Mixtapemotions

  • “Rebirthing” by Skillet, Monday, February 13, 2023

     

    In 2006, Skillet created the album they used as a template for the albums that they would release for the next sixteen years and counting. At the time when Skillet released Comatose, it was their most mature and refined record following ten years of member line up and style changes. Starting as a post-grunge band then transitioning into industrial around the turn of the  millennium, Skillet began to switch out synthesizers for strings on their 2003 record, Collide. The lead single, “Rebirthing,” highlighted the new Skillet sound, symphonic hard rock. But what was once novel turned banal after all of the following records sounded the same.

    I BREATHE YOU IN. While not a maître of metal or hard music but rather a commercial success story and a brand, Skillet’s rebirth brought them to rock radio and landed them on some of the major tours in the active rock genre. As Skillet became more about refining the brand, they leaned into their role as a band in ministry. They became one of the biggest unapologetically Christian bands. And from their stage production complete with pyrotechnics, they made a lot of money on the road. What a Christian band means for Skillet is a propitiation of the conservative politics common in evangelical Christianity during the George W. Bush years. Lead singer John L. Cooper even delved into theology, writing the book Awake & Alive To Truth. But soon, he began tackling political issues, appearing on Fox News, arguing against Critical Race Theory and the so-called “woke agenda,” arguing that both of which is creating a civil war in the church. 

    I WANNA LIVE FOR LOVE, I WANNA LIVE FOR YOU AND ME. I’m getting awfully sick of Christian gaslighting, as I believe more and more that I have a right to exist as a gay person. I also believe that we need to look at history through different lenses and that we need to acknowledge that we are a product of wars and inequalities. I think that Skillet’s new music is not to my liking, so it doesn’t make it difficult to give them up. However, after watching a nation display of Christian nationalism on Fox last night, also known as the Super Bowl, I realize that America is composed of the old guard trying to uphold Christian ideals with commercials funded by Hobby Lobby. Patriotism and spirituality on display feels awkward to me. I think it should be in humble heart rather than on full display, sort of like the parable Jesus told in Luke 18:9-14. That being said, after Taylor Swift, Drake or a ton of Nashville acts got the time slot on America’s biggest stage, I can imagine Skillet opening a halftime show with an orchestra playing “Rebirthing,” the band perhaps suspended in the air like Rihanna last night. It will never happen, though, since the country is supposedly going to hell in a hand basket. 

    Read the lyrics on Genius.




  • "Melted" (얼음들) by AKMU (악뮤), Sunday, February 12, 2023

    “Melted” was the second single from AKMU‘s debut record, Play. The duo’s 2014 record was released in the spring, and many of the songs thematically matched with spring. These songs talked about growing up, falling in love, and childhood. Paired with upbeat, bright melodies, Play was one of the best K-pop records to hear in coffee shops around Korea in 2014. “Melted,” however, is a colder song. With the lyrical imagery of snow melting, grey skies, and rain, in the context of the album, “Melted” kicks off spring. Although the weather outside may be nasty and while people can be cold, there is an optimism that winter is almost over and that love may win in the end, even if we’re in the midst of five more weeks of winter.


    WHY ARE THEY SO COLD?  The weather during my time in North Carolina has been pretty mild, but last night the National Weather Service sent people into panic with a potential snow storm. Rain might turn to ice and then to snow. What a Super Bowl Sunday. It didn’t happen, though, and I got up to Asheville where I will watch The Philadelphia Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs in a game that nobody at the party is actually thrilled to see. I’m in it for the commercials, Rihanna, the food, the experience, friends, and maybe the sexy uniforms, which is honestly what got me into football in the first place. This is the third Super Bowl I’ve watched since I’ve been in Korea. The first was “left shark” in 2015, the Chief and the 49ers in 2020, and this year with whatever it might bring. In all of the times I’ve been home in January or February there have been some weather issues. It was scary driving down the mountain after the 2015 post-Super Bowl snow storm in a car with sketchy brakes.  

    IF THE ICE MELTS, A WARMER SONG WOULD HAVE TO COME OUT. As my time in America is winding down and this is one of the last times to see friends and family until I come back, I’m filled with a gratitude that I can pop in on their lives and enjoy life as a teacher in Korea. America has been a nice place to visit, but I miss the life that I’ve built in Korea. Soon it will be back to school and back to life as normal. The spring will bring a life with fewer Covid restrictions and perhaps some new craziness. I will have to find a new routine to fit in all the faucets I want to include in a life moving forward–no longer held back by a fear of Armageddon or a gaslighter in the office and hopefully making better money, though I have to pay back the credit card debts of living the American Dream! Spring is just around the corner. The ice is melting, and hopefully I’ll get the blog back into order in March. Until then, let’s enjoy the cold for just a little longer.

    Lyric video in Korean/English:

    Performance on K-pop Star 3

     Music video:


  • “Like You Mean It” by Watashi Wa ft. Freeto Boat, Saturday, February 11, 2023

    Pinkerton is a foundational album in the emo genre. Weezer’s second record was a commercial failure at the time of its release, especially following their massive debut record. Many successful bands look back at the album almost as a kind of bible of guitar tones and lyrical content. Pinkerton produced three singles, including “Pink Triangle,” a song in which the speaker, a boy in college, falls for a lesbian who doesn’t return his affection. The song explores the complexities surrounding sexual identity, which seems progressive for the time but a little cringy today. And it’s that cringe that seeps into Watashi Wa’s 2022 People Like People, an album I’ve talked about before, but today I wanted to look into why a self-identifying “ministry band” quoted Weezer to “say it ‘Like You Mean It.’”

    SO HERE COMES THE SON TO REMIND YOU OF YOUR OWN BELIEFS. Watashi Wa started as a punk band when Seth Roberts and the original band were in middle school. Inspired heavily by early Tooth & Nail bands such as MxPx and Ghoti Hook in a time when Tooth & Nail Records started moving away from the fast drums and three-chorded fast songs, Watashi Wa signed to Bettie Rocket Records where many former Tooth & Nail punk bands and former members of those bands formed new bands signed. Also on Bettie Rocket was another band, Freeto Boat, who is featured in today’s song, “Like You Mean It.” Freeto Boat was a Christian ska/punk band, starting as a ten-piece band with horn section, eventually moving into a hardcore direction. The band broke up in 2000 but started making music in 2019, around the time when Watashi Wa reformed. Like many of the features on People Like People, only avid fans of the often obscure bands would know the contributions made to the songs. 

    YOUR MIND AND PRIDE. People Like People was my #2 best album of 2022, but it certainly wasn’t without issue—some of which I have talked about in the two other posts about it. Today’s song, “Like You Mean It” takes a lighthearted look at polarization. Like a lot of the record, the lyrics are confusing. What exactly is Seth Roberts trying to say? What stance is he trying to take? The message Roberts comes back to is a lament about how unfortunate it is that people are divided on issues. He talks about how quickly love can turn to hate, possibly referencing cancel culture. Having been outside of America since before the pandemic started, I now think that I may have misjudged Roberts’ intentions with the record. And a big part of my reevaluation is the complete restructuring of small town America I’ve noticed particularly around gay and lesbian rights. Trans and non-binary rights are quite a bit lacking, though. When I can enter a Walmart in Mern, NC, and buy a Pride Bear for Valentine’s Day, it seems like progress. I see so many openly queer people in public. Of course not going to church might skew this view. Perhaps, Watashi Wa’s People Like People is an album of “live and let live.” I still think it’s naive, but perhaps not as malicious as I thought. It’s still a very pasty white, straight Christian male voice, but it’s slightly adapted for a modern world. Gay rights certainly has further to go, but I’d like to acknowledge how far it’s come since I was a high schooler in a small town thinking that I would take my secret to my grave. Tomorrow we fight the good fight. Today let’s just focus on the love for all people.

    Read the lyrics on Jesus Freak Hideouts.



  • “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve, Friday, February 10, 2023 (Repost)

     The synth intro to A-ha’s “Take on Me” is probably more encompassing of a decade than the intro of today’s song, but The Verve’s “Bittersweet Sympathy” also has one of the most iconic intros of the ‘90s. But it’s that symphonic riff on the band’s signature song arguably created more trouble than it was worth for the band. The band formed in 1990, experimented with drugs and musical styles before their breakthrough 1997 release of Urban Hymns.

    I’VE NEVER PRAYED, BUT TONIGHT I’M ON MY KNEES. The YouTube channel Middle 8 (see below) tells the story about the musical plagiarism scandal behind The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” The highlights of the scandal include sampling a few bars from an orchestral arrangement of The Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time”(see below), The Stones’ litigious manager Allen Klein suing for him to get the entirety of the royalties from “Bittersweet,” despite the fact that The Stone had no part in the composition of the orchestral cover, and finally Mick Jagger and Keith Richards settling with The Verve’s lead singer, Richard Ashcroft, granting him royalties starting in 2019. Sampling in music happens all the time and there are constantly lawsuits alleging musical plagiarism, recently Dua Lipa and Ed Sheeran have been in court. Led Zeppelin just won a lawsuit that had been ongoing for decades regarding the originality of the guitar on “Stairway to Heaven.” But any Rick Beato on YouTube could tell you the bands with the best lawyers, as many of his videos have been blocked for using samples of  famous sounds for educational purposes. While I do believe in copyright and that the right people should get paid, the case of The Verve makes me question if I’m doing everything in my power to follow the law? Furthermore, what if I monetized my blog? Would I need to hire a lawyer? Reviewing requires source material, pictures, etc.

    I’M A MILLION DIFFERENT PEOPLE FROM ONE DAY TO THE NEXT. “Bittersweet Symphony” was a massive hit just before I started listening to the radio. I heard the song on the fuzzy Adult Alternative station or during non-peak hours on the pop stations. As I’ve talked about with my early relationship with Rock music,  especially secular music, I had to listen in my room with the door closed. At first I had to hide the music I liked from my mom, but she grew more tolerance towards my sister and I listening to music as long as she didn’t have to hear it. But as I got older, my mom started listening to Coldplay and then discover The Verve on Pandora. I came back from college and Urban Hymns was constantly on in the car. I remember when I was about thirteen asking my friend’s mom why moms stop listening to new music. My mom’s friend said that after pregnancy and raising a baby, there’s no time for new music. And by the time the kids are grown up, the music sounds so different. While The Verve certainly isn’t new music, their sound was just familiar enough for my mom when the kids were all grown up. And while I don’t have anything separating me from the music is fun “kids these days,” I’m still miss and think that the music I listened to growing up was better than most of what’s popular today. In a round about way, today’s post is a big thank you to my mom and all moms who have put their own musical tastes on hold to listen to Sesame Street songs. I wasn’t appreciative at the time, but thank you.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.


    The Verve’s “Bittersweet Sympathy” also has one of the most iconic intros of the ‘90s. But it’s that symphonic riff on the band’s signature song arguably created more trouble than it was worth for the band. The band formed in 1990, experimented with drugs and musical styles before their breakthrough 1997 release of Urban Hymns.

    I’VE NEVER PRAYED, BUT TONIGHT I’M ON MY KNEES. The YouTube channel Middle 8 (see below) tells the story about the musical plagiarism scandal behind The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” The highlights of the scandal include sampling a few bars from an orchestral arrangement of The Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time”(see below), The Stones’ litigious manager Allen Klein suing for him to get the entirety of the royalties from “Bittersweet,” despite the fact that The Stone had no part in the composition of the orchestral cover, and finally Mick Jagger and Keith Richards settling with The Verve’s lead singer, Richard Ashcroft, granting him royalties starting in 2019. Sampling in music happens all the time and there are constantly lawsuits alleging musical plagiarism, recently Dua Lipa and Ed Sheeran have been in court. Led Zeppelin just won a lawsuit that had been ongoing for decades regarding the originality of the guitar on “Stairway to Heaven.” But any Rick Beato on YouTube could tell you the bands with the best lawyers, as many of his videos have been blocked for using samples of  famous sounds for educational purposes. While I do believe in copyright and that the right people should get paid, the case of The Verve makes me question if I’m doing everything in my power to follow the law? Furthermore, what if I monetized my blog? Would I need to hire a lawyer? Reviewing requires source material, pictures, etc.

    I’M A MILLION DIFFERENT PEOPLE FROM ONE DAY TO THE NEXT. “Bittersweet Symphony” was a massive hit just before I started listening to the radio. I heard the song on the fuzzy Adult Alternative station or during non-peak hours on the pop stations. As I’ve talked about with my early relationship with Rock music,  especially secular music, I had to listen in my room with the door closed. At first I had to hide the music I liked from my mom, but she grew more tolerance towards my sister and I listening to music as long as she didn’t have to hear it. But as I got older, my mom started listening to Coldplay and then discover The Verve on Pandora. I came back from college and Urban Hymns was constantly on in the car. I remember when I was about thirteen asking my friend’s mom why moms stop listening to new music. My mom’s friend said that after pregnancy and raising a baby, there’s no time for new music. And by the time the kids are grown up, the music sounds so different. While The Verve certainly isn’t new music, their sound was just familiar enough for my mom when the kids were all grown up. And while I don’t have anything separating me from the music is fun “kids these days,” I’m still miss and think that the music I listened to growing up was better than most of what’s popular today. In a round about way, today’s post is a big thank you to my mom and all moms who have put their own musical tastes on hold to listen to Sesame Street songs. I wasn’t appreciative at the time, but thank you.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.



    “Did The Verve Steal ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’” by Middle 8:

  • “Forget and Not Slow Down” by Relient K ft. Tim Skipper, Thursday, February 9, 2023

     

    Kicking off Matt Thiessen’s break up record, the title track of Forget and Not Slow Down introduces listeners to the themes of the record. I’ve talked about how Forget and Not Slow Down has a shadow story, one in which the Relient K frontman ends his engagement with radio DJ Shannon Murphy. While I have not seen any statements from Thiessen about the meanings behind the tracks on the album, I’ve referenced Murphy’s story that seemed pretty damning toward Thiessen, and it doesn’t seem that there were any libel lawsuits. Forget and Not Slow Down was a record that helped me through a difficult time in life, so I will be forever grateful to Relient K, but I’ve also had to think critically as to whether or not the album is too problematic to enjoy. So today I’d like to talk through my judgement of the band’s 2009 record.


    HOW MANY TIMES CAN I PUSH IT ASIDE? “Forget and Not Slow Down” shows a youthful resilience toward the ending of a relationship. The songs on the album deal with a range of emotions, from “gathering regret” to moving on. The first track serves as a kind of overture to the record, the product of a long process of emotions. Later, we’ll hear the details—the trips to “Savannah,” the long drives in Eastern Tennessee in “Therapy” and “Over It.” But we’re only getting half of the story, and that’s important to remember when enjoying the beauty of this record. “Forget and Not Slow Down” is an anthem about not overthinking mistakes, and the record feels like a “pushing aside” of Thiessen’s guilt in the relationship’s end. What’s worse is that Thiessen invokes God into the argument, without admitting specific fault. The song and album allude to Thiessen’s mistakes, but he’d rather forget about it and move on. The album feels like Psalm 51 without David admitting guilt for adultery with Bathsheba or the ensuing cover up. Then it gets worse at the end of the album. Thiessen gaslights his ex. In “If You Believe Me,” Thiessen states that “If you believe me, we could stand the test of time like no one else. He also says, “you had a hand in this too.” This may be true, but it’s an unproductive conversation. In “This the End” and (If You Want It), we get Theissen unrepentant, “shrugging off” his personality flaws. He doesn’t want to be tied down. He doesn’t want to “move into boxes” because he has an “itch to move on.”


    POUR OVER ME AND WASH MY HANDS OF IT. I’ve made a pretty good case for me never to listen to Forget and Slow Down ever again. If we’re just listening to Thiessen’s argument and if we apply the same logic of “Forget and Not Slow Down” to our own lives, we’re going to have some serious issues in our human relationships. Whether or not this is unfiltered Matt Thiessen around 2007 or 2008 doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been growth. But I’m more interested in the “Forget and Not Slow Down” aspect. In Christian music and Christianity admitting faults, also know as sin, is unpopular, particularly if you have a large platform like one of the biggest pop-punk bands. Many Christian artists endured public divorces. Hiding the fact that it happened seems much better for one’s career than facing it head on. But the implications of “Forget and Not Slow Down” is even bigger. Sometimes it’s hard to admit to yourself that you are actually at fault, but rather call upon God and look for faults in the other person that made you do something bad, but not as bad as them. It’s the story of every religious scandal. It’s the story of every Christian family trying to save face, never admitting that there’s a problem. But just as when Frank Constanza yells “Serenity now!” in Seinfeld and as Gob takes roofies which he calls “Forget Me Nows” whenever he wants to forget something that he has done, everyone who tries to “Forget and Not Slow Down” will have to slow down eventually. And that break down can be quite devastating.  


    Read the lyrics on Genius.







  • "Erase" (Acoustic Cover of Copeland) by Charles Angell, Wednesday, February 8, 2023 (updated repost)

    A few Saturday afternoons circa 2015-17, I went down a rabbit-hole, looking for the best Paper Route, Anberlin, and Copeland  covers on YouTube. This was long after finding artists like Tyler Ward who covered pop music. I wondered if anyone had recorded high quality covers of my favorite bands. It turns out that there were a few. These artists weren’t on the level of popularity of Kurt Hugo Schneider or Boyce Avenue. I had hoped to created a cover playlist of a Copeland album, but there weren’t enough high-quality covers on YouTube at the time. Charles Angell’s YouTube account has 7 videos, 77 subscribers, and the singer hasn’t posted anything in 3 years. From a quick Facebook search, it turns out that Angell is still active as a musician, with a new haircut and some designer rims, now under the moniker of Snarly (link to his social media presence). 

    YOU’RE STILL A BREEZE UPON MY SKIN.  Of the Copeland covers, Charles Angell’s version of “Erase” is one of the best. The finger-picking guitar captures part of what Copeland’s original masterpiece conveys, but in other ways, the calm acoustic guitar void of the band’s calculated injection of the disjointed beat on verse 3, keeps the song forlorn. Copeland’s version leaves the listener wrecked. Their comeback album,
    Ixora, surprised fans when the band decided to record new music in 2014. The album was released on November 24. The songs were more concrete and often more optimistic than You Are My Sunshine, and the band delved into some mature love song-writing. But by track 4, the album takes a turn. “Erase” may be the most gut-wrenching Copeland song. It reverts to the strange imagery from prior albums. Why is the singer “tasting armor”? Moreover listeners wonder if there are spiritual implications to this break up song?

    SO YOU JUST COLOR ME TO GREY. When Gotye wrote “Somebody That I Use to Know,” he used concrete details, like “sending a friend to collect [his] records” to describe that awful feeling when someone you loved doesn’t recognize you anymore. Copeland conveys the feeling of being erased by someone, using fewer details. Marsh sings with conviction, though, stating that whatever happens now, the past is etched into him and he is etched into that other person. The song reminds me of the Bible story in Genesis in which Jacob wrestles the angel, not giving up, demanding that the angel bless him. In the same way, the singer of this song is telling his lover or possibly God that he refuses to be erased. Despite Marsh’s claim that he doesn’t write Christian or even spiritual songs, it’s safe to say that many of his listeners interpret the song in a spiritual lens. Which brings me to my first experience listening to Ixora. I was coming off a turbulent year in my faith. I was listening to the album on New Year’s Eve, 2014 on a train back from a vacation in Busan with my friend. That trip was a vacation from myself, from the broken relationships I gotten myself into. I had decided to be honest with myself since the beginning of that autumn, admitting that I was gay. But that admission came with a few months of catching up and making mistakes. Ixora was the soundtrack for me collecting my thoughts on the train, and “Erase” was a spiritual climax. I asked the question to God, “What does it mean if it’s impossible to live up to your standards? Am I just damned to Hell because it’s impossible to follow you?” But Marsh sings with conviction “You won’t erase me / So you just color me from grey.” I began to realize that my view of God as a strict rule-giver in the sky might be off. If I believed that he made me who I was, maybe he’d accept me for who I am. Maybe the truth that was in my bones, the truth that I saw, the truth of human psychology was real, and parts of the Bible were not. This freedom of belief was scary to my indoctrinated mind. But without that spark of hope, it was far scarier.
    Read “Erase” by Copeland on Genius.
    Copeland Original Version:

    Ixora Twin version:

    Ixora + Twin version combined: 

  • “Maps” by Falling Up, Tuesday, February 7, 2023

     

    Today we have another offering from Falling Up’s Captiva, the transitional record between their mainstream Christian Rock career and their dive into pure lyrical experimentation. I believe that “Maps” was one of the last Christian Hit Radio (CHR) singles for the band. Christian Hit Radio was perhaps the least successful Christian music genre. The genre tried to parallel Top 40 pop stations, offering a mix of Christian hip hop, pop, adult contemporary, and rock. One of the best examples of the Christian Hit Radio stations was Air1. While Air1 still around, it now claims to be a “Worship Radio station.”

    ONE LAST HOUR BEFORE THIS PLACE IS ON FIRE.  In the early ‘00s, Christian Hit Radio stations, such as Air1, served as a place where listeners could hear the heavier Michael W. Smith and Rebecca St. James songs and the calmer P.O.D. and Anberlin songs. Air1 also played pop stars like early Jonas Brothers and Jordin Sparks as well as publicly Christian general market artists such as The Fray and Daughtry. Unlike the harder station, RadioU, Air1 didn’t do well with the “ambiguously Christian” bands that started springing up in the ‘00s. While the station played four singles from Anberlin’s Blueprints for the Black Market, the station skipped the singles from Never Take Friendship Personal and only played “The Unwinding Cable Car” from Cities, which was the last they played Anberlin. 

    THE FURTHER I’M FROM YOU, THE HARDER I TRY TO EXIST. Falling Up’s first record, Crashings, contained three number 1 singles on Air1. I don’t remember Dawn Escapes being a hit on Air1 as it was on RadioU. “Maps” seemed like a last attempt at Christian pop music. The lyrics are vaguely spiritual, possibly interpreted as trying find direction, being led back to God. Falling Up’s lead singer Jessy Ribordy started to steer away from overtly Christian lyrics, with Captiva being the last time mentioning “Jesus” in the lyrics directly. While there were certainly overtly Christian Rock bands after 2007, I think that Captiva serves as a kind of musical divorce from the “Christians Rock band” and “Christians in a band.” The Christian Rock band put their message first, and the sound of the music often suffered and sounded generic. Then the “Christians in a band” started writing more abstract music, sometimes started cursing, and little by little drifted away from the genre of Christian Rock. Of course this is an oversimplification, but 2007 seems like an interesting year on the cusp of a break up.  


  • “Light the Fire” by Search the City, Monday, February 6, 2023

    “Light the Fire” is a stand-out track on Search the City’s 2013 record Flight. The song begins with a cheap-sounding recording; an acoustic guitar accompanying a group of singers led by Search the City’s frontman gives way to a fast punk beat and gang vocals. The lyrics call out an antagonist, mixing metaphors to describe the listener (the song’s you) and his actions and attitudes. The speaker of the song, though, speaks in terms of “we,” a collective who was victimized by the listener. The listener has been found out for his lies and the speaker is “done with [the listener’s] speeches . . . [and] reasons.”


    YOUR SECRETS CAME ALONG AND WE SAW YOU FOR WHAT YOU REALLY ARE. Last night, I got some news that a coworker I had struggled to work with for the year would not be renewing his contract. It had been a year of mind games in the office, yet had tried to present himself in a good light to higher ups. But he couldn’t keep his laziness a secret; he couldn’t keep his racism a secret. He couldn’t keep his allegiance at work. There are times when I am done with people. It doesn’t happen often, but after that point, I am completely divested from any conversation I have with that person. With this co-worker, one afternoon when he wasn’t planning for classes —the norm for this coworker—but rather reading the news and trying to engage my other co-worker and I in a distracting conversation, he just casually asked to himself, “What’s marital rape?” His question came after months of establishing himself as sexist/racist/homo/ trans-phobic machismo bro, belittling the experience of anyone who was not of his persuasion. I was done with him, but I still had the majority of the year to try to tune out the conversation. And he never got better, just worse. 


    YOUR BIGGEST STORY LEFT NO SCAR. “Light the Fire” is a confusing song. First of all, what does fire represent in the lyrics? To me, it seems that it is either passion or destruction in the context of the lyrics. “Lighting the fire” could mean destroying the bonds that the listener has placed on the speaker or it could mean destroying the lies, burning them up. It could also be interpreted as a passion that had been suppressed by the listener. Under the listener’s lies, the speaker has put aside his or their desires because of the mind control the listener had them under. And when the speaker comes to that realization, he won’t let the listener stifle the passion, which ultimately grows like a fire after the hindrance is gone. Today, I’m thinking about passion as a fire. Last month, I was kind of on hiatus with my blog, reposting so many times because I was too busy to take the blog seriously. I wondered what the blog really meant to me and whether or not I should fight to keep it going. But today I realized that this is the fifth original post that I’ve written for this month—pretty good considering my track record. Of course a lot can change when school starts, but I feel like there’s a season three around the corner in which I hit a stride, hopefully writing content faster. But I need to develop what that season of my writing looks like. It’s probably less well researched posts and more daily-life reactions. We’ll see. Time to light the fire again. 

    Read the lyrics on Genius.


  • “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World, Sunday February 5, 2023

     

    While Jimmy Eat World purists cite Clarity as their favorite and their true break-through album, most of us humble music listeners would have never heard of one of the defining bands in the pop-punk/ emo scene if it wasn’t for their 2001 record Bleed American. It was specifically their second single from the record, “The Middle” which is the band’s most well-known hit. When you’re talking about hits from your child-hood and bands you like, many people won’t recognize the name of the band but they know the song. Jimmy Eat World had released two albums on Capitol Records when the first wave of emo sparked by bands like Sunny Day Real Estate became popular. Jimmy Eat World, though, underperformed and was dropped by Capitol. The band then recorded Bleed American independently but signed to DreamWorks before releasing the record. 


    DON’T WRITE YOURSELF OFF YET.  First Jimmy Eat World released the title track “Bleed American” to rock radio before releasing “The Middle.” The second single reached #5 on Billboard’s Hot 100, an unheard-of success for the emo genre at the time. Steering away from controversy Jimmy Eat World changed the title of their fourth record Bleed American to Jimmy Eat World following the September 11 attacks, but changed it back in 2008. The band never duplicated their success, though continued to gain rock radio airplay. The band continues to play, but seems to be more of a “band’s band”—more of an influence on the scene than one that is listened to regularly. Still, the Jim Adkins-fronted band will forever be remembered in the fall of 2001 for their radio single, which was certainly boosted by the song’s popularity. The video shows the band performing at a house party where all of the attendees are in their underwear except for one guy. Toward the end of the video, the young man is about to give in to the peer pressure and strip down to his boxers, but he sees a girl who is also uncomfortable with the peer pressure.


    IT JUST TAKES SOME TIME. I remember an interview with MTV or another music channel that Jimmy Eat World said that they actually played for house parties like the video early in their career. The video has sometimes been called “The Underwear Song” or “The Underwear Band” because of the video. Another cool effect that viewers liked was that during the guitar solo, an actor jumps into the pool, and the solo sounds blocked like hearing it from underwater. Besides the popularity of the video, the song resonated with teenagers and those going through a transition in life. Being “in the middle of the ride” can be a frustrating time. We feel that angst especially during and after puberty, but there are definitely periods in our lives where we also feel trapped on the ride. We tell ourselves just a little further; that we can endure anything as long as it’s temporary. However, I’ve started to worry about the end of the ride. Someday, the ride will be over, but doesn’t that mean death? I think it’s time to start enjoying the middle. Heck, let’s enjoy it all because once it’s over it’s done. And someday, we’ll be too old to be going to underwear parties!


    Read the lyrics on Genius.


  • "Now That I Found You" by Carly Rae Jepsen, Saturday, February 4, 2023

    Carly Rae Jepsen announced the second single, “Now That I Found You” from her fourth record Dedicated as part of the promotion for the third season of Netflix‘s Queer Eye. Many of the songs on Jepsen’s 2019 record dealt with break ups and loneliness, much like her latest record, The Loneliest Season. The lead single and the album closer, “Party for One” deals with a love for oneself above the fleeting, divided attention from another.

    MY HEART’S A SECRET. While Dedicated contains songs of self-actualization and self-acceptance, many of the songs deal with sex and love. “Want You in My Room” is probably the horniest the singer has ever gotten, and still she never explicitly says what those “bad things” she wants to do to the listener. “Happy Not Knowing” is a song about willful ignorance in order to keep a relationship going. And yet some of the songs are straight-forward love songs. “Now That I Found You” is one of them. The lyrics of the song sound like a fairytale romance leading up to a happily ever after. Carly Rae Jepsen has said in an interview that she wrote this song about her cat. The video (see below) takes this interpretation too. We see Jepsen finding a stray kitty in the rain and bringing him home. The video gets hilariously radical: the cat somehow multiplies; she smokes pot/catnip which causes her to hallucinate; then, at the end of the video, she meets a handsome man who also has a cat. Match made in heaven? At the pound? 

    I FEEL I’M COMIN’ ALIVE WITH YOU. In years past, I dedicated the days leading up to Valentine’s Day to love songs. I’ve blogged about how, ever since I’ve come out to myself, I’ve been trying to make up for the shitty feelings I’ve felt surrounding the holiday when I was growing up–the single’s awareness day. I hated the pressure I felt in high school and college to have someone to show off on the commercial holidays. But having survived a straight-passing childhood and young adulthood and then being in a relationship with someone who cares much more about the daily relationship than the in-your-face holidays, I feel like telling people that being single is okay. However, I do feel bad something I did without thinking. I booked my return ticket to Korea on February 15th, meaning that I won’t be able to celebrate Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend. Of course, it’s a Tuesday and a work/school day, so our celebration would have been meager anyway and may have not happened. He would say don’t take the day off; he has to study and can’t spend time together. But what’s worse is that I have to crash my sister’s Valentine’s Day and maybe my mom’s. My bad.