Mixtapemotions

  • “Nothing Lost” by Anberlin, Monday, July 3, 2023

    Last summer, Anberlin released their hiatus-breaking EP, Silverline. The five-song EP was written during the band’s time off due to the pandemic when they had planned to return to touring. But like many touring bands out of work, Anberlin decided to take to the Internet and started a livestream session, eventually deciding to perform every one of their albums live. With all the nostalgia of revisiting the classic seven albums, many listeners thought that their first release back would be influenced by their older work; perhaps an album track that the band never performed much.


    I’LL STILL LOVE YOU TILL MY VERY COFFIN DROPS. Last month, I made a case that Silverline was the least Anberlin-sounding spot in the band’s discography, but I would like to counter that argument today by looking at the latter-part of the band’s career that makes Silverline make sense. Because if we don’t do that, the band’s most recent release, last Friday’s EP Convinced, of which Stephen Christian referenced last year on Lead Singer Syndrome as the second part of Silverline. One of the biggest criticisms of Silverline is that it lacks cohesion and that styles of each song are too different. But compared to Convinced, Silverline makes more sense in the Anberlin canon, especially looking at Devotion and Lowborn as the jumping off point and considering the last two Anchor & Braille records for reference. I want to say that today’s song, “Nothing Lost,” is the thread that keeps Silverline from unravelling. Starting with a dirty bass line and indistinguishable lo-fi voice that sounds like “fuck up” –a little off brand for Anberlin’s recordings in the past, the song then moves into a Dark Is the Way, Light Is a Place–styled mysterious guitar riff and autotune vocals on Stephen’s vocals.  The song’s chorus is an Anberlin-cannon banger that could be anywhere from Never Take Friendship Personal to New Surrender. The anthemic guitars and gang vocals actually make the song one of the least-processed sounding tracks on the record. 

    WE DIDN’T COME THIS FAR TO ONLY COME THIS FAR. Elsewhere on the record, after sitting with it for while, listeners might start make connections. “Two Graves” and “Dissenter“; “Circles” and “Armageddon“; “Body Language” and “Asking” and “IJSW” make the Silverline make sense. Some critics and listeners accuse Anberlin of following an album format, which partially true for their seven LPs. Silverline and Convinced still feel like they are following the formula, but switching up their sound. The band which used keys minimally on their first five records, now fully embraces the electronic sound, and not just on the slow songs. The band that was known to uses post hardcore as an attention-grabbing effect, now leans into it. Nothing about the band’s formula seems sacred on Silverline and much less on Convinced–but that’s for another month. The lyrics of “Nothing Lost” are a bit confusing, especially given Stephen Christian’s statements about his faith from The Bad Christian Podcast, various interviews, and his sermons as a music pastor over the last half decade. While not explicitly stated like in Lowborn, the details about the band’s re-formation seem to lie in the lyrics of Silverline and Convinced.  Today’s song seems to be about the band. Stephen seems to be reflecting on several things. First referencing the “fallen woman” trope of “The Feel Good Drag,” the speaker of the song seems to be dealing with the shame of that comes after fornication. Maybe this is a stretch, but just as Stephen has talked about his regret of having sex before marriage, he also talked about feeling purposeless with the band, particularly when their success plateaued.The second part seems to be addressing Stephen’s wife, Julia. He’s trying to convince her that his love for her and his love for the band are not conflicting. Finally, back with the band, Stephen yells, “we didn’t come this far to only come this far.” In the chorus he tells them not to “go gently down the right path, wrong road.” This phrase stuck with me from first hearing it, and probably Stephen would have a sermon illustration to explain it. I wonder if this was a dig at the music industry in the ’00s and ’10s that started upstreaming indie acts, but in order for those acts to stick around they had to compromise what the band was in order stay relevant? And would the indie route that bands are taking these days be the right path on the right road? There certainly is a lot to analyze with the new Anberlin EPs, but I think “Nothing Lost” might be a key into understanding why the band is back.

  • “Heaven" by Troye Sivan ft. Betty Who, Sunday, July 2, 2023 (Updated Repost)

    On December 4, 2015, Troye Sivan released his wildly successful first LP, Blue    Neighbourhood.  Building a large Internet fanbase, Blue Neighbourhood    peaked at #7 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The standard edition of Blue Neighbourhood   contained 3 of the 10 songs from the previously released Wild EP. The LP, though, gave Sivan his first US Top 40 single, “Youth.” Four of the ten songs on Blue were singles, starting with “Wild,” a remix of which was rereleased with guest vocals by Alessia Cara as Sivan’s fourth single from the album, which was a major hit in South Korea.   

    TRUTH RUNS WILD. The final single, “Heaven,” was released on October 17, 2016. The Jack Antonoff-produced single features a second verse from fellow Australian pop star, Betty Who. After Sivan came out in a YouTube video in August of 2013, he became an LGBTQ+ icon, as he processed his sexuality in the lyrics of his music. Part of the promotion for Blue Neighbourhood was a trilogy of videos imagining the themes of two young gay lovers as they deal with the social and relational implications of their love. For the album’s final single, though, Sivan digs into his religious background. Raised Orthodox Jewish, Sivan had an early crisis of faith when he thought he might be gay. He revealed to We the Unicorns that he began to ask “really, really terrifying questions. Am I ever going to find someone? Am I ever going to be able to have a family? If there is a God, does that God hate? If there is a heaven, am I ever going to make it to heaven?” Taking these thoughts into the studio with co-writers Antonoff, Alex Hope, and Grimes (Clair Boucher), Sivan concludes: “If I’m losing a piece of me/ Maybe I don’t want heaven.” 

    WITHOUT LOSING A PIECE OF ME. The lyrics of “Heaven” deal with a personal crisis, but the video shows historic pride marches and footage of LGBTQ+ Rights activist, Harvey Milk. The queer-themed music video was meant to be released on January 20, 2016, the day that Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, but the video was released on the 19th because of fans’ responses to the video’s teaser. When I first heard “Heaven” back in 2016, my Adventist-raised brain was triggered. In many Protestant denominations, there’s this delicate dance between grace and works. Adventists preached against more permissive denominations that didn’t take the rules from the Old Testament seriously. Becoming an Adventist meant giving up a list of things the world thinks are normal: 1) unclean meats 2) jewelry 3) smoking 4) alcohol 5) working on Saturdays, and that was just the beginning. I remember manipulative sermons that analyzed why ______ was sinful, and if you loved _____ more than God, you’d be sure to be left out of heaven. Adventists claimed to be more biblical than other Christians, and that grace leads to a reformed life. Of course, ask any denomination, and they would draw a line on something. And all denominations that I knew of when I was growing up,  the very basic thing was, don’t be gay. Sivan’s response is that if he has to change, he doesn’t want heaven. To an Adventist, this could be just as much for someone who doesn’t want to give up bacon as someone who is gay. They would say it’s all sin and a war with the flesh. Growing up in that religion it made perfect sense until I realized I couldn’t not be gay.


    Read the lyrics on Genius.




  • “I Can Be Your Man” by Betty Who + Summer Mix '23 Apple Music Edition, Saturday, July 1, 2023

    Pride month may be over, but the celebrations continue, and today we’re bringing back Betty Who, a staple of the Pride Festival circuit. Today’s song “I Can Be Your Man” is a late ’90s rocker performed just 25 years later. In “I Can Be Your Man,” Who delves into the ambiguity of friendships many of us in the community felt as we were growing up. I heard it talked about on the Leaving Eden podcast recently about how often LGBTQ+ youth will experience intense friendships and never be able to articulate it as attraction. In today’s song, Who articulates this sentiment after a friend breaks up with her boyfriend, and the speaker offers to “be her man” despite being a female-identifying person. It’s a fun summer track like to others I’ve compiled in the Apple edition of Summer Mix ’23.



     

  • “I Feel Like Dancing” by Jason Mraz, Friday, June 30, 2023

    Before “Shape of You,” Jason Mraz‘s “I’m Yours” was an inescapable song that I couldn’t stand. “I’m Yours” reached its peak popularity in 2008 and early 2009 in terms of radio play. But I was still listening to Tooth & Nail CDs at that time. But I certainly didn’t miss out on the song. Because the song was relatively clean it was played in college and in middle and high school when I was student teaching. It was one of those annoying songs along with “Hey, Soul Sister” that the ukulele cover squads would play along with Mumford & Sons covers on the promenade walking to class. 

    EVEN IF IT’S RAINING, I’M NOT COMPLAINING. In Korea, “I’m Yours” fever carried on into the mid-’10s. Not a day at the beach could end without passing by five buskers performing the pseudo-reggae tune. Again, I hated that annoying song with its ridiculous made-up words, but thanks to friends in college, I had the opportunity to listen to other songs from Jason Mraz, and I quite liked them. And of course, I loved “I Won’t Give Up,” which showed a deeper emotional quality in Mraz’s songwriting. Probably a big reason why Mraz was so popular in Korea had to do with the fact that he was one of a handful of pop musicians to perform here. I remember seeing him on a singer-songwriter festival bill on Nami Island (남이섬) located in the rural outskirts of Chuncheon (춘천) east of Seoul. Mraz showed an appreciation for his Korean audience, bringing his world tour to Korea whenever he could and even performed on Saturday Night Live Korea. Of course, Jason Mraz’s popularity dwindled in the ’10s without a hit to follow “I Won’t Give Up.” Pop music moved on, but Jason Mraz’s sound stayed virtually and became a more mature version of his earlier music.

    MAYBE TOO MUCH COFFEE DID IT.  Nothing really drew me back to Jason Mraz’s music. I enjoyed listening to Yes! one day in a coffee shop in 2014. I listened to interviews and he came into my news feed from time to time, especially when he came out as bi in 2018. There was a podcast I listened to in which he talked about organic farming and being the stoner version of a Sesame Street character. But then “I Feel Like Dancing” came into my YouTube feed. The neo-disco tune uses wordplay and has all of the energy that made him famous for “I’m Yours,” just awkwardly fifteen years later. The song will turn around any bad day and make you feel like dancing, even if you’re in a place where it’s terribly inappropriate. But the song does give me embarrassing “Dad, please stop!” vibes. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m witnessing jean shorts, fanny packs, knee socks, and sandals. Yikes! While this year’s Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride didn’t chart on Billboard’s 200 Albums nor has it spawned a charting hit (not even “I Feel Like Dancing”), I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some late resurgence for Mraz’s popularity. But then again, you don’t need to be popular to dance!

  • “When Love Sucks” by Jason Derulo ft. Dido, Thursday, June 29, 2023

     

    In college, I loved watching Adam Buckley lambaste the worst pop songs of the year on his channel A Dose of Buckley. Then a few years ago Todd in the Shadows appeared in my YouTube feed, and I got to listen to his somewhat whinier snide takedowns of the years’ hits. In one video, Buckley gives his insights as to how he gets views. He says that he makes controversial statements about popular songs, and then allows the algorithm to feed them to pop stans who then share the video online, making the video go viral, ultimately boosting the popularity and notoriety of the host who, because of his statements, must remain in the shadows. I’m not really sure if there are any Jason Derulo “Stans” out there, but let’s all admit: “When Love Sucks” is a perfect recipe for a flop.


    MY TEA’S GONE COLD. Those who have nothing original to say, really shouldn’t be making a pop song. Not in 2023. Then again, we are in the midst of a ’90s early aughts nostalgia that really doesn’t know what to do with itself. The latest tracks from David Guetta are a prime example of this. I haven’t written about Jason Derulo yet, and I don’t have much criticism of his songs. In college, I thought what you said was actually pretty catchy as was in my head. In the ‘10s he had a few songs that were fun. Buckley and Todd in the Shadows covered a few of the songs, but I didn’t think that they were of much note. But I had a hard-to-articulate reaction to “When Love Sucks” when I first heard it in Spotify playlists of recent pop songs. First of all, I clicked on the track and saw that Dido was a featured artist. Cool, I miss her. Instead, it was a sample from an old track. Completely uninspired, Derulo samples, 1998’s “Thank You,” a song that was at the conception of the Internet slang term stan because the song was sampled on Eminem’s 2000 hit “Stan.”


    YOU’RE THE BEST AND WORST I’VE HAD. My reason for the critique of this song is twofold. For the first, refer to what I wrote about David Guetta’s “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” for this argument. In 2023 I think it’s very important to ask the difference between an homage and a cheap grab at easy content. Maybe it’s a problem that comes from a generation raised on blockbuster sequels to the point where we have a hard time finding what is truly a good use of an allusion. A sample of “Thank You” should not exist outside of “Stan,” unless there’s a damn good reason—say a film or musical or installment piece by an avant-garde sculptor that lost their mother when buying groceries to that song, for example, of course. But that brings me to the second part of my critic    ism: what is it for? Hook up the song is the Dido clip that has been sped up to drain the song of its emotion. Sad with tropical House beat. Derulo sings about lost love in a fast song. It’s an emotionless performance. And there’s so much cultural wait to Dido’s “Thank You” that it being a love story is completely unbelievable. The songs are separated by 24 years of culture. The processing on the Dido track makes it feel like she’s trying too hard to be hip, but i feel like that’s something that she never intended. It’s not dido but rather a producer manipulating the recording. But that’s just my thoughts.


    Official Audio:

    Music Video:

    “Thank You” by Dido:


    “Stan” by Eminem:


  • “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty, Wednesday, June 28, 2023

    It wasn’t until last Fall that I listened to Tom Petty‘s second solo record, Wildflowers. To be fair, I actually hadn’t listened to his first solo record Full Moon Fever or any of his albums with The Heartbreakers. But in high school, I’m pretty sure that my sister and I wore the band’s Greatest Hits record out in my car CD player. Songs like “Refugee,” “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” and “You Got Lucky” eventually skipped from all the bumps we must have hit in my ’91 Toyota Corolla and its awful suspension.I think that’s the way that most of us experience a classic rock band, not through their definitive albums but on a compilation. 


    RUN AWAY; GO FIND A LOVER. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their Greatest Hits record in 1993. The Greatest Hits record included two new tracks, a cover of Thunderclap Newman‘s “Something in the Air” and “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” the former becoming a hit for the band. “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” was recorded during the Wildflowers sessions but landed on Greatest Hits. Whether intentional or not, a band or artist often puts out their greatest hits record as their career is winding down. There are definitely exceptions–U2‘s The Best of 1980-1990 and The Best of 1990-2000 are two seminal greatest hits collections that don’t even cover half of the band’s now 44-year career. And singer-songwriter P!nk‘s Greatest Hits…So Far!! was not a capstone on the talented Alecia Beth Moore‘s hit-making. But I wonder if as many casual Tom Petty listeners also think of the band’s greatest hits album as the end of the band and Petty’s career? We of course missed out on Wildflowers and the 1999 Heartbreakers and Petty reunion album Echo and a few after until the band started doing anniversary tours until Petty’s death in 2017. 

    YOU BELONG IN THAT HOME BY AND BY. Around the time of Tom Petty’s career starting to wind down was when he and Jane Benyo Petty separated. Tom and Jane had been together since before the Heartbreaker’s frontman was famous. Recall from last fall, Jane recounting her love story to Stevie Nicks inspired the song “Edge of Seventeen.” Because of Jane’s thick southern accent, Nicks misheard that Jane had met Tom not at the “age of seventeen,” but at the “edge of seventeen.” After 22 years of marriage, the divorce was finalized, and Petty began spiraling in a heroin addiction, which he blamed on the stress of the divorce. However, three years later, Petty sought help and treated his addiction, and began the last leg of his career, which included a Super Bowl halftime performance in 2008, a kind of capstone on Petty’s career. Today’s song “Wildflowers” is about letting a loved one go if the relationship has run its course. The elegy-like lyrics mirror the death of the relationship, perhaps Petty as a songwriter is reflecting on the end of his own marriage. Is the song somehow a satire, or is Petty really happy to part ways? The answer is up to the listener’s interpretation. 
     

  • “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” by Kacey Musgraves, Tuesday, June 27, 2023

    If you can stomach Tom Hanks‘ fake Dutch accent for 159 minutes, I’d recommend watching Baz Luhrmann‘s latest film, Elvis. I watched the 2022 musical biopic on a sixteen-hour flight this winter, so I was kind of a captive audience even though I’ve never been into Elvis Presley lore. Of course except Australia, viewers probably don’t come to expect historical accuracy from a Baz Luhrmann film, which mashes the contemporary and the period in a kind of Bollywood-inspired steampunk. Elvis is no exception as the soundtrack for the film juxtaposes the classic with the anachronistic. 


    LIKE A RIVER FLOWS SURELY TO THE SEA. Like many of Elvis Presley’s songs, the king of Rock ‘n Roll didn’t write “Can’t Help Falling In Love with You.” However, being one of the singer’s later hits, the song was not a popularized classic like many of Elvis’ early big hits. Instead, the song was written for one of Elvis’ films, Blue Hawaii. The 1961 film came during a string of Elvis films following the singer’s enlistment and discharge from the U.S. Army. The tune for “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” is based on the 1784 French love song by the composer Jean-Paul-Égide Martini, “Plasir d’amour.” The simple song became one of Presley’s many number-one hits and has been covered by many artists from U2 to Ice Nine Kills. Today’s version appears in the film Elvis in the scene in which Presley (played by Austin Butler) meets his future wife Pricilla (née Beaulieu) Presley as Elvis is still serving his military service. The Kacey Musgraves easy-listening ballad serves as a love theme for the film. Unfortunately, Presley’s lifestyle and, according to the film, the direction of Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’ manager, would cost Presley his marriage and eventually his life. 

    WOULD IT BE A SIN? A Baz Luhrmann production is certainly an avant-garde experience and music often plays a more important role in his films than audiences may expect. From ‘90s rock in Romeo + Juliet to 20th-century jukebox classics in a film set a year before the 20th century in Moulin Rouge to hip-hop appearing in the roaring ’20s in The Great Gatsby, Luhrmann’s musical tastes may ruin some viewers’ suspension of disbelief.  Elvis also incorporates modern sounds with artists like Doja Cat, Eminem, Stevie Nicks, and Musgraves, as well as Elvis tracks performed by Austin Butler as Elvis. In 2022 and now 2023, we’re left with the enormous task of judging the past with all of its grandeur and problematic nature in our understanding of what is right and wrong. A figure like Elvis Presley at one time was the beginning of American rockstar fame– a kind of fame more akin to worship and less concerned with scrutiny. But in the decades since we said our final goodbyes to Elvis, the critical voice that tells us some of the things from the life and career of America’s original idol weren’t right and can no longer be pushed aside with an “of the day” justification. Presley appropriating and downright stealing songs from black artists has been criticized in recent years, and I believe that in a way, Luhrmann, by having the songs performed in the film in African American clubs by contemporary black artists making the songs their own is a way that the film tries to reconcile this cultural conundrum. It’s unfair that black artists couldn’t take their own songs to white audiences the way that Elvis did, but society was fundamentally unfair. Now we must credit the sources of the problematic king.

    Elvis’ ’68 comeback

    UB40 cover:

    Film version:

    Kacey Musgraves Live:

  • “Kill Bill” by SZA, Monday, June 26, 2023

    Solána Imani Rowe took the stage name SZA when beginning her career. Since the artist’s full-length debut Ctrl in 2017, the singer/rapper has been an industry darling appearing in many collaborations from Maroon 5 to Doja Cat. The artist takes her stage name from the rapper RZA and her deep Muslim faith, which she was raised in from childhood. SZA stands for savior, zig-zag, and Allah. Today, SZA talks about her Muslim faith, for which she sometimes has an individualistic interpretation. 


    I DID IT ALL ON NO DRUGS. SZA’s latest album, SOS, was released in December of last year. However, the first single from the record, “Good Days,” was released on Christmas Day, 2022, and the second single, “I Hate U,” was released a year later in December of 2021. In January of this year, SZA released “Kill Bill” as the fifth single from the record. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks, becoming SZA’s biggest hit to date. The song references directly the film by writer-director Quentin Tarantino starring Uma Thurman as The Bride, Beatrix Kiddo, who seeks revenge on her former boss who left her pregnant and in a coma for four years. The song draws parallels between the characters in the two-part film series and SZA’s rage towards her own ex. Referenced in the lyrics, SZA’s therapist advised her to focus on “other men,” but the rage toward him is too great. SZA told Glamour, “I’ve never raged the way that I should have. This is my villain era, and I’m very comfortable with that. It is in the way I say no […] It’s in the fucked up things that I don’t apologize for.”

    RATHER BE IN JAIL THAN ALONE. Sometimes, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as the violence of a film by Quentin Tarantino. It’s hard to believe that it’s been twenty years since the release of the first Kill Bill installment, full of Beatrix Kiddo’s calculated revenge on the present and former gang members who surround their leader, Bill.  While SZA’s lyrics don’t make listeners think that she has been physically harmed in the way that the Bride in Kill Bill has, the revenge is nonetheless equated with disrupting her ex and the other woman. Whether or not this is an actual killing plotted or just an extended metaphor for another form of psychological revenge via pop song, “Kill Bill” joins the ranks of feminist vigilante bangers like The Chick’s 2000 hit “Goodbye Earl” and 2020’s “No Body, No Crime” by Taylor Swift and Haim. Just like watching bloody, Tarantino revenge, writing a song about an ex’s demise usually quenches the blood thirst. You begin to realize that, no, you actually don’t want to go to jail. That what he did wasn’t worth your time. And just seeing him dead, pathetic like a squashed bug, is all the time he is worth.  



     

  • “About Damn Time" by Lizzo, Sunday, June 25, 2023 (updated repost)

    Melissa Viviane Jefferson, better known by her stage name, Lizzo, released her disco-infused fourth LP this year titled Special. The album was a smash hit, debuting at number two on Billboard‘s top 200, and the album’s lead single, “About Damn Time,” topping the single’s charts for two weeks. Lizzo began her career performing and recording Hip-Hop independently in the Minneapolis scene. In 2016, she released a major-label debut EP, titled Coconut Oil and a 2019 LP Cuz I Love You. But it was her 2016 hit, “Truth Hurts” that took the singer to the top of the charts for the first time. 

    I BEEN SO DOWN AND UNDER PRESSURE. With the Apple Music version of Special, Lizzo recorded a message for her fans, a voice track titled “A Very Special Message from Lizzo.” In this 99-second track, Lizzo explains why she hasn’t released an album since 2019. The singer certainly wasn’t cutting corners, as she wrote hundreds of songs over the span of three years. She explains that she wanted the record to be perfect in the way that she envisioned it. Furthermore, she explains the meaning of the title. To Lizzo, Special means first learning to love yourself, shutting out all of the negativity from the world. She claims that once you “treat yourself the way that you deserve to be treated, and then treat somebody else with the same love and respect[,] that expands . . . and that can save a life.” Love for oneself, in Lizzo’s case, is partly in accepting her body type. Body positivity has been a theme throughout the singer’s career, from posing nude on the cover of Cuz I Love You to referring to herself as thick (sometimes thicc). Like many other female rappers, Lizzo reclaims the word bitch, repurposing it to describe a sexy lady who is completely in control of herself. Furthermore, Lizzo smashes homophobia by identifying as “mostly straight,” but admitting “Everybody’s Gay.” To this her LGBTQ+ fans identify themselves as “Lizzbians.” “About Damn Time,” though, is a musical anxiolytic, an anthem of self-love when you need it the most.
    TURN UP THE MUSIC, TURN DOWN THE LIGHTS. Last year on an episode on Into It podcast, Switched On Pop‘s Charlie Harding and Reanna Cruz joined Sam Sanders to talk about their picks for 2022’s “Song of the Summer.” Lizzo’s smash hit “About Damn Time” was considered among the likes of Beyoncé‘s “Break My Soul,” Harry Style‘s “As It Was,” and Kate Bush‘s “Running Up that Hill” (A Deal with God).” While Kate Bush’s “Running Up that Hill” and Bad Bunny‘s entire album Un Verano Sin Ti won as a tie, the hosts talked about how “About Damn Time” pays homage to Queen and David Bowie’s 1981 hit “Under Pressure” and to other songs of the past to make it sound “manufactured” yet “delicious” in the same way that fast food is delicious. Like Doja Cat, Lizzo’s 2022 sound declares that the ’70s are back, baby. MTV also considered “About Damn Time” as the song of the summer, but lost to Jack Harlow‘s “First Class.” “About Damn Time” is the surprisingly the first song that topped the Hot 100 with the word damn in its title, and the mild profanity is almost a throwback to the ’70s when a title like “About Damn Time” would be a bit more scandalous. 



  • “Shine” by Years & Years, Saturday, June 24, 2023

     

    Years & Years may not be much in America, but the once Olly Alexander-fronted electronic pop band charted very well in their homeland of the UK. The singles from the band’s first album, Communion, built up the band’s momentum. The band’s fourth single, “King,” reached number 1 on the U.K.’s singles chart, and their fifth, today’s song, “Shine,” reached number 2. And while the band, now just Alexander’s solo act, may not be matching their debut record’s success, Years & Years seems to tell something about the difference in The U.K. and U.S. music markets, particularly regarding openly queer artists.


    I’M FOLLOWING LIGHTNING. I’m not going to accuse U.S. pop charts of being Puritanical when it comes to queer artists, far from it. But in 2015 when Years & Years debuted, U.S. charts were still very much in a “don’t say gay” era, in which openly queer artists faced a disadvantage in sales and radio play. It wasn’t until 2019 when the Hot 100 got its first openly gay artist topping the charts with Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.” Of course, many artists who would later come out as have topped the Hot 100 when they were closeted, but Lil Nas X never hid his sexual identity from the start of his career. There’s a lot of discussion on why “Old Town Road” was such a big hit from the vitality of TikTok and the crossover blend of Country and Hip-Hop that made the song appeal to vastly different audiences, but 2019 paved the way for other LGBTQ+ artists to make an impact on the chart. But what about the UK? It seems that Years & Years topping the UK Singles chart in 2015 with “King” seems to show that an artist’s sexuality is irrelevant to the music that artists produces. Both “King” and “Shine” are pop songs that are on the boring side of pop, meaning there’s no profanity, no shocking sexually-charged lyrics. Yet, both singles don’t try to “sound straight” but rather shine in what they are—songs written by a gay man about gay matters. And somehow, by focusing on what is true to himself, Alexander is able to write a song that everyone can relate to.

    WHEN I SAW YOU ON THAT STAGE. Unlike many of the song on Communion, “Shine” is a positive reflection on Years & Years’ frontman Olly Alexander’s relationship with the violinist from the classical-pop crossover band, Clean Bandit, Neil Milan Amin-Smith. The relationship didn’t last long because of the bands’ busy touring schedules. The lyrics of the synth-based song depict love as something to be celebrated, even showed off. And in turn, the speaker of the song is shining. Like the video for “Foundation,” the video for “Shine” also delves into the supernatural. The band was inspired by three films: E.T.-The Extra-Terrestrial, Poltergeist, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and features the band mates encountering strange happenings in a glowing house. The song charted in fifteen countries and reached the top ten in three, including the UK, Scotland, and Ireland. The song was even used when  the Irish television channel RTÉ covered the 2016 Irish general election. “Shine” is a beautiful song celebrating love for what it is. As Pride month begins to wrap up, it’s important to remember to celebrate love throughout the year. Let your light shine.