Mixtapemotions

  • “Wonderwall” by Oasis, Sunday, May 14, 2023 + The Madchester Sound Playlist

     

    Today listening to the latest episode of Hit Parade, the episode about how Brit Pop showed great promise in America, but ultimately fizzled among the influx of new sounds in the ’90s, it got me to pull on a thread I was curious about before: why is the city of Manchester such a prominent music town? Liverpool may have started the British invasion in the ’60s, but it seems like the rival city of Manchester produced hit maker after hit maker. This playlist will pay homage to some of them.



  • "Me to You" by Tim Be Told, Saturday, May 13, 2023 + '90s Vibes Playlist

    The ’80s revival has been going on since the mid ’00s. The ’90s revival has taken longer to catch on. Sure, the songs in my Pseudo ’90s hits collection range from early ’00s tracks that seem to be just a few years shy of the Third Eye Blind alternative rock sound, but I tried to focus more on tracks in the recent years that are slowly bring back the elements of boy bands and over-produced bubble gum pop; post-grunge chords progressions; and early ’90s sax solos. Hope you enjoy this one!

     

  • “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran (repost), Friday, May 12, 2023

    If you make a list of the most iconic singer-songwriters, the list would include all of Ed Sheeran‘s influences. In fact, many would have had no problem putting Ed Sheeran on that list, if it weren’t for his huge mainstream pop hit “Shape of You.” If it weren’t for the 2017 song, Ed Sheeran would still have been a driving force in the music industry, penning verses for pop artists and singing semi-acoustic ballads and rapping a few bars here and there. Some listeners are still scarred from the repetitive chorus with its contrived masculine rhyme, so much so that they would prefer not to hear the song’s follow up. It’s unfortunate enough that I couldn’t take songs like “Perfect” or “Castle on the Hill” seriously. And when Ed Sheeran announced that he was back in June of last year, I was less than thrilled. But in September, thanks to musical algorithms, AppleMusic played “Shivers” when playing similar songs to Jax Jones ft. Years & Years‘ “Play.” Time heals all wounds, I guess. 

    EVERY TIME YOU COME AROUND, YOU KNOW I CAN’T SAY NO. Between projects, Ed Sheeran has been known to go on social media breaks. In December 2019, he announced that he would be taking a year off to write his next album and spend time with his family and welcome his new daughter into the world. The timing of his hiatus was perfect, not only because the singer had come off of his most successful album cycle but also because of the pandemic which paralyzed the music industry. Starting at the end of June, listeners have a taste of the next Sheeran project with the three singles the singer has dropped. The lead single, “Bad Habits” quickly rose to number 1 for 11 weeks in the UK. Sheeran told James Cordon that he originally wanted to release a slow song as the lead single, but decided on the upbeat “Bad Habits.” He said, “I don’t know if the world needs a depressing sad, slow acoustic song when it’s all opening up.” The second single “Visiting Hours” is a throwback to the singer’s roots on  + and X. The third single “Shivers,” written at the end of the singer’s Divide tour, sounds dancey, like “Bad Habits.” “Shivers” replaced “Bad Habits” atop the UK charts upon its release. 

    MY BAD HABITS LEAD TO WIDE EYES STARE INTO SPACE. Everyone has a bad habit. When Sheeran talked with Mario Lopez, the singer didn’t get explicit about wild drug addictions or alcohol binges. Instead, the thirty-year-old singer said that he wanted to adjust to becoming a father. “I don’t want anyone else to drive [my wife] to the hospital,” he said. The single cryptically alludes to addiction. The listener can assume that a pop star like Ed Sheeran has had some experiences, but ultimately, listeners are left staring into the maws of their own beastly habit. Is it that one too many drinks you take when out with your friends? Is it sleeping with that person you shouldn’t? Is it staying up all night watching something when you really should get a good night of sleep? Is it saying, “I really shouldn’t, but what if I just eat this block of cheese?” Sheeran and Lopez talked about the compounding effect of bad habits and how they can get out of control with friends. The song’s music video explores bad habits with the metaphor of vampires. Sheeran said that his love for old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer inspired the video. Like vampires, bad habits come out at night and they disappear when the sun rises. The “bad crew” whom Sheeran hangs with in the video disappear when the sun comes up. One runs into the shadows, another runs into a building, another jumps under a parked car, and one is dissolved by the light. Sheeran, however, transforms into his usual less-than-kempt persona. The face paint fades; the fangs disappear; the pink suit turns into a casual sweatshirt and jeans. The singer ends the video playing an acoustic guitar, seemingly unaffected by his nightlife. But as anyone with a bad habit knows, he only appears normal in the light. “Bad Habits” is a fun shame anthem, whether you’re trying to quit or shamelessly indulging. 

    Music video: 

    Lyric Videos: 

  • “My Universe” by Coldplay ft. BTS (repost) Thursday, May 11, 2023

    I’ve written a bit about how I’m a  Coldplay apologist. I believe that the London-based band is very good at what they do. Though so many artists accomplish their sound, both musically and lyrically, better, there’s something uplifting about a new Coldplay album. Two years ago, I talked about the band’s first single from their ninth studio record, Music of the Spheres, “Higher Power.” The album was released on October 15, 2021 . Before the release of the record and after releasing “Higher Power,” the band released the promotional single, the 10:17 track “Coloratura,” which was praised by critics for its composition and production. Then they released the second radio single “My Universe,” featuring the South Korean boy band, BTS. The song shot straight to number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the second Coldplay single to top the Hot 100, the first being “Viva la Vida.”

    I JUST WANT TO PUT YOU FIRST.  The reviews for Music of the Spheres were quite low. Metacritic, a database that averages the scores by major publications, scores the album as 55/100. Most critics agreed that Coldplay’s venture into Max Martin-produced pop music was shameless, even for a band that was instrumental for inventing the late ’00/’10 pop-rock sound. “My Universe” in particular is viewed as a “cash-grab.” Recently, due to BTS’s enormous ARMY of fans, every recent single the boy band has released has headed straight to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Music of the Spheres aimed to be a comeback album for the British pop-rockers. In 2017, Coldplay was a band with a large fan-base. Only Linkin Park had more YouTube subscribers, and Coldplay was the most streamed “rock band.” However, being the top rock band, even if your definition is loose enough to call Coldplay a rock band, made Coldplay a “big fish in a little pond.” The pond of rock music continues to dry up, and the 100 Million+ selling band would be competing with streams and sales by pop and R&B acts like Drake and The Weeknd. A collaboration with one of the highest selling groups of recent years would promote the now middle-aged rock band as cool and hip. Maybe the kids would dig back into their earlier discography and maybe Music of the Spheres would sell well.

    THAT BRIGHT INFINITY INSIDE YOUR EYES. Cynicism about the “cash-grab” aside, the Coldplay-BTS collaboration may have come from a place of sincerity. Originally, Coldplay wrote the song for BTS, as many non-Korean composers have written for K-pop. Coldplay performed in South Korea in 2017 during their A Head Full of Dreams Tour. The band has been evolving into a pop act steadily over the course of their career. Their 2011 Mylo Xyloto included a collaboration with Rihanna on “Princess of China,” and much less guitar focus. Head Full of Dreams included backing vocals by Beyoncé; however, “Hymn for the Weekend” wasn’t marketed as Coldplay ft. Beyoncé, thus the song ran on the momentum of Coldplay fans, not Beyoncé fans. The message of “My Universe” is that love transcends distance, language, and misunderstandings. Produced in and out of quarantine, Music of the Spheres aims to bridge fans around the world together. The band began touring again, after swearing off touring during the release of their 2019 record Everyday Life until they could find a way to tour more eco-friendly. Recently, the band has embarked on a carbon-neutral tour, which aims to revolutionize the music industry. The musical concept album Music of the Spheres, may have been inspired by Star Wars in “a galaxy far, far away,” but the themes of connection, love, and the human experience are truly not out of this world.
     
    Lyric Video:

    Documentary:

  • “No Time to Die” by Billie Eilish, Wednesday, May 10, 2023

     

    Around 2018, before I started paying attention to new music, I asked my middle school students who they were listening to these days, and it made me feel very old. There were a few singers I knew–Charlie Puth, Troye Sivan–but the two top artists I had no idea who they were. The first was Anne-Marie, who, admittedly hadn’t made it really big in America. I actually thought that the students liked the easy-listening singer Anne Murray, so I had to play her music for them!


    WAS I STUPID TO LOVE YOU?  The other artist was Billie Eilish, who hadn’t yet released her eventually Grammy-winning album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?  In the early days, though, I was turned off by the singer’s aesthetic: the gothic and neon, the adolescent morbidity. And the styles of her song titles bothered me. I felt that I had entered a new musical world where nothing made sense, that I was looking at the world through the eyes of Generation Z, and I felt not like a Millennial but rather the stereotypical Boomer. Was that going to be my relationship with music, or worse, my relationship with the upcoming generation, an inability to understand “kids these days”? I can’t tell you the first time that I heard “Bad Guy” because it seemed like I had heard it years ago in 2013 in a bar where the missionary kids would go–not to drink–but to dance. I couldn’t understand the music, like you had to be drunk to enjoy it. “Bad Guy” was played everywhere, and it grew on me, whether the gym or when shopping. It was the sound of the time. I didn’t like it, but that style didn’t grate on me like it did in the early ’10s. Meanwhile, critical opinion about Eilish’s talent was comparable to acceptance of Nirvana in the early ’90s.  While Eilish received acceptance on pop and dance radio, her genre may be best described as Alternative–a messy genre in which genre-bending is maybe the only requirement.

    THE BLOOD YOU BLEED IS JUST THE BLOOD YOU OWE. What made me get Billie Eilish was the Apple TV+ documentary, Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry. The documentary film, which I watched on my free trial of Apple TV+ when the platform didn’t have much to watch, gave an intimate portrait of the teenage singer starting from the recording her debut record When We All Fall  Asleep, Where Do We Go? with her older brother and fellow musician Finneas and follows the growing hype of Billie’s debut album, her touring and the toll touring took on her health, and finally the opportunity bestowed on only a select few artists: recording a theme song for the James Bond series, the titular track to the slated for 2020 No Time to Die. How Billie Eilish went from just a hipster Gen. Z writing songs about how messed up the world is for her generation to a fleshed out musical genius was seeing her family dynamic, particularly the collaboration with her brother Finneas O’Connell. And also seeing Billie performing around the world and injuring herself, even at a young age, emotionally getting so involved in her shows–crying over some of the lyrics as she sang on stage, trying to dance even through the pain of a sprained ankle–showed me that she is an artist and that the imagery is a vehicle to show her art rather than a gimmick. I still have yet to do a deep dive into her music, but seeing the authenticity will help me in the future when I do. Sorry I doubted you Billie!


  • "Waiting for the End" by Linkin Park, Tuesday, May 9, 2023 +AAPI Heritage Month Playlist (Updated Repost)

     Linkin Park‘s fourth studio album, A Thousand Suns underperformed compared to the band’s massive first three albums. The album produced two singles, “The Catalyst” and today’s song, “Waiting for the End,” but ultimately listeners didn’t like the album as most of the songs were not catchy. I always want to dig deeper into this album and its themes, but today, I wanted to introduce my AAPI Heritage Playlist, so I chose the most pop-oriented song on A Thousand Suns. If you want more information on the music theory behind this album, I’ll link to The Discographers, an excellent podcast that explores the discography of Linkin Park in one of their seasons. 

    MY MOUTH KEPT MOVING AND MY MIND WENT DEAD.  May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the United States, and I wanted to make a playlist that recognized some of the amazing talent by AAPI musicians. As with my other lists, I realize that making lists like this can be problematic. How do you determine what fits and what doesn’t? All I can offer is a humble apology if this list offends, and I’m here to listen to the debate. I’ve gone through several iterations of this list and may continue to edit it throughout the month. I cut the list at 31 songs with (technically) one song per artist. I gave preference to songs I blogged about; however, I wanted to highlight American artists because it’s an American observance. I also decided to highlight bands that feature musicians of Asian heritage rather than every member having to be of Asian decent. Here’s the playlist:

  • “Bad Dreams” by Deas Vail, Monday, May 8, 2023 + Deas Vail Track by Track

     

    No matter how your Monday finds you, let’s unwind with an album that meant a lot to me nearly ten years ago, the first spring I spent in Korea. I don’t remember what first attracted me to Deas Vail‘s third and eponymous album, but once I started listening, I couldn’t stop. I also don’t know much about where the band members are now, whether or not they remain in music in any capacity. What I do know is that Deas Vail captured a moment perfectly. 


    1. “Desire.” That being said, Deas Vail begins with my least favorite track. It’s not a bad song, and it clearly has the guitar motifs and the husband-wife duet sounds which will be important elsewhere in the album. Lyrically, “Desire” isn’t very interesting and it’s skip-able. But that’s my opinion. “Desire,” does, though have the most streams of the album.


    2. “Sixteen” begins the energy that is consistent in the rest of the album. Warm guitar tones bathe the song in sunny nostalgia. It’s a love song reveling youth, but the now older speaker in the song offers insight about love that the sixteen-year-old wouldn’t know.

    3. “Quiet Like Sirens.” Unlike the previous tracks, “Quiet Like Sirens” is the first song on the album that feels urgent. While their musical styles are quite different, I’ve often compared Deas Vail’s lead singer Wes Blaylock to the Silversun Pickups‘ Brian Aubert on certain songs. On “Quiet Like Sirens,” the guitars feel a little shoegazy, which makes the band feel a little like Silversun Pickups. 



    4. “Summer Forgets Me” brings the album back to it’s upbeat constant. Lyrically, it’s a bit of a downer, pointing out that summers and summer romances aren’t ever the ideal “photographs” we remember.


    5. “Towers” brings the album back to contemplation. “Towers”is a kind of us-against-the-world song, with imagery of a dense forest blocking the sun.

    6. “Pulling Down the Sun” seems to build on the theme of “Towers,” but with a more upbeat melody. The verse feels like a ’60s take on shoegaze and the brilliant chorus elevates the song. Whereas “Towers” seems to deal with general darkness in humanity, “Pulling Down the Sun” seems to deal with the plight of orphans.

    7. “Bad Dreams” is today’s song, which I’ve written about before. It’s one of the tracks on the album that gets difficult to distinguish from the others, though the songs don’t sound alike. 


    8. “Wake Up and Sleep” breaks up the monotony that the album starts to get with the outro of “Bad Dreams.” There’s a kind of musical hypnosis that Deas Vail creates on this album and their debut All the Houses Look the Same. “Wake Up and Sleep,” though, is instantly catchy with a ’60s groove. It’s so catchy that you may feel you already know it even if you have never heard the song before. 


    9. “Common Sense” is another standout track because of how different it sounds. The slow acoustic guitar builds the song lyrically until the speaker makes his point in the final line. 


    10. “The Right Mistakes” returns the album back to its natural sound of unassuming, bright choruses. The song touches a little more on Christian language than the other tracks.

    11. “The Meaning of a Word” is the most lyrically sparse track on the album, with one question repeated over a dreamy instrumental.


    12. “Meeting in Doorways” is a kind of death tune, looking forward to the end of summer and turning of leaves. It’s the last track on the band’s final album, save for their Christmas EP.  I hope you enjoy this album as much as I have. 



  • “This Is Why” by Paramore, Sunday, May 7, 2023

    In 2018, Taylor Swift did the unthinkable. Country music stars had been expected to be either right-leaning or a-political. Although Swift wasn’t a country music star in 2018, she was still associated with the genre. But as a resident of Tennessee, Swift came out publicly in support of two Democratic candidates in a midterm race. It took a Trump presidency and the callousness towards women’s and minority issues to make Miss Americana speak up. 

    SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. On the opening night of Taylor Swift’s Era’s tour in Scottsdale, Arizona, another band of somewhat reluctant activists opened the show, Paramore. Most of the opening acts on the Eras tour include indie rockers or singer-songwriters, mostly female, feminist, and LGBTQ+ or allies. As my readers already know, Paramore is a band fronted by Hayley Williams and consisting of a consistent and revolving door of male band members. Paramore’s presence on the Eras tour coincides with their own headlining tour supporting their latest record This Is Why, which the band released in February. When Paramore dropped the self-titled lead single for the record and announced the album last year, fans were surprised given that the conflicts between the band members and former band members making a return seemed unlikely. Some fans thought of the final song on After Laughter, “Tell Me How” as a swan song for the band. This was especially apparent when the band announced a hiatus after touring After Laughter in 2018 with Williams releasing a solo record in 2020, Petals for Armor, and drummer Zac Farro releasing music with his side project HalfNoise.  

    MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. Little by little in Haley Williams’ tenure with Paramore and as an artist, helped the singer to speak out about issues she cared about. While Paramore was never officially a Christian band, the circles the band started out with and band members, including Williams’ particularly in the early days of the band, own profession for Christianity has caused the band to fall under scrutiny that the band’s completely secular contemporaries never had to deal with. The rifts in Paramore’s history have to do with religion, particularly a line on the band’s third record Brand New Eyes, “The truth never set me free” on the track “Ignorance,” and Williams’ support for the LGBTQ+ community. Paramore went from a band that showed up for every Bible study on The Vans Warped Tour to the band that “gained the whole world and lost its soul,” and Paramore was probably judged harsher because they were female-fronted. Today’s song, “This Is Why” deals with scrutiny head on. It’s an anthem for those who were told that “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” But since Paramore went on hiatus, the politics of the world have only gotten worse and everyone has to stand up for what they believe in before more rights are taken away. It’s not comfortable to leave the house, especially when you’ve been there quarantining since early 2020. But it’s time to get out there and fight for what’s right.  

     Music video:

  • “I’m Not Here to Make Friends” by Sam Smith with Jessie Reyez and an Intro from Ru Paul, Saturday, May 6, 2023

     

    Warning: the following post could be deemed filthy, vile, disgusting, perhaps even Unholy. If you are reading this in the states of Florida, Texas, Montana, the Evangelical parts of Colorado, you may be shocked, outraged, and may feel the urge to contact your local congress person to start an investigation into the FCC’s practice of allowing a song that doesn’t use profanity to subvert heteronormativity, but rather does so with its gender-fluid music video that depicts Sam Smith arriving to a decadent party at an English mansion with subtle hints at golden showers and drinking a yellow liquid that…wait, what?


    THIRTY ALMOST GOT ME, AND I’M SO OVER LOVE SONGS. An Atlantic article published a day before Sam Smith released fourth album Gloria on January 27th this year dives into the recent controversy surrounding the artist. How did a Grammy-winning singer who made music so innocuous that you could enjoy it with your conservative Christian mom gather the old gang of Satanic panickers and cultural warriors? Sure, coming out as gay early in the singer’s career was somewhat polarizing. But 2014 was a different time, and the world was coming around on issues like same-sex marriage and acceptance of gay people in general. In 2019, Sam Smith came out as non-binary, claiming the they/them pronouns, and that’s where The Atlantic article proposes that Smith’s 2023 controversy stems from. However, recall that Smith’s third record, Love Goes was a relative flop considering the singer’s debut, In the Lonely Hour and its follow up, The Thrill of It All. What’s different about the Gloria album cycle? Embracing controversy. Starting with “Unholy,” featuring trans artist Kim Petras, Smith seems to echo the themes in Lil’ Nas X‘s “Montero” (Call Me By Your Name), in which the young queer singer implies in the video that he would rather go to hell and accept his identity than go to Evangelical heaven where he has to try to be something he is not. 
    SO IF YOU WANT IT BAD TONIGHT.  When “Unholy” hit number 1 on Billboard‘s Hot 100, it reflected a cultural moment. It reflected downloads, streams, and radio play showing that the people of America were at least willing to listen to music created by a non-binary and trans artist, and many of those streams came from supporters. But in giving visibility to non-heteronormative culture, “Unholy” and Smith added fuel to the GOP who doubled down on issues like gender affirming care and the right of drag queens to assemble in certain states. How did Smith follow up “Unholy”? While none of the singles from Gloria have reached the top 20, today’s song “I’m Not Here to Make Friends” peaked at 71, controversy has kept the singer relevant. The backlash from concerned lawmakers wanting to ban the music video for “I’m Not Here to Make Friends” flooded the internet with the release of the album. Then there was the “Unholy” Grammy performance, which had the same concerned Christians pointing out Satanic imagery like it was 1985 again. As for “I’m Not Here to Make Friends,” I think that age-appropriate censorship might be a valid discussion. But there certainly is a lot of other content on YouTube that hasn’t been flagged as explicit. Take for instance the sex club video in The Weeknd‘s “Take My Breath,” which depicts breath-play. But if you ban that, what about old movies in which someone is strangled or attempted to be strangled? And who hasn’t seen asses in straight pop star videos? Should the video be marked as explicit? Do you want your children watching this? Maybe you like it, or maybe it’s not your cup of pee. 

    Live on The Graham Norton Show:

  • “Somebody Else” by The 1975, Friday, May 5, 2023

     

    I’m pretty musically stubborn. Whenever somebody says that they found the next big band, I’m pretty shy to come around to that act. In the case of The 1975, I’m ten years late from when their self-titled debut and the hit song “Chocolate” hit the lower reaches of the Hot 100 and the middle reaches of the Alternative charts–in America. In the band’s home of the UK and in Europe, they fared even better as the concept of a band still sells records.


    I DON’T WANT YOUR BODY.     I first heard the song “Chocolate” on Punk Goes Pop Vol. 6 performed by Knuckle Puck. I didn’t know that the song was a hit by The 1975; I liked it but never looked it up out of laziness. Then in my podcast listening and research for my blog, I started hearing how much Aaron Gillespie loved The 1975. This recommendation didn’t actually turn me on to them. I assumed that the band was another art rock band like The War on Drugs, which I got into somewhat reluctantly because who has time for six-minute songs that aren’t Pink Floyd? I love The War on Drugs by the way and The Amazing, a Swedish jam band that sounds similar to The War on Drugs, but Sigur Riós or Tame Impala or The National? It will happen someday, but I’m holding off on those bands. But thanks to Spotify and Apple Music’s algorithms, I found out that The 1975 doesn’t particularly sound like music produced in 1975, nor does it sound jam-bandy. Now, I have to do a deeper dive into the band’s discography, but it seems that they should be called The 1985, at least with the groove of today’s song, “Somebody Else.” In a similar way to The War on Drugs, The 1975 make time stand still with their 5:47 track, not using much variation in chords. The synths add a kind of New Age effect, with flutes adding a haunting dimension to this song about a break up.

    I CAN’T GIVE YOU MY SOUL BECAUSE WE’RE NEVER ALONE. I have a hunch that The 1975’s streaming numbers are about to grow, not because of a new album or single, but because of a major story that broke yesterday that Taylor Swift and The 1975’s lead singer Matty Healy have been rumored to have started dating. Swift and Healy dated briefly in 2013. This rumor has polarized Swifties, those opposed to the relationship pointing out Healy’s issues with substance abuse, past relationships, and problematic comments in the past. Healy’s list of controversies are extensive, though he doesn’t seem to take himself very seriously. Matty’s lyrics in The 1975’s music seem to be rife with the demons of addiction–substances and sexual. “Somebody Else” is a song about the conflicted nature of breaking up with someone. You don’t want to be with that person, but you don’t want to see that person moving on. You hold yourself in a pattern. You want to move on, but you’re hung up on your ex. Let’s keep an eye on the latest from The 1975. Is this new attention going to make or break the band? Is The 1975 going to be my next band or will I find somebody else?