Mixtapemotions

  • "Space Age Love Song" by Flock of Seagulls, Thursday, February 23, 2022 (updated repost)

    I’m not a fanatic about space, like many children, I was fascinated with the prospect of traveling to other worlds when I looked out at the sky. From learning about the  nine eight planets from The Magic School Bus to watching Hale-Bopp in the late ’90s night sky, the universe seemed like such an interesting place. After school it was Star Trek: The Next Generation  reruns then to PBS for Bill Nye the Science Guy and Arthur. Fast forward to February 1, 2003 (20 years ago). The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. This grounded America’s space program for two years. 


    YOU MADE ME CRY. This is my memory of the attitude towards the ’80s. I talked a little about this when I covered New Order‘s “World (The Price of Love),” but my memories of the views of the ’80s in the late ’90s and ’00s (what a time warp!) were of awkwardness, terrible hair, men in shorty shorts with hairy legs, girls in tight pink leotards and leg warmers. Tight jeans, porn star ‘staches, and aviators. Farrah Fewcett hair. If you watch Dirty Dancing or Top Gun too much you might get a hair in the back of your throat from someone’s mullet in the back of your throat and if you try to wash it down with Root Beer, you’d taste the ’80s. I immediately turned off music that took “’80s chord progressions.” But then in 2004, there was a shift. Falling Up released their second single from their album Dawn Escapes, “Moonlit.” The guitar riff sounded like ’80s metal. Of course Falling Up was probably not the first musical act to bring back the ’80s, but I started to realize that the ’80s were going to dethrone the ’70s hold on pop culture. Just as long as nobody’s getting Flock of Seagulls’ haircuts, we should be alright.

    YOU TOUCHED MY MIND. Music ran towards the ’80s sound. The Killers debuted around this time. Their first album drawing influence from The Cure. Little by little the “2000s” orchestra-hit laden Britney Spears/Backstreet Boys tracks gave way to new-wave sounding synth pop. Nowadays, if you look at a pop chart you will definitely hear ’80s influence. But what brought back the ’80s? Was it some sort of reaction to the conservative policies of George W. Bush mirroring Ronald Reagan? When I think of movies, television, and music of the ’80s I think of a time that was much more conservative than now. Television shows tried to instill morality, but yet tried to be edgy by introducing “issue” episodes. In the ’80s seemed like a counterreformation of the ’60 movements.  I’m writing a lot about a time before I was even born or have no memory of. Last year I enjoyed the Netflix documentary Challenger, which told the story about how NASA went from cutting edge to cutting corners. After America went to the moon, what was next? Mars? Venus? It seemed like nothing was in the way of human innovation. NASA introduced the space shuttle, a powerful rocket that was going to make going to space easy and common. Pop culture was space-obsessed.
    You don’t have to look far to find an ’80s song about space. It was the space age and everything was reading for the stars. Until the Challenger explosion. Upon closer inspection, it cost too much money to go to the moon, so NASA’s budget was slashed and with it our prospects manned explorations of the solar system. Of course we’ve made incredible breakthroughs in the field of astronomy since. It’s been mostly on the ground or in our back yard in the International Space Station. To tie everything together, much like the Space Age is still around in much less grand version of itself, so we have ’80s-styled dance hits without the hairspray. Or applied in different ways. America seems to be addicted to 1) conservative governments and 2) liberal entertainment. That doesn’t seem to be going away as Biden is probably one of the most conservative Democrats. SpaceX might take us to the moon. Let’s hope they don’t terraform Mars. Climate change may force us again to look to space, but really, though, is there enough time? Until, let’s enjoy some ’80s synth pop.
    ’80s aesthetic explained:

    Music video:

     

  • "Blind" by Lifehouse, Wednesday, February 22, 2023 (repost)

    It’s been 21 years since the post-grunge “Hanging By a Moment” was the number 1 song of the year. Although the Christian Rock band Lifehouse never actually topped the weekly charts, the song had so much statistical force via radio play and record sales that the song became one of the rare cases when a single that peaked at number 2 could actually claim the number 1 position for the year. No Name Face featured three singles, but none were as big as “Hanging By a Moment.” For the band’s follow-up, Lifehouse signed a Christian music marketing deal with Sparrow Records. Stanley Climbfall was nowhere near as successful as the No Name Face, but a sophomore slump didn’t plunge the band into obscurity. In 2005, the band released their self-titled album which boasted their number one hit which was appearing in every TV show that year, the prom/wedding favorite, “You and Me.” 


    I WAS YOUNG BUT I WASN’T NAIVE. “Blind,” the band’s second single, was overshadowed by the album’s first massive hit, “You and Me,” just as the other singles from No Name Face. But while the wedding and prom industry needs new songs every year and “You and Me” is a rather fine choice, the brooding “Blind” delves into lead singer Jason Wade‘s childhood and his parent’s divorce. The music video stars actress Tina Majorino, best known for her role as Deb in Napoleon Dynamite, who acts as a goth chick browbeaten by her womanizing father. Majorino’s character seems to act as a foil to Wade. When the band is playing in the goth chick’s room, Wade and the girl make knowing eye contact for a moment. Interestingly, the normally no-frills Jason Wade is seen in this video wearing eyeliner, sometimes called guy-liner, a trend that punk and emo groups rocked at this time. Some examples were Green Day and My Chemical Romance. Lifehouse was far from being a dark emo band, but “Blind” was one of their darker songs. Furthermore, Lifehouse in the video seems to represent the role that music plays in escaping childhood/teenage trauma. For one of their biggest Christian Rock hits, Lifehouse didn’t make a moralizing video, but rather when the father is out on his infidelity escapades, the daughter throws a party where everyone dances to Lifehouse and she kisses a boy. And from this party, she comes to the clarity that it’s time to leave her father’s house. 

    I WOULD FALL ASLEEP ONLY IN HOPES OF DREAMING THAT EVERYTHING WOULD BE LIKE IT WAS BEFORE. My mom always scolded me for watching music videos, so as soon as she went out, I’d watch TVU, Fuse, and whatever other music channel wasn’t playing reality TV. Every time this video came on my sister and I would yell “It’s Deb!” When I was growing up my parents fought constantly. I remember going to bed to the sound of their fighting some nights. My parents told us that they made a commitment to marriage so they would not get a divorce. My mom’s parents had divorced, and it probably left a lot of emotional scars. But I secretly wanted my parents to divorce. Maybe it would solve the bitter arguments. For years I blamed my parents for distorting my ideas on marriage. I told myself, if this is marriage, I don’t want it. My parents are still married but live very separate lives. They live in the same house but on opposite sides. They work different schedules. They spend time together, but too much time sets them off on each other. I’ve let a lot of it go since I’ve been away from my family. I think that my parents let go of their childhood trauma in a similar way once they moved away from it. Maybe we’re not really over it, but at least there was the music to help me through it.

  • “Lovers in Japan / Reign of Love” by Coldplay, Tuesday, February 21, 2023

    In college, one of my literature professors made the argument that people either tend to subscribe to classicism or romanticism. After taking several classes for my major with that professor, one of my classmates analyzed the aging professor based on his own claims, and that classmate said that Dr. Sylvan was a Romantic at heart repressing his romanticism with stoic classical form. And at the time that I was in college, one of the biggest records was Coldplay‘s Viva La Vida or Death and All of His Friends, an album that I would argue is “The Scientist” trying to experiment with romanticism and yet only being no more than 75% convincing. 

    DREAMING OF THE OSAKA SUN. “Lovers in Japan” is the fifth track on Viva La Vida, sharing a track with the shorter song “Reign of Love.” Coldplay’s lead singer, Chris Martin, said of the song in 2008 to Entertainment Weekly:  “No one associates romance with Japan…Everyone thinks Japan is just about Hitachi and neon signs, but every time we’re there, we see these amazing sunrises. It’s very sexy.” The player-piano/harpsichord tones outlining the song give it a classical sound, though not an East-Asian sound as the title may suggest. The song feels like a romantic getaway rather than interaction with locals, in much the way that 19th century travelogue may read, evoking the backdrop of some place new and sensational, but with the familiarity of the writer’s companions. For me, the song also evokes the Romantic era in how Europeans were looking to far off destinations as the economy globalized. The ultimate expression of capitalism is to travel to a place so far away and live as comfortably as accustomed to in the traveler’s home country. And then there’s Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, as it was described to me in my music appreciation class in college: “it’s set in Japan, but there is nothing Japanese about it.” Puccini’s libretto cares nothing for historical or cultural accuracy. It’s a misnomer in that Japan is a signifies something exotic.  

    SOLDIERS, YOU’VE GOT TO SOLDIER ON. However, this is not the nineteenth century, and Japan is now a popular tourist destination. I’ve been twice, three times if you count a layover in Tokyo Haneda, and will probably go again if I stay in Korea. I’ve done the Osaka/Kyoto trip twice, once with a group of friends and once with my boyfriend. It’s a fairly cheap hop-over flight from Incheon or Gimhae if you shop around. A trip anywhere can be romantic if there’s a nice hotel and a nice itinerary. The images of Japan capture the mind– eating Pacific saury or seeing Irezumi tattoos at certain places, anime, Pokemon, castles, geisha–all the while witnessing starched greetings to blowsy American tourists as I exchange a wry smile with my partner to express that I am better that.  I last went to Japan in February 2018 with my boyfriend. On the Korean Air flight back to Incheon, the flight attendant talked with my partner, curious about how a two men–Korean and American–could be close friends, traveling together. My boyfriend and I may look like an odd pair in Asia. There are certainly a lot of interracial straight couples. There are also a few international gay couples, but less noticeable. Thinking back on that memory, I wonder where we will go next?

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

    studio version:

    Osaka Sun Remix: 

     

  • “Godspeed” by Anberlin, Monday, February 20, 2023 + Cities Track by Track

     

    I’m working on a new system for my blog so that I stop saying the same thing over and over again. I don’t always have time to research an album cycle or the artist around the time of the album cycle, but I have written considerably about certain albums and artists. I want to provide links to those posts in album posts, like today’s. I haven’t written a lot about the tracks on Anberlin‘s seminal record Cities, but it still is one of my favorite albums. In the future, this post can be a jumping-off point for other tracks on the record. I could write books on each track and my experiences with them, but today you’ll just get a few sentences about each. Enjoy the album as it turns sixteen today.


    1. (Début). For about a minute and a half, Anberlin introduces us to a dark world in an instrumental composed of city sound effects and noisy guitars. The song reminds me of Jerry Martin‘s Sim City 4 soundtrack. (Début) leads into “Godspeed.”

    2. “Godspeed.” I wrote about “Godspeed” in November. It’s a pretty jarring song to follow any track, but following yesterday’s sleepy song is especially going to give my listeners a slap in the face. “Godspeed” is a cautionary tale about the rock star lifestyle that has claimed the lives of the band’s heroes. 

    3. “Adelaide.” The transition from “Godspeed” to “Adelaide” is also a strange one. The song reminds me of the pop-punk choruses of bands like The All-American Rejects, whom Anberlin toured with from time to time. Cities was released in late February, and “Adelaide” always reminded me of a spring break anthem. The lyrics, singer Stephen Christian wrote about a tendency he had to become self-absorbed. The band also had a deep love for Australia, so “Adelaide” was a kind of tribute to the city.

    4. “A Whisper & a Clamour” is one of my favorite Anberlin songs. Lyrically, it’s not the most original on the record, but it seems to encapsulate the theme of the record–alienation during the most connected time in history–most succinctly. 

    5. “The Unwinding Cable Car.” While acoustic guitars could be heard on (Début) and brilliantly on “A Whisper & a Clamour,” “The Unwinding Cable Car” is the first time Anberlin wrote an acoustic ballad. It’s kind of a bulky song lyrically, but I believe it was the track that returned the band to Air1 because of the Christian themes in the song. 

    6. “There Is No Mathematics to Love and Loss.” This was the first storytelling song Anberlin attempted. They never played it live until their first farewell tour due to Stephen Christian’s dislike for the song.

    7. “Hello Alone” was one of Anberlin’s heaviest songs up until that point. Mixing the sound of sirens with a guitar, “Hello Alone” builds on the theme of being alone in a heavily populated place. It’s a dark song, but the last line tells us: “For the lesser known / I’m here and there’s hope.”

    8. “Alexithymia” is another slow point in the album. It’s an existential crisis in a song, and a bit anti-climactic after “Hello Alone,” though it serves as the hope of the album, “There’s more to living than being alive,” also the theme to Stephen Christian’s debut novel: Orphan Anything’s Memoirs of a Lesser Known.

    9. “Reclusion” was at one point my least favorite track on the record, but there’s still a lot to like about it. The reference to Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho, the shredding guitar solo, and the unapologetic introversion and frustration with other people make this song one of the most relatable tracks on the record.

    10. “Inevitable.” This is Anberlin’s prom/wedding song. It’s simple. It’s romantic. It features uncredited vocals by Copeland‘s Aaron Marsh. The drums at the end are pretty cool, particularly watching them being recorded on the bonus DVD.

    11. “Dismantle.Repair.” is one of Stephen Christian’s best-written songs. It details falling in love with someone and parting ways. I always thought of it as a spring song and a heavier Goo Goo Dolls song. I thought it could have been on Top 40 stations, except for the guitars which go hard, blaring as if it’s a competition. But that’s what I love about Cities is that it could be a pop record, but the band and producer Aaron Sprinkle make it as heavy as possible for the band in their genre. 

    12. (*Fin). Cities ends with the 8-minute epic (*Fin), a song in which Stephen Christian wrestles with his faith, making sense of stories in his past. I often feel that every song on the record has a city. “Godspeed” is New York, and “Adelaide” is the city in Australia. I think of “A Whisper & a Clamour” being in Paris. (*Fin) is the Dublin. Stephen channels Bono. Bono struggles with his faith throughout U2’s music, and (*Fin) is the song of doubt for Anberlin.”













  • “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” by Cary Brothers, Sunday, February 19, 2023

    Like most of the NoiseTrade music that I’ve talked about, you may not know who Cary Brothers is. However, since 2003, the singer-songwriter’s music could be heard in the background of some of the biggest TV shows and movies, including Grey’s Anatomy and its spin-off, Private Practice, The Vampire Diaries, Smallville, and One Tree Hill to name a few of the shows Brothers’ music has appeared in. His song “Blue Eyes” was featured on the Garden State soundtrack, which was the highest-selling record Brothers’ had contributed music to. In 2010, Brothers released Under Control, the album’s final track “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” is an intensely romantic song fit for intensely romantic television scenes. 


    MY ARMS WILL GROW, CHEST EXPANDING. “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” was not only a part of NoiseTrade’s 25 Love Songs collection but also part of the overwrought end of Smallville. After ten seasons with many missteps, and a longer-than-it-should-have-lasted relationship between Clark and Lana, Lana finally leaves Smallville for good, and Clark turns his full attention to Lois. In episode 6 of season 10, Clark decides to trust Lois with his secret identity, that he is the blur–what Superman is referred to before the Man of Steel is given his super title. This disclosure of truth comes from hundreds of episodes of the young and handsome Clark Kent agonizing over the pros and cons of telling the secret he keeps to himself for his own safety. This secret identity in the show so often felt like it was a metaphor for coming out as gay so much so that the show made me feel uncomfortable at a time I was denying my own sexuality. The soundtrack for Clark being completely honest with the beautiful Lois Lane is Cary Brothers’ “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”

    OF ALL THE BOYS YOU COULD HAVE LANDED.  “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” sounds both intimate and desperate. The song describes the moment when two parties admit that what they are feeling is infatuation with the other. And when infatuation is mutual, love blossoms. However, love, at this phase is still fragile. It spooks easily. It flickers in a slight breeze. There had been many false starts before, long pauses that lead to knowing stares before a distraction causes one to say, “Good night.” But at a moment of vulnerability, when one party admits to the other affection, if the other does not reciprocate, the one who admitted may feel shame, lose face, and may never be able to face the other again. All of those possibilities play out in the subconscious of the song’s instrumentation. But love is accepted and tenderness ensues. In the case of Clark and Lois, the two make love tenderly, perhaps forgetting their Pride and Prejudice meeting in which they seemed to hate each other–of course, Clark was possessed by a confusing version of Jor-El never really explained in Smallville, but I digress. Or maybe that tension turned into love. 


    Scene referenced in Smallville Season 10, Ep. 6:

     

     

  • "Untouchable (Taylor's Version)" by Taylor Swift, Saturday, February 18, 2023 (repost)

    One of the biggest challenges of writing about music that I often run into is there isn’t always a lot to talk about. Just because it’s a good song, doesn’t mean that it is a conversation piece. New music is particularly hard to write about. It takes a lot of research, and it takes quite a few listens over some time to pick up the nuance. Furthermore, I mostly write about old music because I have memories associated with it. These memories are acquired over time, and can’t be forced onto a song every Friday with the new release cycle. But when a song has layers of meaning, or in this case, layers of history, not only is it easier to write about, but also I can connect with the song on a deeper level. I won’t be able to get into all of the layers that I want to in this short post, but I’ll see what I can accomplish. 

    I’M CAUGHT UP IN YOU. In 2019, Taylor Swift announced that she would be re-recording and releasing new versions of her back catalog. This was a response to her failed attempt to buy back her masters which Scooter Braun had sold for $300 million.  This would allow her music to be used without her consent and without her making money from the appearance of that song. In 2021, Taylor released the first of these projects, a re-imagination of Fearless, her 2008 multi-platinum sophomore album, which rocked both the Country and pop charts. As we saw last year, Swift now shrugs off music executives’ conventions and takes control of her own musical direction. Taylor’s Version of Fearless is a long album. She released all of the bonus tracks from Fearless: Platinum Edition and some cut tracks from that era that never made it to recording. 

    YOU’RE UNTOUCHABLE, BURNING BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN. “Untouchable” is a cover of a song by rock band Luna Halo. First appearing on Sparrow Records, the band debuted as a Christian Rock band. Their debut album had the hit “Superman” and the song “Hang On To You,” written by fellow labelmate Delirious. The band disappeared and changed members, but reassembled in Nashville to relaunch with their sophomore, self-titled record. The band’s greatest accomplishment, however, was Taylor Swift’s cover of “Untouchable.” Luna Halo never released a follow-up album, and “Untouchable” launched guitarist Cary Barlowe’s career as a country music songwriter. Taylor Swift’s version of “Untouchable” highlights the lyrics of the song. While the verses are short, we get the image of a teenage girl in awe of someone she thinks is “untouchable” to her. It’s quite a different meaning when a late-20s  Nathan Barlowe sings about a girl who’s out of his league. However, in 2021, very little seems “untouchable” for the superstar Taylor Swift. The star has seen the world, famously dated in Hollywood and the music scene. She’s become the celebrity who goes from hometown hero into her gated mansion. The star herself has become “untouchable” to many, yet you still hear of her doing incredible things for her fans.  What’s the untouchable dream for Taylor? Is it justice from the music industry?


    Luna Halo Original Version: 


    Taylor Swift’s Saturday Night Live version: 





     

  • “Need You Now” by Lady A, Friday, February 17, 2023

     

    Formed in 2006, Lady A, then known as Lady Antebellum, scored a massive Country crossover hit from their sophomore record, the title track “Need You Now.” The band named themselves after doing a photo-shoot dressed in Southern pre-Civil War-era clothing, but following the 2020 George Floyd protests decided to change their name to Lady A due to the nuanced connotations the term Antebellum held in the cultural consciousness at the time.

    I SAID I WOULDN’T CALL, BUT I’M A LITTLE DRUNK. Lady A isn’t the only country group to change their name because social issues. Dallas-based trio formerly known as The Dixie Chicks dropped the word dixie from their name, simply becoming The Chicks. Of course, not everyone was satisfied with the name changes for either band, but Lady A’s was particularly polarizing. Country music listeners tend to be politically conservative, and some viewed the trio’s name change as erasure of Southern heritage. Some accused the group of giving into “woke” trends. But others felt that Lady A wasn’t doing enough or perhaps doing the bare minimum to stay culturally relevant. Calling themselves Lady A only censured the word that they were referencing as if showing an R-rated movie on television or an explicit lyric on the radio. The checkered meaning left in the band’s name, future generations or new fans need only ask what the A stands to see that Lady A was a band named after a problematic time in America’s past. 

    I’D RATHER HURT THAN FEEL NOTHIN’ AT ALL. When American settlers discovered America, they stole lands from the people already living there. Call it CRT, but I call it historical fact as it is. When Lady Antebellum changed their name to Lady A, they didn’t consider that there already was a Lady A, Seattle-based blues, soul, and gospel singer Anita White, who had been using the moniker for over twenty years. The band sued White after she refused to stop using the moniker and was eventually settled in court with the results undisclosed to the public. The irony of the situation felt like a story from Curb Your Enthusiasm, a group of white people trying to prove their not racist by covering up their racist past by stealing their new name from a African American artist. Maybe this isn’t so surprising from a band whose biggest single is about a drunken booty call. Even if it’s how 50% of babies are made in the south, you eventually have to live up to the fact that being lonely, drunk, and horny isn’t a logical excuse for getting back with his beatin’ and cheatin’ ass. And when you decide to change your name on a whim because your “eyes are opened” to how something you said in your past could be taken as racist, you shouldn’t appropriate another artist’s name and litigate until you have it. And if these connections seem a little loose, please forgive me. I, too, am a little drunk… on jet lag.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.





  • "Forever Yours" by Key (ft. Soyoo), Thursday, February 16, 2023 (partial repost)

     

    When I first blogged about BTS, I talked about my gateway drugs into K-pop.   Shinee was one of them. The first song I heard from them was “Everybody” which oddly made me think of industrial rock. Later I heard their song “Stand By Me” when I started to watch the drama Boys Over Flowers. I’m sure I’ll talk about my love-hate relationship with Korean dramas later. If you listen to “Stand By Me,” don’t you hear hints of Rick Astley‘s “Never Gonna Give You Up“? Then in 2015 one of the biggest songs in Korea was Shinee’s song “View.” Some of the genius in Shinee’s producers is making hit songs that sound vaguely familiar. Sometimes you can pin a pop song comparison, other times you’re left racking your brain wondering where you heard that song before. 

    FOREVER YOURS. Key (born Kim Ki-bum) is one of the vocalists of Shinee. As the group’s career started winding down, Key started acting and becoming a TV personality on Korean reality shows. His talents stretch beyond music into fashion and philanthropy. In 2018 he released his first solo single, “Forever Yours” featuring former member of the girl group Sista‘s Soyoo. Key stuck to Shinee convention keeping the music semi-familiar yet fresh. Yet, starting out with the guest vocalist rather than the main singer is an interesting choice. And failing to feature Soyoo on the screen in the music video makes it seem a little lonely and incomplete. Speaking of the music video, if the song doesn’t give you early ’90s vibes, the video will remind you of a big budget music video from the year 2000. This is not to knock the song in anyway. In fact if you take the lyrics and translate them into English and watch the music video without listening to the music, it would too cheesy. Fortunately there’s the salty cracker that is the music.

    YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE INDIFFERENT TO EVERYTHING. I have many thoughts from my recent trip to America, dealing with the desire to be honest about who I love. I think about the sentiment of forever, and how that really only lasts (in the best case scenario) for as long as the shortest living partner, leaving the other eventually to die alone. Valentine’s Day may be over, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t still celebrate the ones that we love. Tomorrow, I’ll see him, but tonight–sixteen hours in the air–I can barely keep my eyes open. 

  • “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol, Wednesday, February 15, 2023 Repost+ (Romantic Mix '23)

     

    The second single from the 2006 album Eyes Open after the album opener and rocker, “You’re All I Have,” “Chasing Cars” is the most recognized song by Snow Patrol. The band’s frontman and songwriter Gary Lightbody said that he wrote the song after sobering up after a white wine binge in the garden of producer  Jacknife Lee‘s cottage. Lightbody told  Rolling Stone that “Chasing Cars” is “the purest love song I’ve ever written. There’s no knife-in-the-back twist.” He stated that “all the other songs I’ve written have a dark edge.” While the song and video for “Chasing Cars” don’t have a dark side, the connotation the song has with dramas like Grey’s Anatomy and One Tree Hill certainly wields the knife so carefully left out by the songwriter. 

    LET’S WASTE TIME CHASING CARS. Here’s an updated Romantic Mix from last year. I’ll add to it from time to time so that it’s not just rebranded from last year. 

  • “Valentine’s Day” by Linkin Park, Tuesday, February 14, 2023 + Missing You Playlist

     

    Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Let’s celebrate with a depressing song about separation and/or death. While Linkin Park released Minutes to Midnight after I graduated high school, the sentiment of the pains of being pathologically single burns in the song. The sounds bleak imagery of the gray skies, naturally occurring during this time of year in the northeastern United States and similar climates, paired with the feelings of deep loss and loneliness, the ninth track on Linkin Park’s third record, “Valentine’s Day,” is a perfect anti-Valentine’s Day track. And being without the one who I love today, I decided to make a playlist of anti-love tracks. These aren’t break up tracks, persey. But rather they’re about missing a loved one, titled Missing You. Enjoy!