At 17, Tyler Burkum joined one of the most successful Christian Rock bands of the ’90s, Audio Adrenaline on their Some Kind of Zombie album cycle. Guitarist, Bob Herdman was getting busy with his venture, Flicker Records (Pillar, Fireflight, Kids in the Way). In addition to the need for a new guitarist, lead singer Mark Stuart’s vocal problems were getting worse, often losing his voice on stage. The band needed someone to step in on vocal duties. The band’s 2001 album Lift featured songs with Burkum and Stuart sharing vocal duties. The song “Ocean Floor” was the single that introduced Burkum as a prominent member of the band. The band’s follow up, Worldwide featured Burkum singing lead on more songs, taking the band in a poppier and CCM-radio friendly direction. But the days of Audio A were numbered. The band called it quits in 2007, mostly due to Stuart’s worsening vocal problems. And although the band reunited with Kevin Max on lead vocals, Burkum didn’t join this chapter of the band.
SEARCHING THE RUBBLE. Burkum’s tenure with Audio Adrenaline was the closest the Minnesotan guitarist would get to fame. After the group disbanded in 2007, Burkum went under the radar. But he certainly didn’t get lazy. Even while in Audio Adrenaline, Burkum was working behind the scenes with other musicians in the studio and on the stage. He worked toured with the !Hero Rock Opera Tour, played with Pillar, and recorded on Jennifer Knapp’s Lay It Down album. After Audio A, he joined the band Leagues, covered last month, and became a touring guitarist for Mat Kearny, and recorded with NEEDTOBREATHE, Toby Mac, and Andrew Peterson. Burkum hasn’t released much solo work, just two albums on Apple Music, released nine years apart.
A VAIN, VAIN MAN. The last track on 2019’s Strange Light, “Twilight of My Youth” strikes me for several reasons. I had a coworker two years ago who was an awful teacher. All he cared about was looking like a teacher–and dressing like a K-pop star. I’ve seen this before young adults, but this guy was approaching 40. This wouldn’t be a problem, except this coworker was ambitious and seemed to be out to take my job. This song also makes me think about Burkum, who seemingly peaked young. What else is there after world tours and large music festivals? Then I think about myself. Am I stagnating? Did I peak too soon in terms of my success at work? Can I strive for something bigger, even though the connections I once had are forgetting me? Like many closing tracks on records, the end refrain of this song, with its lullaby-like piano leaves the listener asking these questions: What am I going to do with the rest of my time? Am I living too much in the past?
Since I’m on the subject of family, I thought I would share another memory. Buried under twenty years of dust in my parents garage lies an old Yamaha keyboard. It was my dad’s Christmas present to my mom in the mid-90s. This model came with 100 recorded instruments, 100 styles of drum beats, everything from foxtrot to metal, and 25 or so recorded songs. It was a pretty typical family keyboard, but it kept me entertained for years. Although I started playing guitar at the age of 12, I had spent a long time messing around on that keyboard trying to make music. I loved playing the keyboard but hated how fake the instruments sounded. Strings, brass, woodwinds–all sounded like the vegetarian version served at camp meeting tasted. Still, that keyboard played such a crucial role for music in my life.
WHEN I WAS A VERY SMALL BOY. I got my first taste of synthesizers from my keyboard. I learned about the Orchestra Hit. It was the sound used in the hits by Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and *NSync. Other synths were used in hits like Eiffel 65’s “Blue” or Darude’s “Sandstorm.” And of course all the computer games I was playing had similar synth music. But as the 2000s took full swing, I started to feel frustrated with the family keyboard. My friend’s family had a newer model, and their instruments sounded 2% realer. This didn’t stop me from playing it or using it to create weird songs with my sister on a tape player. I was fully loving keyboard synthesizers without appreciating their origin story. My mom told me one day that I was going to start guitar lessons. I just said okay, but part of me was screaming out that I wanted to learn piano first. Why? Michael W. Smith was so cool back in the ’90s. I wanted to learn how to record trippy music like on Delirious’s Mezzamorphis album. And there was Skillet’s Invincible and Alien Youth albums. And Linkin Park was getting popular. And Earthsuit’s Kaleidoscope Superior had me wondering how could Paul Meany rap so fast when playing the keyboard. I took guitar and loved it, but rock without keys is kinda boring.
MY MORNING SUN IS THE DRUG THAT LEADS ME NEAR TO THE CHILDHOOD I LOST. I talked about my history with New Orderlast month and about my initial disdain for the ’80s sound earlier this month. Anberlin was certainly my gateway drug to New Order’s discography, as they released a cover of this song as the third single from their New Surrenderalbum cycle, rereleasing their album with a bunch of B-Sides. A college professor I worked for loved this song, so I started getting into New Order. I don’t remember when I first heard this song, but I steered away from it for years because of the old synthesizer sounds. I thought it sounded like something I could have recorded on my mom’s keyboard. But years down the road, I see that’s the charm of these old synth classics. The song opens with larger-than-life electronic drums. The keyboard keeps a dark atmosphere throughout most of the song until the end, shifting into a major key. New Order is the real deal. Pop and rock musicians look to their synth-pop songs for inspiration.
I remember the first time I saw Coldplay‘s video for “Trouble” on MTV. That was my introduction to the band. I thought that this interesting Radiohead-like pop band could be an interesting addition to music scene. The band grew out of the dreary piano ballads and has cultivated a diverse sound. Their sophomore album, A Rush of Blood to the Head was much more inclined to pop music. What the band started to perfect after ARoBttH was the use of the recording studio. X & Y wasn’t so much about the talent of the live music, but what kinds of sounds could be produced in the studio. Their follow-up Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends extended those ideas with string sessions. Mylo Xyloto saw the band collaborate with Rhianna, and next month I’ll talk about this album’s collaboration with Beyonce. By the band’s seventh album A Head Full of Dreams, listeners should be aware Coldplay isn’t recording songs to get back to stadium tours. They’re composing an album with full intentionality, and the producer is as much a part of the band as any member. The video for this song reminds me of a calendar my mom bought me. Every month had an optical illusion painted by surrealist painter Rob Gonsalves.
IT’S IN YOUR BLOOD. Today is my mom’s birthday, so I’m dedicating a song to her. In my teenage years I vowed to never be like my mom, as far as her musical tastes go. My mom is the daughter of a concert violinist and violist. But being forced to take piano and violin lessons, my mom grew to hate playing music. This was a major contrast to my musical upbringing because once I started playing guitar, I practiced for hours. As far as listening to music, I grew up around music. From kids songs both religious and secular to soothing-classically inspired hymns, my mom played the same music over and over again. I remember when she got her ten CD set of baroque classics, which included The Four Seasons, Water Music, The Brandenburg Concertos and other works by Bach, Handel, Telemann, and others. When we moved to North Carolina, she started listening to light Contemporary Christian Music. It was just something that was on in the car. But slowly, as the kids got older, she started listening to some of her favorites from the ’70s and ’80s. We listened to Elton John’s greatest hits, Journey, Chicago. She wouldn’t tolerate anything new. Until she heard Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida.” From then on she was hooked on Coldplay and slowly she started listening to other “newer” music too.
FIXING UP A CAR, DRIVING IT AGAIN. In my early 30s, I understand my mom a lot better, as far as music goes. I’m writing a blog about mostly old music which is connected to some of my memories. It’s exhausting to keep up with the teens on Tick Tok to find out what’s cool and what’s not. My idea of new music is going onto Apple Music and finding albums I missed from artists I already know. When she heard “Viva La Vida” she bought the album and it’s all that we listened to in the car for about a year. She listened to their other albums, including this one. My dad complained about “too much Coldplay” on a family trip up to New York, which sparked a fight for miles until they found something else to fight about. Family road trips are now a thing of the past, but you never forget being cramped into the back seat of a Toyota Corolla with your two sisters, my mom’s music blaring. As a teenager you think it will keep going forever. Happy birthday, Mom!
February 20, 2007, Anberlin released the album that defined their career. Most fans don’t remember the release dates of their favorite albums. As for me, I only remember two album releases off the top of my head. The first is P.O.D.‘s Satellite because it was released on September 11, 2001. The other album release I know by heart, as do the fans of Anberlin, is Cities. Anberlin fans call February 20th “Cities Day,” still to this day. In the three years that I’ve been doing this playlist project, I’ve celebrated Cities with a different track. In 2019, it was “A Whisper & A Clamour.” Last year it was “Hello Alone,” as I dealt with the depression of what looked like Armageddon. This year, I’m choosing the closing track, “(*Fin),” but I’ll choose the livestream More to Living Than Being Alive version released yesterday on AppleMusic and Spotify.
WE’RE NOT QUESTIONING GOD, JUST THOSE HE CHOSE TO CARRY HIS CROSS. Everyone remembers 2015 when #MeToo swept the world. Victims of sexual abuse used this platform to call out not only those who wronged them, but also the systems in place that both allowed and enabled sexual abuse to happen. Shortly after #MeToo’s popularity, #ChurchToo and #SilenceIsNotSpiritual appeared as a platform for people of faith both currently practicing and no longer practicing to call out spiritual leaders who had abused their power. Little by little society has become more educated about abuse, and not only sexual abuse. I’m not a survivor of sexual abuse, but I think it’s time to start taking spiritual abuse quite seriously. WebMD defines spiritual abuse as “Any attempt to exert power and control over someone using religion, faith, or beliefs.” Last year when I started listening to the You Have Permission podcast, I was able to put a name to the trauma I experienced in the name of religion.
THE UNHOLY GHOST DOESN’T TELL MARY AND WILLIAM EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR. Like white supremacy and misogyny, spiritual abuse is embedded in the church so much so that people can fairly call the whole system abuse. Readers of the Bible are not without textual evidence that the clergy have used for almost 2,000 years to extort money or manipulate followers to do things that they would otherwise not do and threatening hell to those who don’t believe or do. It’s a tale as old as Western culture itself of the child molesting preacher or the “do as I say, not as I do” cult leader who manipulates believers into bed. But it’s deeper than that. It’s the belief that’s taught that your church is the only correct one, and all who stop attending are lost. My church taught that non-believers weren’t going to burn for an eternity in hell, but if they left they were talked about in such a judgmental way that I was always scared to leave the system. “Jesus gave it all for you, don’t you think you should give or do _______,” was the final persuasion point of sermons. I mean, how can a child say no to doing that for Jesus. Finally, there may have not been eternal hell, but there was certainly the end times to keep you up at night. And as a further manipulation tactic, we were taught that no one knows who will be saved until the very end. So you better watch out, you better not pout, you better not cry, I’m telling you why…Jesus is coming, and you’ll only have to endure being hunted down and watch your family members be killed in front of you and if you love something or someone too much, you’ll be too attached to the world in order to be saved, they you can’t be resurrected and live forever with God. “
TAKE WHAT YOU WILL, WHAT YOU WILL “(*Fin)” is a song for processing these feelings. Stephen Christian has sorted out his beliefs, but not everyone has or will. The cliche is that Christians can write songs in minor keys, but they must end on a major chord. This song ends Anberlin’s darkest album on a major chord, but I’m not sure if the question is really answered. I’ve gone through several iterations of my own faith, and still, I feel that the question isn’t answered. Stephen Christian is now a pastor in Florida when he’s not signing in Anberlin or Anchor & Braille. His own father was a pastor, the stories in (*Fin) have to do with his constant moving around as a child and the strange teachings he heard in church. So is this a story of continuing the system of abuse or dismantling and repairing it. I hope that it’s the latter.
Today was on course to be a perfect day. Solved a banking problem, tried a new Starbucks beverage, got a new shield for my new MacBook Air, tried Shake Shack for the first time (so far the only place in Korea to get beef hotdogs as far as I know), shopping in the department store, bought soft tofu covered sushi for dinner and took it to go. But in the middle of this rare Covid shopping trip, I get an upsetting Kakao text from a coworker about work. So in the middle of vacation, my mind has been corrupted with work. And it’s not like it was anything urgent. Like a text from work on a perfect vacation day, the hopeful message of this song is about the struggle through adversity. I heard this song today in Shake Shack, and it seems to fit the mood best.
DON’T YOU PUT ME ON THE BACK BURNER. “Somebody Told Me” was my first introduction to this band. You couldn’t miss the song, even if you only listened to the radio occasionally. Brandon Flowers sounded so much like The Cure’s Robert Smith, and the band helped to make the ’80s cool again. I didn’t like the song very much, though. I thought it was too worldly in high school. Is Brandon Flowers saying his ex became a lesbian? Oh, my evangelical times. “All the Things I’ve Done” was the band’s third single, but I never heard it until college. It was a classroom in one of the Christian high schools I had to observe for my Intro to Secondary Education class. The song was played in a film for Invisible Children, an organization whose aim is to raise awareness about child soldiers in Central Africa. Later I heard this song everywhere as my college also got involved with the organization.
YOU GOTTA HELP ME OUT. From an early age, I’ve been fascinated with Mormonism. From the religion’s history founded in the United States, to the narratives taught in the Book of Mormon involving American history, to the beliefs of the people, to the quiet influence it’s had on Hollywood, music, writing, and politics–it’s a story of America that parallels my own religious tradition of Seventh-day Adventism. Reading the lyrics of this song, many commentators reference the Bible and Mormon symbolism, pointing out that this song is a struggle between the sex and drinking of rock ‘n’ roll and the straight-and-narrow of a rigorous faith tradition. Following Flowers career both in his solo work and with The Killers, I wonder about this struggle. Flowers is a very public figure and he is devoted to his beliefs. But many of his lyrics paint a different picture than the squeaky clean Mormon image. This could be my complete misunderstanding of the religion. What I do get from Flowers is honesty dealing with love, life, art, and religion. Perhaps we may someday look to him as we look to Bono. Only “time, truth, and hearts” will tell.
Let me be clear this song is awful. It feels a little Westboro Baptist of me to speak ill of the dead. Last night (Korea time), I read that CCM artist Carmelo Dominic Licciardello, better known by his first name Carman (like Madonna or Cher), died of complications of hernia surgery. I wasn’t convinced to post a song as tribute. He was a singer that was all kinds of problematic. A kind of Adam Sandler opera man singing at the marriage of the evangelical church and politics. He was CCM’s greatest showman and gayest homophobe. He appropriated gay culture and left “the homosexual in San Fransisco… trapped in vile bondage.” But it’s not Carman’s death that inspires today’s song. It’s another death, the other husband of the evangelical church is politics. Today, conservative talk radio host, Rush Limbaugh also died. I’m not actually influenced directly by either of these men, but they are both carry a torch that has influenced my upbringing and a lot of wrong thinking that takes years to undo. I’m not trying to write from a place of bitterness, but I do think it’s important to analyze (Judgement Day?) the problematic and move forward.
HE’S TERRORIZED THE LIVES OF MEN, AND NOW HE’S UNDER ARREST. By the time I started listing to CCM radio around the year 1999, Carman was an occasional novelty, kind of like a Weird Al Yakovic to a Top 40 station. I remember songs like “The Witches Invitation,” “R.I.O.T.” and “No Monsters.” His videos were occasionally played on Christian television programs, but they were a little before my time. If memory serves me right, CCM in the ’90s was a cool, handsome Michael W. Smith. Amy Grant, the fallen woman who was almost banned, but still kinda a heart throb. Intro to dad music: Steven Curtis Chapman. DC Talk–a rap group who changed their style with every album. And then there was Carman. Single, sexy, Michael Landon-level of self obsession, Carman. Not gay but just couldn’t find the right girl, Carman. Thanks to The Good Christian Fun podcast, my CCM memories were resurrected and because of their extensive coverage of Carman, including their two-year Halloween tradition, Carmania, Carman was brought back into my consciousness and forever burned in my memory.
YOU SPIRIT OF INFIRMITY, YOU AIN’T WELCOME HERE NO MORE.”PRESIDENT TRUMP BLUES” is one of the last songs released by Carman. Gone were the days of stadium tours, expensive record deals, platinum records, and back up dancer sex offenders. After a miraculous healing from cancer in 2014, Carman began the last stages of his life, including getting married for the first time at the age of 61. The purity ring must have been tight. All jokes aside, I feel something in the pit of my stomach as we watched Carman age into who he became. Mainstream Christianity today is at a crossroads. More and more people are seeing the cracks in the myth of the Christian nation. The “cool” music of ’90s was the Newsboys and Audio Adrenaline screaming the same messages of the preachers who were banning them for playing the devil’s music. But Christian music changes both in style and message. In 2016, Christian Hardcore band The Devil Wears Prada’s lead singer Mike Hranica shouted on tour “Fuck Trump” at all of the band’s shows and the band continues to be played on Christian radio. But when Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay took to Twitter to affirm same-sex marriage, the band never really recovered from that. I guess what I’m feeling is dissatisfaction, not just with Carman, but with this form of Christianity that fails to admit its wrong doings in the past. And I fear for myself. How can someone’s beliefs and thoughts not grow since the ’90s. How can you just keep spewing out the same type of lyrics that were funny back then, but now we realize they’re quite offensive. It’s time to tell the Satan of the past to bite the dust.
I have to be in a certain mood to listen to tracks from Copeland‘s Eat, Sleep, Repeat. Today is the day. Artistically, Copeland’s third record serves as a bridge between their rock/emo days and the band’s future experimental days. Singer/lyricist Aaron Marsh tests out abstract lyricism on this record. While their latest album Blushing deals with some difficult subject matter, ESR is arguably Copeland’s darkest record. This album was their only record on a major label, and “Control Freak” was the lead single. After this record, the band released a B-Side record and stopped touring for a while, and I feared we had seen the last of Copeland. Fortunately, the band returned in 2008 with the ear-candy record You Are My Sunshine, which I talked about last month. Copeland is a band that could have easily made it to the “love song” section of the month, as Marsh knows how to write an interesting love song. But as the song that I chose yesterday reminds us, the cold of winter can’t all be candy hearts and boxes of chocolate. There are still bad days in February. And there are times when you’re left “staring at the ceiling through the night.”
DO YOU LOSE CONTROL WHEN YOU HOLD TO TIGHT? I didn’t sleep well last night, as I don’t sleep very well before important days. In December my supervisor asked my department to turn in our vacation plan, the days we were taking off. It was approved, but at the end of last week in February, my supervisor said that all teachers had to come in this week to prepare for school. It turns out my supervisor had given us the wrong dates. After some heated discussions, my department decided to come in just for today to renegotiate our contracts for the upcoming year. In Korea, school years start in March and many company employment terms begin in March as well due to college graduations happening in February. When we came in contracts weren’t ready and no meetings were scheduled to sign. “What about tomorrow or Friday” was tossed around, but we were adamant on keeping the rest of our vacation in tact. We walked out with a signed contract just before lunch.
I’M IN LOVE WITH MY DOUBT. This is one of the downsides of working in Korea. There’s a lot of top-down bullying. Schedules change or supervisors forget to tell you something until the last minute and you’re expected to play along. I’ve found it’s important to find a balance between taking one for the team and protecting your free time. I came to Korea with an open mind, but working with other native English speaker teachers and managing them has made me more of a union leader. It’s a constant battle for control and “it’s freaking me out.”
In 2008 a gothic emo band appeared on Tooth & Nail Records called The Becoming. Their album produced a few singles and halfway through their short album cycle the DJ on RadioU informed the listeners that the band was now called “We Are the Becoming” for legal reasons. Later the band’s video “I Cry”premiered on TVU. My sister said, “These guys look ridiculous.” Pretty much. Their music kind of sounded like Hinder and they tried to look like Mötley Crüe. After the confusing name change, the band faded into Tooth & Nail record obscurity. The story of the strange band may have come to an end, but lead singer Caleb “Bones” Owens, has just begun.
I’M A CIGARETTE ROLLING DOWN A EMPTY ROAD IN THE NIGH LIKE A SHOOTING STAR. I heard this story and checked out this record thanks to Ethan Luck. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, it’s not surprising. Luck is a working musician who plays mostly in the studio these days. He has a podcast called The Pirate Satellitewhere he talks to his friends, mostly other musicians, about their work. Luck got his start as a guitarist for The O.C. Supertones. Later he went on to play in Demon Hunter and Relient K. He also was a touring guitarist with Kings of Leon and has too many credits to mention. Luck certainly knows music, so when I was going through back episodes of his podcast last year, I listened to his “Top 10 Records of 2017.” I knew some of the artists, but there were quite a few that had fallen between the cracks. Point-in-case, the EP, Make Me No King, of which the titular track is the song that I can’t get out of my head today.
I’M A MIDNIGHT TRAIN KEEPING YOU AWAKE WHEN I COME HOME FROM THE BAR. Trading in his axe and death metal black for an acoustic and a man-in-black Johnny Cash outlaw style, Bones Owens’s lyrics are haunting. It’s the gospel music of the Southern Grotesque. It’s the broken hallelujahs of the characters of a Flannery O’Connor short story. It’s the rambler and the gambler waiting for God to cut them down. Many of the tracks on this EP talk about alcoholism. If this were commercial country, I would have dismissed this album as the Southern cliché. But somehow, through earnest songwriting, Owens invites you, dear listener, to insert your vice. What is tearing apart your relationship? This song has such a different feeling from anything else in this month’s playlist. It’s probably going to sound strange together, but the lyrics really do have to do with love. The line “I’m a photograph taken in the past/ but it wasn’t what you thought” got me thinking about love. Isn’t love about finding the real person underneath, flaws and all? It’s not a sexy romance novel: the sequel to Boy Meets Girl is Girl Meets Boy’s Vice. Inevitably the flowers you got for Valentine’s Day will fade and die. The chocolate will be consumed and forgotten about. The honeymoon ends, and everyone must get back to work. If you start a relationship to hide from yourself, your first love, you, will come back and try to screw it up. What happens next is life.
I’ve only been to the Honolulu International airport, but from the hour and a half I was there, I will tell the critics they are wrong. Hawaii is NOT overrated in the least. You can see the clearest water and the white sandy beaches from the airport. However, if you chew gum to make your ears pop on a flight, make sure that you bring it with you as the airport doesn’t sell it. So to escape the dreariness of a winter’s day, let’s listen to a track from Colbie Caillat‘s Malibu SessionsLP. I realize that the rest of the month, I’ve been freed from the obligation to write about love songs; however, who doesn’t love listening to Colbie Caillat? Listening to her reminds me of college when I first discovered this amazing musician in my dorm room when I needed calm music to drown out my roommate talking to his girl friend while I was trying to finish my literature class homework.
THE SHADOWS OF YESTERDAY. It was Easter morning when I got a call from a friend. She had just broken up with her boyfriend and she was moving out of her dorm room. She called me to ride along with her to run some errands. I went along for emotional support because I was pretty sure my friend was going through a lot. However, rather than talking about what had happened, she turned to her plans for the summer. She asked me what I was doing. I said I’d probably just try to earn some money back home doing odd jobs for people at church. She then suggested something that would forever change my life. She had been putting the finishing touches on a piece for a writing course, but in order to finish it, she had to go to Yap, an island part of the Federated States of Micronesia. I didn’t have a passport. The ticket was insanely expensive. It was the beginning of April and we would leave at the end of May. I said yes.
I WANNA FALL IN LOVE AGAIN, BUT THIS TIME…WITH NO REGRETS. Colbie Caillat recorded The Malibu Sessions in 2016 and then joined a country group, Gone West, with her fiancé. However, last year the two broke up and Gone West called it quits. In my research, I see a lot of singers and bands called it quits around the same times. Eighties groups called it quits in the early nineties. Nineties groups called it quits in the early ’00s. There were a lot of groups that called it quits in 2008-2010 when the banking crisis spilled over to the music industry. Finally, I’ve noticed a lot of artists have been on a lengthy hiatus since 2016. Perhaps it’s hard to put words to the fact that the world is falling apart. Speaking of going silent, it’s very hard for me to write about going to Yap. I didn’t do much there, but I learned. It was my first time traveling outside of North America, and seeing how different the world was outside only made me want to see more of the world. I had seen what many people would consider paradise–beautiful beaches, clear water, drinking juice from a coconut–and I wondered what else the world had in store for me.
I have a few confessions to make before getting into this post. First, I have only listened to folkloreonce or twice, and I’ve only listened to a few songs from evermore. As a music blogger, I have to do better. However, I’m waiting for the albums to hit me. I’m sure they will. Most music that sticks with me hits me at just the right minute. And there’s a lot of music to be impactful from decades of classic rock to thousands of pop records over the last few decades. Second confession, I’ve liked Taylor Swift since her Fearless days. I had heard of her from “Tear Drops on My Guitar,” but I got into her when I heard she had coveredLuna Halo‘s “Untouchable.” Taylor Swift became Nashville and the music industry’s darling and it seemed that everyone had some love for the teenage star. But teenagers grow up.
James Dean in Rebel without a Cause, 1955Photo by Laura Loveday, Flicker.
YOU COME TO PICK ME UP, NO HEADLIGHTS. In 2014, the soon-to-be 25-year-old singer shook off her squeaky clean image (pun not intended) and turned to more mature subject matter. Her second single, “Blank Space,” satirized her love life based on the rumors she heard about herself. This was the start of a new Taylor Swift. Apart from sounding like the prelude to a traffic accident, “Style” is the first time that Taylor Swift’s lyrics get a little sexy. Style for Swift means a classic 1950s and ’60s look from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Allusions to James Dean, imagery of removing clothes, and bright red lipstick make this song may be enough, but the video makes the lyrics crystal clear. Furthermore, the song is said to be a clever pun on the relationship between Swift and Harry Styles. Still, unlike her shock-pop contemporaries like Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Lana Del Rey, and Katy Perry, Taylor Swift didn’t get explicit. Taylor Swift was not a spokeswoman for purity culture, which the Christians listening to her country records would have preferred. But instead in 1989–with the exception of “Blank Space”–sex is treated as something that adults do. It’s glamorized, but it doesn’t take the audience to the gutter. The conversation, of course, is different about male celebrities.
COULD END IN BURNING FLAMES OR PARADISE. Today is Valentine’s Day. I wrote about thirteen love songs and one break up song. I used the songs as a tool to recall my memories about the songs themselves or what I was experiencing around the time that I listened to those songs. For me 2014-2015, were pivotal years in my life. This album came out in October of 2014. I remember listening to “Shake it Off,” but it wasn’t until the summer of 2015 that I really got into this record. I learned so much about myself those years which started my journey discovering what faith, sexuality, love, and balancing a career means to me. This album was a soundtrack for that time as I dealt with falling in love and breaking up. It helped me feel normal in a way that most of the shame-based music I had listened to since high school hadn’t. I had to realize that everyone has a different path, and the ways in which I had been counseled were not right for me. I couldn’t fit myself into the mold. This lead to years of hating myself. I appreciate the media that I consumed in 2014-2015 because that was the time that I truly learned to value myself. Thanks Taylor!
Mixtapemotions 