Mixtapemotions

  • “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan, Saturday, May 18, 2024

    “What on earth is this?”I stumbled on today’s song, “Good Luck, Babe!”  about a month ago when I was browsing Spotify’s top viral songs. No Chappell Roan’s music isn’t earth-shattering, but something about her ‘80s queer-pop aesthetic feels completely new. And although Chappell Roan is the stage name of the “Midwest Princess” Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, this persona feels oddly authentic. Roan is currently enjoying a viral moment after opening for Olivia Rodrigo on the Guts World Tour and performing at Coachella. Spotify reported that Roan had seen a 500% increase in listenership between February and April.

    I DON’T WANNA CALL IT OFF, BUT YOU DON’T WANNA CALL IT LOVE. Chappell Roan is not a new artist; she’s been self-releasing music since 2014, first through YouTube under her real name. Amstutz’s love for music began with the piano before adolescence. Growing up in a conservative Christian home in Missouri, church and Christian youth camps were a part of the singer’s youth. But growing up in the Internet age gave the young artist a chance at exposure and a broader world than her small town. Although she didn’t make the cut to be on America’s Got Talent, Atlantic Records signed her at 17 on the promise of her YouTube covers and following. It was then that Amstutz adopted the stage name, Chappell Roan, which she describes as both her stage name and her drag persona. Taking her late grandfather’s last name Dennis K. Chappell and Roan from his favorite song, “The Strawberry Roan” by Curley Fletcher. Roan released her first EP School Nights in 2017. In 2020, Roan began working with collaborator Dan Nigro, the former lead singer and guitarist of As Tall as Lions. Rather than the dark pop sounds of School Nights, Roan’s new sound was inspired by gay clubs and living in Los Angeles. 

    YOU’RE NOTHING MORE THAN HIS WIFE. After releasing three singles in her new sound, Atlantic Records dropped Chappell Roan, stating that her music wasn’t profitable for the major label. Roan was only beginning her rebrand, but her favorite collaborator, Dan Nigro, had created a runaway success with Olivia Rodrigo’s “driver’s license” and had to finish SOUR, leaving without a label and a producer. This would be the typical ending of most indie pop performers. But when Roan moved back to Missouri, she was determined that her musical career was not over. While she was in Missouri, the critics were just digesting Roan’s work, especially her single “Pink Pony Club,”  which USA Today ranked as the third best song of 2020 and Vulture called “The Song of the Summer” in 2021. Roan amassed a bigger following from opening on Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR tour, generating positive reviews from NPR. Working as an independent artist and with some further collaborations with Nigro, Roan released her 2023 debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, a collection of her previous singles and new songs. Now, Roan is entering a new era with the single “Good Luck, Babe!” I hope that things remain on the up and up for this hard-working indie pop star. With queer artists perpetually catching fleeting moments, I hope that Roan can be our gay Madonna.

     

  • “When I Grow Up” by The Pussycat Dolls (reworked repost), Friday, May 17, 2024

     

    Today’s song comes from the Los Angeles burlesque-turned-mainstream pop act  The Pussycat Dolls. Founded by choreographer   Robin Antin in 1995, and performing at The Viper Room on Thursday nights in the ’90s, the group’s lineup fluctuated before Antin decided to take her group to the radio. Former Dolls included Christina Applegate,  Christina Aguilera, and Carmen Electra. The original concept was simple: beautiful women singing standards from the ’50s and ’60s in lingerie. Playboy reported on the burlesque act in 1999, and several dancers posed semi-nude for that feature. But as a pop group, choreographer and manager Antin settled on a six-girl lineup and released their first single, “Sway,” for the 2005 film Shall We Dance?  The group released their full-length debut PCD the following year, which featured hits like “Don’t Cha” and “Stickwitu.” In 2008, The Dolls released their second album, Doll Domination,  which features today’s song “When I Grow Up,” a song about being young and craving fame. 

    BOYS CALL YOU SEXY. Fun, pretentious, novelty, inauthentic. Call it what you want, but Fearless Records‘ Punk Goes… series has been around for a while. Punk purists will point out that the compilations comprise mid-tier Emo, Pop-Punk, and Post-Hardcore bands, rather than real punk bands. While music people may debate what is really punk, Fearless Records helped to solidify a punk-rock-inspired scene starting with their first release Punk Goes Metal in 2000. Punk Goes Pop followed in 2002. After releasing several other compilations, Punk Goes Pop 2 was released in 2009. 

    WE ALL WANNA BE FAMOUS. Mayday Parade is a band from Tallahassee, Florida, founded in 2005. Today they are a staple in the Pop-Punk/Emo scene, cutting their teeth on Warped Tour and touring with the who’s who of that scene. With their mellower, at times piano-driven pop punk, the band is a frequent contributor to the Punk Goes… series. And while music critics pan the Punk Goes… series it’s certainly fun hipster music. It’s fun to hear how Alternative rockers interpret good and not-s0- good source material. Is there screaming on a Britney Spears song? Is there a gender-bender? Is there an interesting guitar or instrument? Or is it just a whacky way to interpret a pop song? I must say that The Pussycat Dolls were totally off my radar, and I didn’t even know the original version of this song until I heard Mayday Parade’s cover. Along with Weird Al‘s inclusion of “Don’t Cha” in his 2006 “Polkarama!” medley, Mayday Parade’s version of “When I Grow Up” gets stuck in my head from time to time. But unlike Weird Al’s bizarre take on “Don’t Cha,” Mayday Parade’s song can make sense–Motley Crüe level of rockstar decadence. Of course, Mayday Parade with its 2 million monthly listeners is far from being household names. Maybe the age of rock star rock stars is over, but this song is a fun reminder that if we wish it, it could come true. So be careful.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

    Original version:

    Cover: 

  • “Conrad” by Ben Howard, Thursday, May 16, 2024

     

    Ben Howard hails from the Southwestern town of Richmond in London, though he is an avid Liverpool football fan. He grew up playing several instruments before showing ultimate devotion to playing guitar. Six months before graduating with a Journalism degree, Howard decided to pursue music full-time. Howard’s dark folk music was influenced by Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and Simon & Garfunkel, and his unique guitar playing is a key feature of his music. He plays a left-handed guitar and sometimes a right-handed guitar upside down. He uses alternate tunings and often plays his acoustic guitar percussively.


    YOU WERE THE BOAT THAT BREACHED. Ben Howard released an independent EP in 2008 and signed to Island Records in 2011. Later that year, he released his Mercury- Prize-nominated debut album, Every Kingdom. Howard’s sound evolved on subsequent releases from acoustic folk to indie rock on his sophomore album, I Forget Where We Were, to experimental electronic music on his latest release, 2023’s Is It? Today’s song, “Conrad,” comes from Howard’s sophomore record. I Forget Where We Were, released in 2014, received generally favorable reviews, though Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s review on AllMusic stated in his review of the album: “Howard expects you to meet him on his own terms and provides just enough aural enticement to give him not just one listen but a second, which is when I Forget Where We Were really begins to sink in its hooks.” In a music industry that demands hooks even of its folk singers, the balancing act of artistic vision and listener gratification is delicate. Personally, I find that albums that don’t give me everything I want in favor of the artist’s vision tend to be what makes me go for repeat listens. In the CD age, when music was an investment, established artists could take bigger risks. CDs were expensive and fans listened as part of a musical investment. But in the streaming era, a band releases something uncatchy, listeners think it’s a bad album and move on.


    WE WILL NEVER BE THE CHANGE IN THE WIND AND THE SEA. “Conrad” is perhaps the catchiest song on I Forget Where We Were. I first heard it in the fall of 2015 at Starbucks. The track is unassuming until the chorus and the post- chorus. The song begins with a plucked electric guitar that sounds. The verse contrasts with Ben Howard’s unique higher-than-usual folk voice and slurred articulation when the song begins. I picture the guitar sometimes in the verses being a bit of a stray strand of hair that won’t cooperate in the morning. The chorus has a two-chord War-on-Drugs effect. Howard allows the song to breathe in these two chords, eventually fading out with a guitar solo. The lyrics of the song are sparse, and Howard’s singing is hard to understand at first. “Conrad” refers to the 1917 short story “The Tale” by Joseph Conrad. The fogginess of Howard’s lyrics matches with Conrad’s ambiguous tale of suspected war profiteering. It’s a tale of otherworldly loneliness and the guilt from possible war crimes. With some focused listening to “the tale of” Howard’s I only hear the theme of loneliness. The reflective outro seems to be a meditation on the loneliness felt when being alone at sea. We are left realizing that “We will never be the change to the weather and the sea.”

    Live

  • “In a Dream” by Troye Sivan + Dreaming Playlist, Wednesday, May 15, 2024

     

    In a Dream is Troye Sivan’s 2020 break-up EP. We’ve looked at Sivan’s breakup with model Jacob Bixenman in our discussion of the song “Easy.” Rather than giving his audience a full heartbreaking album, Sivan condenses what could be an album of material into 4 of the 7 tracks on the deluxe edition of the extended play. Sivan was certainly due in 2020 for a full album, but with the pandemic and the anxiety listeners already had, four songs might have been a mercy on his listenership. Singles between In a Dream and his 2023 third album Something to Give Each Other, explored the heartbreak a little more but moved on to party mode on last year’s album. Today, we’re going to explore the world of the subconscious as I update my Dreaming playlist. The song “In a Dream” is about a dream Troye had of his ex. He told NME that the intense dream woke the singer up crying. Today, we’ll listen to other dreamy songs–hopefully nothing of nightmares.


  • “A Voice in the Violence” by Wolves at the Gate, Tuesday, May 14, 2024

    On April 8th, people from around the world crowded the path of a rare total solar eclipse that spanned from central Mexico to Newfoundland. The celestial event lasted at most 4 minutes and 28 seconds. In the eclipse’s direct path, businesses charged excessive rates for tourists to stay, dine, and enjoy themselves before and after the short main event. Many recall the 2017 total eclipse when then-President Trump looked directly at the sun without protective glasses, leaving experts aghast. As the 2017 and 2024 total solar eclipses were less than seven years apart, why the hype and international travel? While the two solar eclipses happened only seven years apart, the last total eclipse before 2017 in the contiguous fifty states was on March 7, 1970, and the next total solar eclipse after 2024 is not until 2044, but only be visible in the north-midwestern states around sunset.


    I SEE THE NIGHT SLIPPING OVER. The cosmic phenomenon of the sun being blocked by the sun’s light being blocked by the moon is now a predictable event. Even still, eclipses are eerie to us in modern days. In ancient times, an eclipse might be seen as a warning of an impending evil or misfortune. The April 8th solar eclipse followed a rare 4.8 magnitude earthquake in New York City on April 6th, which prompted Georgia House of Representatives member Marjorie Taylor Greene to post on X, “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come.” The appeal to “turn to God” when natural phenomena present themselves is a confirmation bias Christians have had since the writing of the apocalyptic book of Revelation was canonized. And with climate change amplifying every year, we’re in danger as a human race to fall victim to a nihilistic Christian interpretation that wants the end of the world “to come quickly.”

    YOU’RE FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE SILENCE. IT’S TELLING YOU ALL YOU WANT TO HEAR. Back in 2019, Wolves at the Gate released their fourth album on Solid State Records. The album was called Eclipse and several of the songs were informed by the political situation in America. On the Labeled Podcast, lead singer Stephen Cobucci says that “when people stop and introspectively look at themselves and what the issue is and [understand that] there probably is a better solution than a political affiliation.” Light and darkness are motifs on Eclipse and in the redux follow-up EP Dawn. The band is unapologetically ministry-oriented, which Cobucci talks about on Labeled as a deterring factor in the band’s success compared to less evangelistic bands. The biggest single from Eclipse, “A Voice in the Violence,” is a song about a dark night of the soul, or about the negative voices we hear when we are alone. Some of those voices are confirmation biases, solidifying our doomed thoughts about ourselves or others. The album feels absent of political bias compared to Watashi Wa’s 2022 People Like People. There’s Christianity subtly implied by the lyrics. But what feels most relevant even today is the band’s intense delivery. These are intense times, and the escapist pop and folk protest songs either avoid current issues or preach to us directly. Eclipse from 2019 to today is an album that expresses the anger and disappointment in what’s turned out to be a dystopian world, but the lyrics don’t tell us what to think about it.


     Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Justify” by Rosie Darling + 21st Century Singer Songwriters Playlist, Monday, May 13, 2024

     

    Today, we’re going to explore 21st-century singer-songwriters. Beyond the Taylor Swifts, Ed Sheerans, and Phoebe Bridgers and my favorites like Tyson Motsenbocker and Sasha Alex Sloan, I also include some up-incomers I’ve found more recently but haven’t delved into their music as much. For example, LA-based artist Rosie Darling released her debut full-length album, Lanterns, last year. Her debut EP, 2021’s Coping, and its follow-up 2022’s Golden Age were more indie pop than Lanterns uses more acoustic guitars. I’m not considering either style for my playlist as more worthy of the title of singer-songwriter, though the acoustic guitar does seem to satisfy the stereotype better. I hope you enjoy the playlist and discover some new music.



  • “Support Group” by Sawyer (Repost), Sunday, May 12, 2024 + Heartbreak Mix

     Sawyer is an Indie Pop duet of singers Kel Taylor and Emma Harvey. Based in Nashville, the duo has music on Spotify from 2015. The group’s most-streamed song, 2019’s “Emotional Girls,” is at 2.6 million, and the group only has around 83,000 monthly listeners. Their second most streamed song is a cover of the Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition.” In June, Sawyer released a four-song EP containing three previously released songs and one new song, the title track of Big Deal. Today’s song “Support Group” has been featured on several Spotify discover music playlists. The song employs memorable songwriting. The metaphor in the first verse is quite funny, almost country-style songwriting. The mental image of “gassing up” the listener’s ego, then lighting a fire, standing by the fire “keeping [the speaker’s] hands warm” even “makin’ a damn s’more.” The song imagines starting a support group composed of former lovers of the man the group is singing about, Josh Tucker Must Die style. Today I’m compiling a collection of heartbreak songs.

     

  • “Juice” by Lizzo, Saturday, May 11, 2024 + Cheers Playlist (refresher)

    Lizzo is a polarizing artist, but tonight we’re going to put all of that aside and just enjoy the false sense of positivity “Juice” gives us. It’s an anthem of pride, body positivity, self-love, acceptance, and sexual positivity. The funky bass is perfect for a drag show, and quirky, arrogant lyrics still feel like a shocking, acidic cocktail. It’s Saturday night, so I’m bringing back my Cheers playlist, refreshing it with a few more rounds. Let’s have a night filled with connection, conversation, flirting and not with overthinking. That’s what the weekdays are for. Drink responsibly, and remember to drink some water.  


    Check out the playlist on Spotify.


     

  • “Magnetic” by Flyleaf (repost), Friday, May 10, 2024

     When a successful band records a new record and the announces the departure of their lead singer— the face of their band, it can be industry suicide. That’s exactly what happened when Flyleaf’s front-woman Lacey Sturm quit the band soon after releasing their third album, 2012’s New Horizons. After the car accident and death of the band’s sound engineer Rich Caldwell and after reevaluating her life, Sturm decided to quit the band to focus on her family. Before leaving, though, she and the other band members selected Kristen May, formerly of the band Vedera, to replace Sturm.

    PULLING ME FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD. Momentum for the third Flyleaf record withered with the departure of the signature sound of their front woman. Dropping out of Flyleaf meant dropping out of all album promotion, save for the singer’s farewell videos, “New Horizons” and  “Call You Out.” Kristen May stepped into touring duties immediately following Sturm’s departure. The next year, Flyleaf released an EP with Kristen May on vocals. This was the first exposure for many fans to the new sound of the band. The EP featured a new song with P.O.D.‘s Sonny Sandoval, but the rest were live songs, mostly from New Horizons, but one track from the band’s self-titled, “Sorrow.” Many fans failed to see the continuity of the band. May, the band’s new lead singer was more akin to Paramore‘s Haley Williams or Fireflight‘s Dawn Michele. Whereas Sturm’s voice is low and her stage persona mysterious and somewhat tortured, May’s voice is upbeat and her stage presence is like a pop-punk star, more like Sara Dallin or Keren Woodword of Bananrama than of Lacey Sturm, and the EP Who We Are sounded like a pop band covering Flyleaf. 

    ALWAYS GONNA FIND EACH OTHER SOMEHOW.  Flyleaf then released a full-length record with Kristen May on vocals in 2014, titled Between the Stars. The album continued to deviate from the band’s dark original sound, dealing with lighter subject matter. Critics and fans agreed that the new Flyleaf sounded nothing like the original band though Between the Stars received “generally favorable reviews” according to Metacritic. For me, the only redeemable song is “Magnetic,” the album’s second track. It’s a love song with a killer bass intro, a kind of evolution of Kirk Patrick Seals‘ “I’m So Sick” intro. Still, it’s not Flyleaf. Although Kristen May was selected by the band, the singer felt insecurity being in the group. She stated in an interview with Cryptic Rock that she felt that fans judged her on how she showed her Christianity. And compared to her predecessor, the charismatic Lacey Sturm, who practically brought a church service to the intoxicated crowds, fans probably noted a stark difference between the lead singers. There could only be one Lacey Sturm and she was the voice of Flyleaf. May left Flyleaf following Between the Stars, like Sturm exiting to take care of her newborn son. Of Flyleaf, she said that she never really felt like a part of the band. Sturm had left Flyleaf on good terms. As her children grew up, she began to focus more on her music and writing. She has continued to collaborate with bands such as Breaking Benjamin and Skillet as well as releasing a full-length record in 2016 called Life Screams and singles since then. Just like pure magnetism, last year, Sturm announced that she and Flyleaf would be performing a show together. Now the band is touring with Sturm. What this means for the future of the band, we have yet to find out.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • "Take My Breath" by The Weeknd, Thursday, May 9, 2024 (repost)

    Berlin‘s 1986 light-rock hit “Take My Breath Away” in its somewhat cheesy ascending scaled-note chorus speaks to the common human experience of falling in love with someone. The old aphorism, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away,” speaks to the times when life surprises us so much that if the shock of the good surprise were to kill us, we would have died happy. In other words, I may feel “so happy that I could die.” These moments are breathtaking, like seeing a Van Gogh in person, seeing a beautiful woman, or experiencing a new life.  Perhaps this is what The Weeknd intended for his lead single from Dawn FM, “Take My Breath,” but in typical Weeknd fashion, the video and the lyrics hint at a darker side of those breathtaking moments.

    YOU’RE OFFERING YOURSELF TO ME LIKE SACRIFICE. Since Beauty Behind the Madness brought The Weeknd to the forefront of popular music back in 2015 with songs like “Can’t Feel My Face” and “The Hills,” Abel Makkonen Tesfaye has been disguising adult themes as catchy pop tunes, talking about substance abuse like it were a love song. Growing up in Toronto as the child of two separated Ethiopian immigrants, Abel started smoking pot at the age of 11 and turned to harder drugs, and shoplifting in his teens to support his habit. In the past, he claimed that he couldn’t write music without drugs. His masterpieces came from the inner turmoil of broken relationships and his love for mind-altering substances. However, in August of 2021, he claimed that he was “sober-lite,” meaning that he would no longer use hard drugs, calling them “a crutch.” Dawn FM, Abel’s latest full-length offering is the end of the drug-filled saga, and maybe the end of The Weeknd as Abel recently announced that he would begin releasing music under his real name. 
    MAKE IT LAST FOREVER.  The video for “Take My Breath” depicts a dark club in which the attendants are involved with erotic asphyxiation, a potentially deadly practice, yet is said to produce euphoria by those who practice it. Just as in “Can’t Feel My Face,” listeners question where is the line between healthy and toxic. Viewers question the line between reality and metaphor. Whenever I listen to The Weeknd, I have many questions: at what point does it turn from fun to tragic? At what point does the binge become less about fun and more about dependence? And are listeners part of the problem? Do we have front-row seats to a train wreck–a potential Amy Winehouse situation? Are we enabling young Abel’s downfall by funding him as he produces messed up, devilishly divine art? “How do you end up in the backroom of a BDSM club?” daytime Ed Sheeran might ask. It might sound judgmental, but it’s a valid question. Why do people get into kink? From housewives reading Fifty Shades of Grey wondering what it would be like to be tied up to underground sex clubs in New York City to whatever is on the dark web to something as mild as foot or sock fetish (see Honest Trailer’s “Every Tarantino Movie”), many people experience a cold sweat from something those who don’t share the attraction would deem abnormal, unnatural, immoral, or hilarious. There’s little funnier than the punchline of someone’s sexual fantasy being misread, like this scene from the movie Horrible Bosses, when the crew thinks that they have hired a hitman, but instead, the man is a professional urinator. And you better believe that there’s a whole category of humiliation fantasies. But on a serious note, “Take My Breath” uses imagery from erotic asphyxiation, which brings up questions about 1) the practice 2) the dangers 3) the line between euphoria and suicide 4) metaphorical implications, like trust, vulnerability, a person’s mental state when being in love/lust, suicidal tendencies, the line between partying and breaking down, etc. The practice of erotic asphyxiation is dangerous. In the case of autoeroticism, many times it’s misruled as a suicide rather than an accidental death. Sometimes partners can be charged with murder if something goes wrong. Wikipedia lists several notable examples of death by erotic asphyxiation, though I didn’t recognize any examples: an 18th-century Czech composer, a geisha, and a conservative British MP in 1994. In 1983, a mother sued Hustler after her 14-year-old son died from the practice. She claimed that he learned about it from the magazine. Autoerotic asphyxiation was the shocking death of a recurring character on Bojack Horseman season 2, and it was even one of the ways that Kenny died in a South Park episode. The Weeknd wakes up on the club floor at the end of the video, gasping for life-giving air. We breathe a sigh of relief. That could have been an embarrassing way to die. Undoubtedly it would be a shameful death. Then again, SNL’s Halloween skit with Chance the Rapper has an erotic asphyxiation death beat. Stay safe everyone!