious rock ‘n’ roll had, “Ain’t It Fun” is a song about growing up and realizing that the world isn’t as easy as you once thought it was. It may not be punk-rock, but it certainly still has some emo sentimentality. 

    WHERE YOU’RE FROM, YOU MIGHT BE THE ONE WHO’S RUNNIN’ THINGS. Every Paramore record comes with its share of drama. In fact, the formation of the band was unorthodox. Hayley Williams signed a record deal with Atlantic Records at the age of 14, the label wanted her to be a pop star. Williams, however, wanted to be a rock singer. Williams formed Paramore with friend Zac Farro, who had played together in a group called The Factory. The band was signed to a niche, subsidiary label Fueled by Ramen, while Williams was signed to Atlantic Records. This uneven record deal was one of the controversies that kept changing band members over and over throughout the band’s tenure. Issues between band members and resolutions made band membership like a revolving door. At the time of the band’s self-titled album, drummer Zac Farro had departed when his brother Josh was ousted for writing a homophobic blog post. This is the time that Underoath and The Almost‘s Aaron Gillespie stepped in as the band’s touring drummer. The video for “Ain’t It Fun” features Williams, guitarist Taylor York, and bassist Jeremy Davis. Davis would leave the group due to a lawsuit for collecting royalties to “Ain’t It Fun,” which was based on a loop recorded by Taylor York. The drama from this album’s touring cycle along with Williams’ divorce from New Found Glory‘s lead vocalist Chad Gilbert would lead to the lyrical content of the band’s 2017 record After Laughter. 

    IT’S EASY TO IGNORE TROUBLE, WHEN YOU’RE LIVIN’ IN A BUBBLE. “Ain’t It Fun” is a sarcastic song Williams wrote about herself. She called it a “kick in the butt” when she was missing her hometown of Franklin, Tennessee, after moving to Los Angeles. At first, I thought the song sounded a little mean-spirited when it says: “Don’t go cryin’ to your momma, ’cause you’re all alone in the big world” and it doesn’t help that a gospel choir is amplifying the bridge, almost mocking the listener of the song.” However, the song takes on a different meaning knowing that Williams was writing to herself in the second person. We’re often hardest on ourselves, and our inner second-person dialogue can be pretty harsh. Williams was 28 at the time of the move, and she felt that it was time to live away from the safety of her hometown. Even though she was a star, coming home to family can be difficult when you’re away for such a long time. And even though you are making your own money, you feel that family is a safety net in case something doesn’t work out. So many in this generation rely on their families for much longer than the previous generation. The effect of the economy’s instability on the millennial workforce will have dire consequences on our future stability.  There are so many millennials, even older than me, still relying on their parents. I feel anxious whenever I think about what if Korea doesn’t work out or something happens that makes me go back to relying on my parents for a bit. I should be saving for retirement. I think about my parents who haven’t saved for retirement just as many baby boomers haven’t because they supported their millennial children for longer than their parents had supported them. And while it’s kind of nice knowing that you can go and buy a cake and eat it for breakfast and not make your bed if you don’t want to, growing up, you start to see the effects of your choices. And that ain’t fun.

     

  • “Wish” by Paper Route, Monday, December 16, 2024 (repost)

     


    Paper Route signed to Universal Motown before releasing their debut LP, Absence, following their Are We All Forgotten EP. Only the title track of the EP appeared on Absence, as the band stepped further away from their Americana roots and more into the realm of retro-synth pop. Bassist/keyboardist Chad Howat recorded the album. The band played multiple instruments and recorded in an old mansion near Nashville. I remember reading something about how the album was intended to be rerecorded but the band and the label preferred the originals, but I can’t find an article about that. Absence was the debut of Paper Route as a band, complete with a guitarist, bassist, drummer, and a ton of synthesizers. However, Paper Route would become a revolving door for drummers and guitarists. Only singer and multi-instrumentalist JT Daly and bassist/keyboardist Chad Howat would stay for the entire duration of the band’s career.


    I WISH YOU WOULD LISTEN, TO GET THROUGH IT. Paper Route’s early work includes the theme of breaking up and often consists of the motif of Christmas. Their second EP, 2006’s A Thrill of Hope takes its name from a line from “O Holy Night,” and the songs “Sing You to Sleep” and “The Sound” contrast the magic of Christmas with a sadness of lost love. Their 2009 EP Thank God the Year Is Finally Over contained an acoustic cover of today’s song by another artist, the Christmas hymn, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” and the title track which reflects on the singer’s sheer exhaustion from a busy year on Christmas day. “Wish” is the second track on Absence. Following the ethereal “Enemy Among Us,” “Wish” builds an energy that serves as a counterpoint to the calm in the album. But “Wish” isn’t purely a rock song. The noise-pop bridge that sounds like the musical equivalent of trying to fly a plane when the engine fails and the pilot, without any panic, struggles to restart the engine which sputters back to life as if nothing happened, sets the song apart from any song I’ve ever heard. The rest of the album holds this contrast between rock and electronic, but often both with huge drums. The reviews that I’ve read for this album are mixed. I’ve recommended this album to friends, but no one seemed to love it. I’m not sure that Absence can fully be appreciated on the first listen. 

    I FELL TO PIECES ONE NIGHT IN DECEMBER. I remember on two separate occasions during two different album cycles (Absence and The Peace of Wild Things) singer JT Daly said something like “This has been the hardest year of my entire life.” Whether it was band or personal issues, that transparency had me quite worried about the singer. As we come to the end of another year, taking an assessment of what went well and what we need to work on, I think about Daly’s statement. I only wish that “Thank God the Year Is Finally Over” were available on Apple Music, because that’s a toast that I want to give on December 31. In my assessment of bad years, 2020 would have to be the worst followed by 2016 and 2021 for the third. I’m not at liberty to say why the end of this year is so stressful, but much of it is a culmination of living in a world where it takes increasingly more effort to find relief from my stress thanks to the pandemic. On top of the ordinary stresses of a short-staffed teaching department at the end of the semester, I realize now is the time to make better decisions and build skills for the future. Many friends have decided to leave and it seems that a natural cycle is coming to a close. What’s next for me? What’s next for them? What’s next for all of us.
     

  • “Jingle Bells” by Michael Bublé ft. The Puppini Sisters, Sunday, December 15, 2024


    “Jingle Bells” is perhaps one of the most quintessential Christmas carols. Penned in 1850 by James Lord Pierpont, the song was written in 1850 and published as “One Horse Open Sleigh” in 1857. There is nothing specific in the lyrics that makes it a Christmas song, but it has been included as a Christmas standard due to its snowy images. It’s one of the most performed, recorded, and recognized secular Christmas songs since its first 1889 recording, now lost. The song was first recorded by banjoist Will Lyle and became a Christmas favorite after the Hayden Quartet recorded it in 1902. Other notable versions of the song are the 1935 Benny Goodman version, the 1943 Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters version, and the 1951 Les Paul version, which became a radio hit for the guitarist’s use of multi-tracking. Today’s version comes from contemporary Christmas crooner Michael Bublé, whose classic 2011 album Christmas featured covers of holiday tunes reminiscent of the Sinatra era. 


    OH, WHAT FUN IT IS TO RIDE IN A ONE-HORSE OPEN SLEIGH! The third track on Michael Bublé’s Christmas “Jingle Bells” features the vocal trio The Puppini Sisters. The three singers are unrelated but chose their name as a tribute to The Andrews Sisters. Founded in Trinity College of Music, the group imitates the sound popular in the 1940s, yet with lyrics that are sometimes more subtly provocative to evoke a contemporary feel in their somewhat burlesque style. The group was founded in 2004 and has released five studio albums, including their 2010 Christmas with The Puppini Sisters. Just like Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters, The Puppini Sisters and Michael Bublé’s musical styles go well together. Bublé has become somewhat of a “Chestnut Roaster,” what Chris Molanphy talked about on a holiday issue of his podcast Hit Parade as an artist whose Christmas music overshadows their non-Yuletide offerings. Likewise, The Puppini Sisters are probably best known for contributing to Bublé’s album. Nothing Bublé does is particularly original; he’s a handsome impersonator of a bygone era in music. That’s not to say that the genre couldn’t be reexamined or reinterpreted, but Bublé has found a very successful niche of repackaging something we’ve bought before.


    BELLS ON BOBTAIL RING. The flamboyance that The Puppini Sisters bring to Michael Bublé’s “Jingle Bells” helps to make the album a classic but is perfectly expected on Christmas. While the album is a go-to holiday classic, for me, it was released after the novelty of Michael Bublé had worn off. I loved his 2003 self-titled breakthrough, liked It’s Time, tolerated Call Me Irresponsible, and spun his 2003 Let It Snow! EP. By 2011’s Christmas Bublé was mostly background music to me, but to a larger listening public, he had become essential listening for the holiday season. The enthusiasm for Bublé’s Christmas album has gone worldwide, making an appearance this year in my classroom. One of my second-year middle school students is quite feminine and always chooses show tunes to sing along with. He’s one of the bravest students I’ve ever taught, unapologetically flamboyant in a Christian school in the most conservative area in the country. Most of the other kids roll their eyes at his antics. There were times of bullying and slurs, but this kid is resilient, even flirting with the boys who pick on him.  So when I let my kids listen to Christmas music, of course, he picked out Michael Bublé’s “Jingle Bells” and of course, he sang along not with the hands of Michael Bublé, but with the Puppini sisters, he had all of their parts memorized and the display was glorious. I really hope for a better world for him, but something tells me that he’s going to make it for himself.




  • “People of the Pride” by Coldplay, Saturday, December 14, 2024

     

    We haven’t heard a rock song from English Alternative-turned-pop act Coldplay since…ever, come to think of it. Even when the band was considered cool in the early ’00s, they weren’t exactly known for distorted guitars or thundering bass. And years of refining their sound in a time when rock music’s cultural impact retracted into the underground solidified Coldplay as the 21st century’s definition of pop-rock. But in 2019, the band decided to break with their established sound and put out something a little more experimental, a two-disc record titled Everyday Life.  The album was released with only three sparsely promoted singles and no planned tour to support the record, which didn’t really matter since all tour plans would be canceled early the next year, anyway.


    THERE’S A MAN WHO SWEARS HE’S GOD. Coldplay’s previous album, Music of the Spheres, doesn’t hold to a set genre. Lead singer Chris Martin has called the invention of genre as a racist categorization of music, thus Coldplay now feels free to use genre as if it were a mood on their latest album. While the signature sound of the album lies in the two biggest hits, “Higher Power” and “My Universe,”–ebullient Max Martin  produced electro-pop–Coldplay delves into what would be considered “World Music” in the ’90s ambient and album-oriented pop/rock. Today’s song, “People of the Pride,” though is an angry rock song in the way Coldplay has never gotten in touch with that emotion. Martin says that the song started out as a demo during the Viva La Vida session. Originally titled “The Man Who Swears,” Max Martin encouraged the band to revisit the song for their latest album.  The band used some of the original lyrics, and if they had released it without modification, they would have become a band that swore earlier than 2019, as the song contains a rare use of the f-bomb. Lyrically, the “People of the Pride” uses purely figurative language, but given the current political climate of the world, this figurative language seems all too clear.

    YOU GOT A LION INSIDE. The word pride in Coldplay’s “People of the Pride” seems to imply three distinct meanings of the word. First, the song begins by addressing “People to the left” and “People to the right,” most likely discussing political division. These people have a “lion inside” and can revolt against the “man who swears he’s god.” The first use of pride refers to the people who are lions that surround the “man who swears he’s god.” The “man who swears he’s god” has too much pride to admit that he is wrongfully using his leadership by making the people “march around” his “homemade cuckoo clock.” The song’s speaker also talks about religion: “It’s all work; it’s not easy / And we could all be blown away / And Heaven is a fire escape / You try to cling to in the dark.” Whether or not God is equated with the dictator mentioned in the song or if religion is merely his tool is up for interpretation. Certainly, religion, historically, has been a means of social control, and the promise of heaven and the threat of hell have been the carrot and the stick that has kept a certain social order as well as a few bad actors in power. But the song implies one more meaning of pride. The line “We’ll be free to fall in love / With who we want and say” most likely refers to LGBTQ+ pride. And this is the message wrapped in the mixed symbols: love is love no matter what governments and religions may try to manipulate or force away. It’s certainly a less radical message than when U2 started swinging a pride flag around at concerts or even making a music video telling the story of reconciliation between a father and his gay son in the 1991 video for “One.” In 2021, the message wasn’t radical, yet very little has changed in the political and mainstream religious landscape. So few realize that they are being manipulated by the powerful to keep themselves down. When will the people of the pride understand what’s really going on?
     

  • "How Do You Sleep?" by Sam Smith, Friday, December 13, 2024 + Can't Sleep Mix Apple Music Edition (repost)

     

    e had more insomnia at the beginning of the week than at the end of the week. I hope that tonight’s not one of those nights. Insomnia at the beginning of the week sets me up for a hard week and a short temper with my students. With today’s song, Sam Smith, “How Do You Sleep?” I wanted to bring my songs of insomnia to my Apple Music playlist–the playlist I’m actually more likely to load while I’m lying in bed. Hopefully these songs will cradle you back to sleep.

  • “다시 만난 세계” (Into the New World) by Girls’ Generation (소년 시대 SNSD), Thursday, December 12, 2024














    Composed by Kenzie, the professional name for SM Entertainment‘s songwriter Kim Yeon-jeong, the debut single “Into the New World” by what would become one of the biggest K-pop groups, Girls’ Generation, set the tone for a ten-year career of fun, bubble-gummy, uplifting songs. Composed of nine young women all born between 1989 and 1991,  Girls’ Generation has been called “the Nation’s Girl Group,” in South Korea due to their popularity between 2007-2017. Beginning with a sample of Don Henley‘s 1984 classic “The Boys of Summer,” (covered last August by The Ataris), “Into the New World” builds on the nostalgic piano and synth sample. Rather than calling back with longing for the past, this song propels listeners forward into the future.

    I LEAVE BEHIND THIS WORLD’S UNENDING SADNESS. I’ve been pretty critical of K-pop in the past for being political. I used to think that music in America was too political, especially when I was a Republican teenager (cringe). I was annoyed when Coldplay’s Chris Martin said at the 2004 Grammy “May John Kerry be your president someday.” Of course, there were also right-wing musicians, but being found to have Republican tendencies could end a rock band’s career in some cases. In South Korea, because the government subsidizes the industry, idol groups are to be politically neutral. There are very few songs that are overt protest songs which can be found in rock and pop and even country in America. However, today’s song, with its hopeful message of stepping into the unknown future, has become a famous protest song in South Korea, starting in 2015, when students led a peaceful protest against Ewha University in Seoul. Both Tiffany and Yuri of SNSD expressed their appreciation to their fans for using the song to rally for change. Tiffany said, “Right now is the generation for feminists, and it’s an era where messages of women empowering other women are important. I feel like our song played that role, so my heart was happy.” A year later, the song was sung at protest rallies against President Park Geun-Hye. The massive protests against the leader accused of corruption had the people singing a song of hope, demanding more from their leaders. Fans also sang the song on April 11, 2019, when the criminalization of abortion was recognized as unconstitutional in South Korea. Finally, in 2020, the song was sung during anti-governmental protests in Thailand, and fans translated the song’s message to spread hope in Thailand. With the globalization of K-pop–the ripples in East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America–it seems inevitable that some songs will be used in protest. 

    LOOKING INTO YOUR EYES, NO WORDS ARE NEEDED. I don’t think that “Into the New World” credits its sampling of “The Boys of Summer,” as it’s never mentioned in most sources. Last September, I talked about how Olivia Rodrigo was inspired by “Misery Business” and eventually gave writing credit to Haley Williams and Josh Farro. Musicians get into trouble all the time for borrowing too heavily from their sources. There are several video compilations of similar-sounding songs. Whether it’s Sam Smith listening to Tom Petty or Lana Del Rey listening to Radiohead, we can hear musical similarities if we keep our ears open. I could make a list of songs that I think sound the same or songs that I’ve mashed up, even disguised as church songs when I played for church (“He Is Exalted” and the guitar from “Don’t Stop Believing“). Some groups like The Verve had their career paralyzed by the litigious Rolling Stones‘ manager. And as much fun as it would be to make a playlist of similar-sounding songs or funny mash-ups like “Creep but It’s All I Want for Christmas” it seems like the project could get out of control. There’s a reason why I only pick one song a day. Tom Petty said it best when he decided not to sue Red Hot Chili Peppers for the similarity between his song “Dani California” and “Mary Jane’s Last Dance“: “A lot of rock & roll sounds alike.” And that similarity can draw parallels in themes in listeners’ minds. “Into the New World” and “The Boys of Summer” may build off of the same arpeggio, but one looks back without any hope for the future, and the other uses the past to build a brighter future.