Mixtapemotions

  • "cherry blossom" by Kacey Musgraves, Tuesday, April 4, 2023

    Only for one week cherry blossoms bloom. The sakura or 벚꽃 are a delicate flower that is quite a spectacle both where they naturally occur in East Asian and where they have been planted. The peach and plum trees and magnolia trees are also beautiful, but the cherry blossoms when they fall like snow are quite stunning. But unlike the other flowers, cherry blossoms are the most delicate. Heavy rains, winds, unseasonable hot or cold, improper pruning of the trees all could be reasons for an uneven sakura week. And if the weather permits, the week ends with the flowers blowing in the wind like snow. 


    EVEN IN NATURE TIMING IS EVERYTHING. The third track on Kacey Musgraves‘ star-crossed, “cherry blossom,” compares the singer and her love to the delicate flowers that are supposed to bloom in “early April” but now earlier due to climate change. The cherry blossoms bloom for one week every year and then blow away in the breeze. Love too can disappear if it is not nurtured. In the loose story arc of Musgraves’ divorce record, “cherry blossom” establishes the speaker as being worthy of love and a pretty good catch. Today’s song is more upbeat than the previous track, “good wife,” with the second track taking on a heavier responsibility in the dissolution of the marriage, whereas today’s song the speaker shows that it is up to the other party to make it work. Today’s song was one of the tracks chronologically excluded from star-crossed: the film. It does, however, serve as the film’s end credits scene, but contributes nothing to the so-called plot of the film. While star-crossed is indeed a loose concept album, “cherry blossom” does serve as one of the few tracks on the record that build a somewhat believable relationship between the protagonist and her ex-husband.

    TOKYO WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY. One rhetorical device Kacey Musgraves uses in “cherry blossom” is changing city in the cliché “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” On her previous album, Golden Hour, Musgraves points out “In Tennessee the sun is goin’ down / but in Beijing they’re headin’ out to work” in “Slow Burn.” While this line doesn’t seem profound, it does paint Musgraves as more internationally aware than most of her fellow country singers. Musgraves has toured both Europe and Asia headlining and supporting pop artists. In 2019, the singer was accused of cultural appropriation and sexualizing Vietnamese culture for wearing a traditional outfit, only wearing the top half of the outfit. I’m not sure if Musgraves has apologized for this fashion faux pas –and the CNN article points out other pop stars who have been accused of cultural appropriation from Asian heritage–and it is not my job to cancel Musgraves or justify her, I have a feeling that Musgraves’ mistakes come from a sense of almost childlike wonder at a big world full of people with different backgrounds that she became more and more aware as her music reached a bigger audience. It’s that wonder for Japan and the sakura that made its way onto her 2021 record. The memories of cherry blossoms falling add much needed lightness on this otherwise dark record of divorce and heartbreak. 

    Instagram live performance:


  • "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" by Pink Floyd, Monday, April 3, 2023 (updated repost)

    A fan of the funk/disco band Chic, producer Bob Ezrin convinced Pink Floyd to include a disco beat backing what would become their only number 1 hit in their career. Ezrin also convinced the band to release the song as a radio single, something the band had been against on previous albums as they wanted their songs to be understood in the context of their greater work. The band had been a psychedelic pop act in the ’60s and had done radio, but they felt their artistic concepts were too big for the casual listeners. Classic Rock radio remembers a Floyd that never was, playing tracks from Dark Side of the Moon until The Wall, but perhaps without the commercial success of “Another Brick in the Wall,” radio would have forgotten the band.  

    TEACHERS LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE. Recorded with school children singing “We don’t need no education” and despised by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, “Another Brick” is the ultimate protest song of school children everywhere. If we take this song at face value, schools are concentration camps and teachers are the Nazis in charge. The ultimate revolt would be against education, children returning the human race into a feral state, as human infrastructure would deteriorate because no one would know how to operate anything. I’m sure the kid who pretended to be sick today and wished all schools would burn down hasn’t taken that thought to its logical conclusion. This, of course, isn’t want the song is about. Drawing on lead singer Roger Waters’ experience in a  Dickensian U.K. school, he argues that this hostile environment caused trauma and years of mental health issues, laying bricks in the wall that separated him from other people. Waters explained in Mojo: “You couldn’t find anybody in the world more pro-education than me. But the education I went through in boys’ grammar school in the ’50s was very controlling and demanded rebellion. The teachers were weak and therefore easy targets. The song is meant to be a rebellion against errant government, against people who have power over you, who are wrong. Then it absolutely demanded that you rebel against that.”

    IF YOU DON’T EAT YOUR MEAT, YOU CAN’T HAVE ANY PUDDING. It’s funny, though, contrary to Margret Thatcher, this song didn’t destroy education. Academia is still alive and well, and it’s just as hard as ever to get into a good school. Americans are so racked with university debt as it’s been told to us that you have to go to college to make any money in the modern world. Since Roger Waters’ grammar school days, there have been lots of reforms to education, and school systems has leaped forward with better, research based practices to improve learning and support students. Education will never be perfect. Greedy politicians always think they know better how to educate the nation’s kids. Timmy’s parents will always believe that he’s a perfect angel. People will always think that it’s a babysitter’s job and that anyone can do it. When I hear “Another Brick,” I think about what I’ve learned as a teacher. How I’ve learned to cause less trauma to my students as they grow up. But I also think about how much more we as teachers and as a society need to do for children. We can’t erase what’s happened in Mr. McChoakumchild’s classroom, but we can hear the stories and decide to make the change.
    Scene from The Wall film:

    Official Music Video:

  • “Late Night Talking” by Harry Styles, Sunday, April 2, 2023 + sick: a playlist of for staying in bed

    The last week I’ve been sick. The doctor says it’s just allergies and put me on a ton of meds that have me really sleepy. It feels like a cold, but I’ve been powering through my hell schedule. So today, I decided to make a playlist of songs that I want to listen to when I’m sick. It’s an on-going playlist and it also eats up a post as I’m adjusting my algorithm (a Google Sheets document I use for determining the song of the day). Please enjoy!



  • “The Fox” (What Does the Fox Say?) by Ylvis, Saturday, April 1, 2023

    I take this blog seriously. Maybe a little too serious at times. I want to share the music that I want others to care about as passionately as I care about it. But sometimes we have to remember that music can just be fun. And stupid. That’s why I’m updating my Foolish Mix from last April Fools day, this year featuring the bizarre electro-dance hit, “The Fox” (What Does the Fox Say?) by Ylvis. This will be an ongoing list of strange songs that don’t usually make my regular format. Enjoy!

     

  • “I Need You” by Jars of Clay, Friday, March 31, 2023

    Jars of Clay‘s funky third record, If I Left the Zoo, was produced by Dennis Herring, which took the band in a different direction than their previous two records. Herring had also produced This Desert Life by Counting Crows the same year as If I Left the Zoo, which influenced the direction of Jars of Clay’s 1999 record. In the new millennium, Herring produced some of the biggest records for Modest Mouse, The Hives, Ben Folds, and Mutemath. 

    YOU’RE ALL I’M LIVING FOR. Jars of Clay, however, wanted to return to their acoustic roots on their fourth album, The Eleventh Hour. The band had tried to work with Herring again, but the producer was unable to schedule sessions with the band. Thus Jars of Clay again self-produced their record like they did for their eponymous record. The lead single from The Eleventh Hour, “I Need You,” was written during recording sessions for If I Left the Zoo, but fit better on the band’s fourth record. The song sees Jars of Clay experimenting in electronics, something lead singer Dan Haseltine would try later with a solo project in the 2010s called The Hawk in Paris. With Haseltine’s soft voice and the band’s worshipful melody, “I Need You” more clearly to God than the “Jesus or girlfriend” ambiguous lyrics on the band’s jabs at mainstream radio. Unlike the band’s first three records, which earned them general market rock and pop radio singles and/or movie placements, The Eleventh Hour mostly impacted Christian radio markets. The single “Fly” proved that Jars of Clay on rock or pop radio was a thing of the ’90s.  But this new marketing primarily to Christian outlets worked, and Jars of Clay won both a Grammy and a Dove Award for best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album and best Modern Rock Album, respectively. 

    THERE’S A LIGHT FILLING THIS ROOM WHERE NONE WOULD FOLLOW BEFORE. A year after releasing The Eleventh Hour, Jars of Clay celebrated their tenth year as a band with a double disc set, furthermore: from the studio and from the stage. The record contained studio re-workings of some fan favorites and two B-sides from The Eleventh Hour. The live disc contained tracks recorded live on the band’s Eleventh Hour Tour, one of which was the album’s first hit “I Need You.” The Eleventh Hour was the turning point in Jars of Clay’s career, when they found that writing faith-based music for the general market was not a profitable venture. They realized they would never replicate the success of their 1995 hit “Flood.” But the faith of Jars of Clay as a group of three out of four men who met at a Christian college and started making Christian radio hits is a bit more nuanced, which became clear with Dan Haseltine’s Twitter controversy in 2014 when the singer defended same sex marriage. Other members have talked about their faith, doubt, and unbelief. And it’s that story of complexity that brings me back to Jars of Clay’s music even in the complexity of my own faith and doubt. It’s still comforting to cry out to God when I feel sick and tired and remember a time when I dramatically could say “You’re all I’m living for.”

  • "Swamp" by Mike Mains & the Branches [Content Warning: Discussion of Suicide], Thursday, March 30, 2023 (repost)

     Closing 2019’s heart-wrenching When We Were in Love, “Swamp” perhaps sums up Mike Mains & the Branches‘ third album in a single song: love, depression, and religion. Like the songs “Breathing Underwater” and “Around the Corner,”   Mike Mains gave an intimate insight into his writing process on Labeled. Mains talked about earlier Tooth & Nail releases from mewithoutYou and As Cities Burn,   which helped to inspire him to write darker Christian songs and push the genre of Christian Rock lyrically to open an honest conversation about mental health, depression, and questioning one’s faith.

    YOU HAD ME AT MERLOT. “Swamp” is the conclusion and the title-bearer of the album. Mike Mains asks his wife, bandmate Shannon Briggs Bolanowski-Mains, “Do you remember when we were in love?” On the Labeled podcast interview, Mains talks about “Swamp” being about a fear that his wife were to leave him. Mains wrote “Swamp” after spending time in therapy and in couple’s counseling, when things were starting to pick up. The first line from the song was what his wife wrote on a Valentine’s card. While things seem to be getting better, Mains imagines that all the progress the couple made was for naught, and Shannon becomes fed up with him and leaves anyway. In this dark fantasy, after leaving Mike, Shannon finds a man who is everything that Mike is not: a fearless, strong Christian who satisfies her every need. Continuing the narrative Mains talks about in “Breathing Underwater,” “Swamp” sees the singer graphically imagining his suicide by “pull[ing] the garage door shut and let[ting] the engine run.” 

    DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE IN LOVE? Speaking directly about “Swamp” in the interview, Mains quotes the song “Poison Oak” by Bright Eyes: “I’m drunk as hell on a piano bench/ And when I press the keys, it all gets reversed /The sound of loneliness makes me happier.” Mains says, “I wish it wasn’t, but it’s so true, but I love sad songs and they do make me really happy because they remind me that I’m not alone.” Interestingly, “Swamp” subverts the Christian art trope of writing a song in a minor key but ending on a major chord. “Swamp” ends with the lines: “Every day feels like waking up in the swamp/ Every day feels like waking up at the bottom.” Not only does the song end with that line and the sad, wandering piano, but the album ends with that line. Mains could have ended the album with “Around the Corner,” a song that could put the grief in a positive context, but instead, “Swamp” is a song about processing the grief and it’s our realization that we are not alone when a day just flat out sucks. Some days you don’t want to be told that everything is going to be okay. And that’s okay. Also, mental health is not always as simple as illness and recovery. And that’s not a spiritual illness, just reality. “Swamp” ends the Christian Rock record we all needed back in the ’90s, but wasn’t released until 2019. Better late than never.

  • “Solar Power” by Lorde, Wednesday, March 29, 2023

    Today, we have another offering from our Lorde and Saviour, Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, aka “the prettier Jesus.” In January, we talked about the opening track on Solar Power, “The Path,” in which Lorde claims not to be, well a lord for her fans and followers. By the next track, the titular track, however, Lorde points to “Solar Power” but admits that she is “like a prettier Jesus.” The answer to the singer’s problems lies in the sun and ultimately in nature.


    NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, ONLY MY FEATURES. “Solar Power” was the summer anthem that never caught on.  Lorde released her third record Solar Power at the end of the second summer (winter for New Zealand) of the pandemic, 2021, with the titular lead single coming out on June 20th before the record’s release on August 20th. It’s hard for me to distinguish time during the pandemic, and each nation dealt with the pandemic differently, completely shattering any sense of monoculture the entertainment had created before the pandemic. In other words, how New Zealanders, like Lorde, dealt with the pandemic was completely different from how one of the single biggest markets for Lorde’s music, The United States, dealt with the pandemic. While America struggled with mis-management of the pandemic, New Zealanders endured lockdowns and were able to contain the virus for a while, which allowed the citizens a certain level of normalcy. While “Solar Power” should be heard as fond memory of getting out in the summer and shaking off the seasonal depression that comes with the colder months, Americans weren’t in the mood to be reminded of all the fun they were missing out on. 

    AND I THROW MY CELLULAR DEVICE IN THE WATER. Summer fun, though, may not be the only theme of the song. Some authors of the song’s Genius annotations (see below) have pointed out that Lorde has hidden ancient “sun worshipping” allusions in today’s song. If I were analyzing the song ten years ago, I might have noticed it too, but I don’t care too much for the simplistic Christian critique anymore. I was reminded, though, of how a college professor likened tanning to sun worship and made a racist remark about darkening own’s skin in the sun. Through reading the Romantics and the Transcendental poets, so-called sun worship and looking to ancient, non-Christian faith traditions was discussed at length in my literature classes. Adventists were much more likely to hold a church service outside on a beautiful day than evangelicals, but it was important to distinguish the difference between worshipping nature and worshiping the maker of nature. For Adventists, nature symbolized a return to the Edenic lifestyle, to which they believe they will one day return to in the new heaven and new earth. There are some who become obsessed with getting used to a Garden of Eden experience, reducing reliance on technology. Just never call them transcendentalists, although the motives may look the same. Lorde, however, is advocating the Eden experience without the Christian background. And it seems that for the singer, it’s a season rather than a weaning off of the world. 

    Music video:

    Rooftop Performance: 


  • "Sucker" by Jonas Brothers, Tuesday, March 28, 2023

    In 2019, The Jonas Brothers broke their nearly six-year hiatus and returned with first the single “Sucker,” an album titled Happiness Begins, and an Amazon documentary titled Chasing Happiness. The Jonas Brothers had been a massively successful band in the late ’00s and early ’10s, but had a niche audience of mostly teenage girls through Radio Disney and Nickelodeon as well as a few Christian radio stations. 

    I’M A SUCKER FOR ALL THE SUBLIMINAL THINGS. What was the demand for the reunited Jonas Brothers? Like countless childhood stars from the Disney or Nickelodeon universe, Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas grew out of their tween image. Nick’s solo career was the most successful of the brothers, but that success also included acting and modeling and ultimately becoming a thirst-trap for the gay community. The albums X2 and Last Year Was Complicated tackled mature material beyond anything he sang about with his brothers. Similarly, Joe found success with the sexually-themed saccharine hit “Cake By the Ocean” when he formed the band DNCE. Would a reunited Jonas Brothers return to the squeaky clean bubblegum of the band’s roots or would the group fully embrace adult themes? The answer was somewhere in the middle. Just as the Brothers had grown up so had their audience. But the re-assembled brother band from New Jersey wasn’t just a nostalgia act in the way that Covid band revivals or some TV show reboots only capitalize on the loyalty of old fans. “Sucker” debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the first number one in the band’s history. 

    WE GO TOGETHER BETTER THAN BIRDS OF A FEATHER. Sometimes an artist’s name alone can make a number one hit, and when an artist comes back after a long hiatus there can be bump in popularity that a song wouldn’t normally receive. I think that both of those factors would push “Sucker” into the top 10. But what made “Sucker” a number one hit was its catchiness which lead to streams, downloads, and radio play. It’s not surprising to find that Ryan Tedder was the production genius behind the song. The band has a number of songwriters on the track, but all three Jonas Brothers are credited as writers. Younger millennials and early Gen-Z, now grown up found the perfect balance of nostalgia and contemporary pop sounds. Of course, the Brothers still in their late 20s to early 30s are as handsome as ever and the sex appeal of a colorful pop record modestly highlighting the siblings’ posteriors as they look wistfully into a pool certainly couldn’t hurt. But “Sucker” was a love anthem, much like what the boys had sang years ago. The difference this time is that all three brothers were married with Joe marrying Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner shortly after the single’s release. “Sucker” is a song about the crazy things you do for love, and today, I’m a sucker for this song.

  • “Rings & Roses” by Dabin ft. Connor Byrne, Monday, March 27, 2023 (repost)

    Dabin is a melodic EDM music producer from Toronto who currently lives in Colorado and Conor Bryne is an Irish singer-songwriter known for his YouTube covers. I first heard this song last week when Apple Music played it as “music you may like based on the artists you just played.” It’s probably the most surefire way for me to discover music these days.  Based on the nursery rhyme, “Ring Around the Rosie,” “Rings & Roses” explores the career path of someone, a friend or a lover, who is pursuing fame. That person has become too popular for the singer, who warns that in the end “they all fall down.” Simple enough. 

    WAITIN’ ON THE DREAM YOU BEEN SOLD. Pursuing a dream takes work and sacrifice. There’s something in our youth that makes us believe that anything is possible. But somewhere along the way, the novelist in us, the future basketball player, or the rockstar gives way to the backup plan. Of course, thanks to the Internet and Garage Band, anybody can become a musician. It’s good if you have some musical talent or ability. Dabin Lee, known by his first name Dabin,  had that musical background, beginning with playing piano and guitar from a young age. But in 2011, Dabin started producing electronic music. His 2019 album Wild Youth features ten tracks with a different vocal feature on each. These are not big name artists, but the lack of star quality on the album doesn’t take anything away from the tracks. If anything, it opens up a new world of indie singers. The tracks are vibey EDM, bright and nostalgic, though some of the tracks on Wild Youth (The Remixes) are a bit more distorted and dirty, presenting more of a barrier to those who don’t particularly like club music. And unlike artists like Alan Walker or Marshmello, Dabin incorporates real instruments into his live DJ sets. So, although you won’t see Connor Byrne singing with Dabin in concert, you’ll see Dabin playing the electric guitar live.

    I MISS YOU. I MISS YOU. WHERE ARE YOU NOW?  One of the questions this song asks is how much should you give up for a dream? At what point does what you’ve given up for that dream nullify it? And what level of selfishness in pursuing dreams or goals is unacceptable? A lot of people I knew when I was growing up were held back by an obligation either to family or place. It’s a prevalent theme in Southern literature, but I’ve seen this loyalty to place on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. It’s the question that Tracy Chapman grapples with in “Fast Car“: to “leave tonight or live and die this way.” The family values that I was raised with were to make sure you can pay the bills. That means working long hours in whatever will give you a steady income. That means moving to wherever you can get the best job and sacrificing so that you and your family can eat. It was for this reason my parents decided to move away from their families. This upbringing got me a college education and gave me a commitment to pay my bills. But I still dream of what I could have done if I just aimed a little higher. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked out. Maybe I’d be a starving artist. But maybe I’d be living closer to the family that I miss. Not too close, though.

    Lyric video:

     Live performance at Red Rocks:

  • "Lucky Strike," by Troye Sivan, Sunday, March 26, 2023 + Spring Vibes Playlist

     

    Today I present a playlist I’ve been meaning to make for a while. I want to put all of the songs that give me spring vibes in a single playlist. These aren’t just songs explicitly about this time of year, but also songs that mention the season. Of course we’re going with one song per artist, so unfortunately the equally springlike song  by Troye Sivan “Bloom” won’t be making the playlist. This is an ongoing project so expect more songs added as I find them. I will post the playlist below. Enjoy!