Mixtapemotions

  • "Cadence" by anberlin, Tuesday, September 6, 2022 (partial repost)

    “Cadence” was the third single from Anberlin.  Vocalist Stephen Christian talks about the band overhearing him playing the song on an acoustic guitar one day. Thinking the song was too mellow for Anberlin, he thought the song would be better suited for his solo project, Anchor & Braille, but the band loved the song and placed it as the penultimate track on their debut record, Blueprints for the Black Market. The song is inspired by Christian’s time in college when he roomed with his brother, Paul. The brothers talked about life, philosophy, relationships, and God, and the song was a culmination of those late night conversations. The song features some of the best drumming on the record. Before the band’s livestream of the album Nathan Young, who was fifteen at the time of recording Blueprints, tells a story about how producer Aaron Sprinkle‘s brother Jesse, drummer of Poor Old Lu and later Demon Hunter, was brought in to record drums on the record because Aaron was skeptical of Young’s ability. However, Nathan Young proved himself competent, and his drumming can be heard throughout the entire album. The drums on “Cadence” showed the beginnings of a great drummer.  

    THE CLOSER I COME TO YOU, THE CLOSE I AM TO FINDING GOD.  For me, Blueprints for the Blackmarket, and especially “Cadence” will forever remind me of the trip I took to Florida with my family on Labor Day weekend sophomore year of high school. I can still smell the cheap vanilla air freshener wafting to the back seat of the crammed 1996 beige Toyota Corolla, all three kids, including high school teens armed with elbows fighting to expand their borders. The reason for this trip was to celebrate my great-grandfather’s hundredth birthday. We had certainly taken the twelve-hour trip by car before and it was always unpleasant. Besides the fighting for space in the backseat, there was the downright vicious quarrellings between my parents. It usually started about speed, then an insult to the radio, then a self-righteous accusation followed by an insult of the other’s intelligence. All the while Hall & Oates, Elton John,  Chicago, or some other dull soft rock was blaring so that my sisters and I had to turn up our Walkmans so loud to drown out the whatever my mom wanted to listen to. There were a few occasions I was able to sneak Blueprints into the tape-player (I had to record albums on tapes to listen to them on trips because we drove old cars), and I got away with it because Blueprints almost sound like classic rock. But the memories of this trip come from underneath Sony headphones.

    IF THESE ARE MY PARTING WORDS. The weekend is a blur, and I’m left with faint impressions: sweating in a baggy long-sleeved dress shirt newly bought from JC Penny; listening to a string quartet for special music of my grandfather, great aunt, second cousin, and my mom–who had practiced only the night before for hours to make the piece of music work–as a kind of preview for the actual event on Sunday afternoon at the church reception hall; my great aunt MC-ing the event, telling the story of my great-grandfather’s life interspersed with videos tributes, special music –one hymn I played on the classical guitar–, and stories told by elder church members; and the pool party my cousin and my sister and I threw for just us. Then on Monday we drove back home because school started back on Tuesday. Reflecting back on that experience in the back seat of the car, I thought about all the stories about my great-grandfather I heard from my dad when he started dating my mom. My great-grandfather was my dad’s first encounter with a Seventh-day Adventist, and there were quite a few eccentric stories about how many strange things he ate and drank over the years. My thoughts from the back of the car was about how lonely it would be to live to be a hundred. My great-grandfather’s day revolved waking up early, drinking green slime, studying the Bible, and going to church, and going to bed early. Maybe years of the same rhythm made him content. I wonder, to this day, what of my great-grandfather’s story do I want for me; what should I jettison? 


  • “Good Intentions" by Paper Route, Monday, September 5, 2022

    When Paper Route announced that they would be releasing their debut LP Absence on Universal Motown, a now-defunct subsidiary of Universal Republic Records, I thought that it was an interesting, if not somewhat strange choice of a label. But Paper Route is a band that aimed to challenge the musical genre. Absence moves away from the band’s Americana roots and into an electronic sound. But it’s tracks in the center of the record like “Be Healed,” “Good Intentions” and even the New-Wave-inspired “Tiger Teeth” that contain the soul of the record. Perhaps the band isn’t Motown, but their sound certainly expanded on Absence. 

    I WANNA BE YOUR TV SET. The airy pop tune “Good Intentions” shifts the album from rock to pop, following “Wish” and “Carousel.” By the middle of the album, it seems clear that Paper Route is a better pop group than a rock band. Paper Route’s bassist and keyboardist Chad Howat talked about the band’s history on the Your Favorite Band Podcast. Howat explains that he began writing a lot of songs when he couldn’t sleep after his former band, For All the Drifters, dissolved. The sound of Paper Route was more ethereal than For All the Drifters, a straightforward rock band, and Howat’s experimentation with digital recording and electronic music was yet to be fully realized until the band’s EP Are We All Forgotten. He also talks about how Paper Route was signed to Universal Motown which allowed them to do virtually whatever they wanted, meaning that the band didn’t have to make Motown music. The sub-label folded after Absence was released, leaving the band without a label. Since then, Paper Route has wandered from indie label to indie label before going on a long hiatus in 2018. 

    MY DREAM IS FINALLY COMING TRUE. As time passes without the collaborative work of Howat and singer JT Daly, I’m reminded of Paper Route’s commitment to keeping the real in pop music rather than conforming to the fickle, plastic nature of pop trends. “Good Intentions” is a song about not passing the muster in a relationship. What the speaker thought of as well-crafted plans were actually just dreams. Unaware, when he thought he was doing his best, he had actually been fobbing off responsibility to satisfy the listener. Of course, the speaker in this song only admits “I’ve got no execution,” not admitting that he is probably at fault–it’s so much easier to play the victim in a relationship and blame it on the other person. Intentions won’t make it in the music business, nor any other field for that matter. A two-bit effort will pay off with two-bit dividends. But success isn’t just about hard work; if that were true Paper Route would have gotten huge. And certainly, it’s not the most talented that enjoy success; the creative team can cover up a lack of talent with catchiness. But combine intentions, work, talent, luck, and connections, you might get a hit; you might get the job; you’ll probably survive. Best of luck!

  • "High Line" by Tyson Motsenbocker ft. Zealyn, Sunday, September 4, 2022 (Partial Repost)

    Tyson Motsenbocker released his second full-length record, Someday I’ll Make It All Up to You, on Valentine’s Day of 2020. Like with most early 2020 releases, the plan was to release the record and tour  in the spring. That tour started but was quickly canceled due to the beginning of the pandemic. While the anxieties and existential questions raised by the pandemic are not intentional themes, Someday  was definitely a record that could resonate with listeners who feel the world is slipping away from them. 

    A NEW DAY’S COMING. Working with producer Tyler Chester, Tyson Motsenbocker involves more production on his Someday I’ll Make It All Up to You than his previous efforts. Chester is a musician known for his production on Switchfoot‘s 2019 record Native Tongue. While Motsenbocker claims Switchfoot’s Jon Foreman as his mentor, and given that both Switchfoot’s hometown and Motsenbocker’s second home town is San Diego and their prior tours and collaborations, the singer-songwriter has a broader scope than a California sound. An eastern Washington native, Motsenbocker writes about the change of seasons and different cities throughout the record, making the album feel like every town in America is Motsenbocker’s hometown. The album feels equally west and east coast, with the album opening in New York City, which according to an interview with Long Distance Listening Podcast, the singer-songwriter hadn’t been to New York until he was an established artist, only touring on the west coast at first. 


    High Line Park in Manhattan. Source.

    NEW YORK SMILING LIKE A MONSTER IN A CAGE.  The opening track to Tyson Motsenbocker’s Someday I’ll Make It All Up to You, “High Line,” is the singer’s thoughts as he takes the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan to walk on the High Line train overpass. As the singer is alone with his thoughts, he thinks about urban alienation, loss, the future, and realities he wants to deny, yet he can no longer deny. The calm acoustic guitar and warmth that the strings and piano bring the the melody as well as Zealyn, the female backing vocalist make this a track that works for every season, though admittedly, even in a somewhat cooler, northern city, like New York, nobody wants to be taking this kind of journey in the middle of the afternoon, despite the air conditioning on the subway. The High Line Park in Manhattan opened in 2009 after repurposing a closed rail line. Since then, the elevated walkway has become a landmark. It’s a place for tourists to see the city, for dates, for meeting up. The concept of an elevated park walkway has been copied in cities around the world, including Seoullo 7017 in Seoul, South Korea. While I don’t have any memories involving the High Line, I certainly have a few with Seoullo 7017. I don’t think it makes as quiet a catchy song, though. 


    Studio version: 

    Acoustic version:




     




     

  • "Higher Power" by Coldplay, Saturday, September 3, 2022 (Updated repost)

    Back in 2010 we learned that yes, a pickle can get more likes than Nickelback, a band that had become the most hated “butt rock” band in the mid-’00s. In fact, the conclusions of the social media study found that a pickle had more likes than Oprah Winfrey or other beloved figures. It turns out that internet users’ hate outweighs Internet love, or the terrible outweighs the good. In 2014, the most hated rock band would become U2 after their release of Songs of Innocence was forced into every iTunes users’ library. People tried everything to scrub the songs from their shuffle. Today, people have mostly forgotten about Nickelback, and Apple Music no longer comes standard with that U2 album, so people have other musical axes to grind. Justin Bieber has grown up and is no longer blaring in our cultural continuousness. So who is the most hated band these days? After the 2019 Super Bowl it was Maroon 5, for taking to the stage when the NFL was in the middle of racial controversy around Colin Kaepernick’s taking a knee during the National Anthem and many other musical acts refused to play that year. Or is it the “rock groups” who take the name of rock ‘n’ roll in vein? Imagine Dragons (we’ll talk about them later) or Coldplay, who has garnered a lot of hate due to their pop sound and supposed generic sound?  

    THIS JOY IS ELECTRIC. “There’s not much to hate about Coldplay. But every time I hear one of their songs I kind of don’t realize I’m listening to anything,” my coworker once said. Many listeners have also come to this conclusion. In the video “Where Coldplay Went Wrong,” critic Frank Furtado, of the YouTube channel Middle 8, argues that Coldplay is the commercialized version of more talented, authentic bands more hidden in the scene. He also argues that lead vocalist’s Chris Martin’s avoidance of personal details in his lyrics make their songs mediocre at best. Finally, he argues that sing Viva La Vida, Or Death and All His Friends, the band has been virtually producing the same record over and over again, watering down their lyrical and musical depth in the process with the exception of 2019’s Everyday Life. One thing Furtado doesn’t talk about, though, is the danger of working with the same producers album after album. Perhaps Coldplay’s relationship with producers Brian Eno and Rik Simpson is to blame. Essentially, Coldplay is using the same ingredients and mixing them differently. 

    GOT ME SINGIN’ EVERY SECOND, DANCIN’ EVERY HOUR. Still, I admire Coldplay for their use of the recording studio as a musical instrument. Bigger than Coldplay is the production of Brian Eno, the producer that created three of U2’s most iconic albums The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, and All That You Can’t Leave Behind,  worked with Genesis, Devo, Toto, and David Bowie, and scored The Lovely Bones—the soundtrack making the movie watchable. But for their latest single, Coldplay turns to a producer with a  “Higher Power,” Max Martin, the producer with the second most Hot 100 number 1 hits under his belt, second to The Beatles’ producer George Martin. Starting with Ace of Base in the early ’90s and then writing and producing for the Backstreet Boys, Martin would score his first number one hit with Britney Spears in 1998 and then again with “It’s Gonna Be May,” I meant, “It’s Gonna Be Me” for *NSync He cultivated Katy Perry to become a hit producers, then took P!nk to the top of the charts. He replaced the banjos for EDM with Taylor Swift taking her from the top of the country charts to the top of the pop charts. He introduced the pop charts to dark R&B singer The Weeknd. However, Martin’s production doesn’t always mean success these days. Carly Rae Jepsen‘s Max Martin production on E-MO-TION and Dedicated and J-Lo’s “First Love” were minor hits. “Higher Power” was a moderate comeback hit for Coldplay, but it was the other Max Martin track featuring BTS, “My Universe” that would take Coldplay to the top of the charts again. 
    Performance Video:
    Official Dance Video:
    Official Music Video:


    Read the lyrics on Genius.



    Note: I’ve been in a pinch for quick reposts lately as I figure out how to balance the beginning of the semester with my blogging life. New content will be coming soon.

  • "Heartbreak Hotel" by Tiffany Young ft. Simon Dominic, Friday, September 2, 2022

    Tiffany Young, born Hwang Mi-Young 
    (황미영) debuted in 2007 with as a singer with one of Korea’s most successful girl groups of all time, Girls’ Generation. As a Korean American born and raised in California, Young spoke little Korean when she started her career as a K-pop singer. In interviews she has talked about relying on dictionaries before smartphone translators were invented and popularized. In 2016, Young released a solo EP, I Just Wanna Dance and a single “Heartbreak Hotel” featuring Korean rapper Simon Dominic. Young continued to be a part of Girls’ Generation until the group’s hiatus, starting in 2017, and has rejoined the group for their comeback this summer. 

    YOUR EYES THAT SEE THE END. “Heartbreak Hotel” touches a subject rarely tread upon in K-pop. Sharing the name from the Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston classics, Tiffany Young’s “Heartbreak Hotel” eludes to a break up after a sexual relationship. While the Elvis and Houston songs tackled the same topic using euphemism in the ’50s and the ’90s, respectively, a song like this is not common in K-pop, even in the 2010s. K-pop standards are that a song is sexy without being overly sexual, and complying with these murky standards could mean the highest level of fame. But Tiffany’s ballad differs with other K-pop songs, eluding to the seedy motels that line Korean cities, ever present but taboo to talk about. Korean media often appeals to a traditional ideal; however, standards are changing. A friend once told me in 2012, ten years ago when I first came to Korea, that Korean pop is sort of like ’90s music on the radio. Yes, there might be something shocking, but it’s only a little shocking. Of course, that was ten years ago, so maybe mid-’90s now?
    TODAY I’M CHECKING OUT. Although “Heartbreak Hotel” doesn’t exactly conform to the standards of Korean pop music and it is not quite independent to the scrutiny of the bubblegum pop group Girls’ Generation, it opens up a discussion about sex in a culture that doesn’t like to talk about it much. While Korean media standard often promote abstinence, there is a contrast with the media consumed from the West. The Internet has connected the world, and in a world where everyone is talking, the standards imposed can be seen as unrealistic. There are many Korean YouTubers that talk frankly about sexual practices in Korea which would shock those who think that everything is like a K-Drama. Streaming services, such as Netflix, also produce original content that doesn’t have to comply with these standards. So a song that alludes to giving one’s heart away in a hotel is probably just what someone struggling with the balance between love and sex needs. “Heartbreak Hotel” is a song of empowerment. Tiffany says that she won’t be part a relationship that breaks her heart anymore, taking the power back, even though it hurts a bit.

     

    Acoustic version:

  • "Git It Up" (투자) by H.O.T, Thursday, September 1, 2022 (repost)

    Many credit the formation of Seo Taiji and the Boys in 1992 as the birth of K-pop. Singer Seo Taiji had been a member of the heavy metal group, Sinawe in ’80s but decided to experiment with electronic music and choreography. Seo, in essence, started the ripple, whereas, today’s boy band was part part of a forming Korean wave, or Hallyu (한류) that seems turning into more and more of a tsunami every year. The boy bands and girl groups of early ’00s were known by Korean enthusiasts. Korean cinema was known by film buffs. But in 2012 when Psy’s “Gangnam Style” hit the Internet, the wave officially hit everywhere. In the late ’10s, BTS and other K-pop groups started placing well on Billboard’s Hot 100, performing on American television shows, and featuring on American pop albums. Then in 2020, Korean director Bong Joon-ho cleaned up the Oscars with his film Parasite (기생충). Korean dramas, too, are part of the wave. While they haven’t broken through in their original language to the same extent that Parasite or BTS has, they are extremely popular in Asia and growing more popular in other places thanks to platforms such as Netflix.

    EVERYONE CAN’T IGNORE IT NOW THAT THEY USED TO THEIR SPOILED GREED. Going back before the wave crested, the drama Reply 1997 (응답하라 1997) takes viewers to the late ’90s to the time of Japanese digital pets, Dance Dance Revolution, dial-up Internet, and a time when K-pop was ruled by two rival boy bands: H.O.T and S�ECHKIES. Besides being an excellent character-driven drama, Reply 1997 gives viewers a feel of what K-pop fandom was at its inception. We meet directionless Shi-won (played by Apink‘s Jeong Eun-ji), whose only teenage ambition is to become the wife of H.O.T member Tony Ahn (cameoed in the drama by the real Tony Ahn). As the drama goes on, she has a falling out with her friend Yoo-jung, when Shi-won realizes that Yoo-jung is actually a S�ECHKIES fan. There are so many nods to early K-pop, including Ji-won’s eventual boyfriend, played by none other than S�ECHKIES’s Eun Ji-won–the oldest member of the cast trying to pass as a teenager–Glee? Smallville?  The drama follows the high school years of Shi-won and her friends. While the others are studying for the 수능 or CSAT, the college entrance exam that determines if or where you can attend university, Shi-won is sneaking off on a bus to Daegu for an H.O.T concert. 

    IN THAT INCURABLE SADNESS, THEY ARE ONCE AGAIN INSIDE US. Korean boy band music has been the soundtrack of teenagers since the ’90s, but Korean boy bands didn’t always sound like BTS, nor did they sound like the American/Swedish-produced equivalents. While some of the songs of High-Five of Teenagers (or H.O.T for short) are called bubblegum pop, the band was always more rap-heavy. Some complained that their lead single from 1998’s Resurrection  “Line Up!” plagiarized Rage Against the Machine‘s “Killing in the Name Of.” Whether or not that was the case, H.O.T showed a much more aggressive sound than the Backstreet Boys or other ’90s American boy bands. In June of 1999, the band shared the stage with Michael Jackson, who was doing a benefit concert in Seoul. In September, they released their fourth album. The second single from 1999’s I Yah! “Git It Up!” sounds like hardcore rap and comes just short of screaming like the harder rock/hip-hop acts of the day. The boy band, too, took on a gothic aesthetic in their imagery and costumes. The lead single and title track of the album were a reference to a fire that killed elementary school students earlier that year. The music video for “Git It Up” includes scary imagery of a grim reaper standing over a baby in the nursery. It’s not quite Marylin Manson, but there is a sense of the ironic and grotesque the band is trying to convey with their message. The band broke up in 2001, when they couldn’t agree on a the terms of renewing their contract with SM Entertainment. While many say that ’90s pop or K-pop doesn’t hold up, Reply 1997 helped to give a resurgence to the old boy bands. And for non-Koreans, the drama introduced a world we never knew existed. 
    H.O.T concert scene from Reply 1997:

  • “Until It Happens to You” by Sasha Alex Sloan, Wednesday, August 31, 2022

    The lyrics on Sasha Alex Sloan‘s 2020 record Only Child will leave you emotionally wrecked upon first listen. But by no means let that stop you. Sloan is one of the most poingnat songwriters today, which is why she has been called upon to write for other pop stars including Camilla Cabello, Juice WRLD, Lecrae, LANY, Charli XCX, Katy Perry, P!nk, Oh Wonder, and tons more. Only Child is a perfect Sad Girl  album, with its lyrical honesty–not necessarily telling the whole truth, but holding nothing back about the unpleasantness of reality. However, despite the heavy topics of homelessness, conflicts with parents when growing up, divorce, and loss, Sloan seems to leave the listener with hope, showing a different perspective on the speaker’s thoughts as a child and as an adult. 

    YOU WON’T BE THE ONE HAVING TROUBLE SLEEPING. “Until It Happens to You” is the penultimate track on Only Child and it serves as an emotional climax for the album. Sloan explains the lyrical and musical themes on an episode of the Song Exploder podcast. She explains how the songs on Only Child were produced collaboratively with her boyfriend Henry Allen, known professionally as King Henry. With Sloan’s songs, the lyrics immediately hit the listener, but it’s the music that delivers those lyrics almost subliminally. Song Exploder helps us unpack “Until It Happens to You,” showing how the music and the lyrics meet to deliver an emotional punch. With guitar tones inspired by Explosions in the Sky and deliberate drumming at the end of the track mimicking a rain shower, building up to catharsis, “Until It Happens to You” is a singer-songwriter Alternative rock song. Sloan also explains that the guitars in the song were outtakes from when the band LANY  was recording with King Henry around the same time as Sloan was recording Only Child. If Sloan were writing songs in the late ’90s, she certainly would be heard on Alternative and Pop radio with the likes of Natalie Imbruglia, Meredith Brooks, and Courtney Love.  

    YOU NEVER REALLY KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE / ‘TIL YOU WAKE UP TO SOME REAL BAD NEWS. Anne Lamott writes in her book on writing Bird by Bird: 
       
            The problem [with writing well] is acceptance, which is something we’re taught
            not to do. We’re taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things,
            alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been
            given- that you are not in a productive creative period- you free yourself to begin 
            filling up again.

    That nubbin on your back turned out to be your worst fears. There’s been an accident. She loved you, but she couldn’t take the pressure anymore. There was one string that was holding your whole world and suddenly it unraveled. That’s the world that great writers, whether novelists or songwriters live. The uncomfortable is from where Sasha Alex Sloan writes. “Until It Happens to You” reminds us that, even if a friend experiences something tragic, we can’t truly understand it unless, or in the case of the song, until it happens to you. The song also gives listeners a global perspective with the line: “Somebody loses their somebody every day,” meaning that loss, as devastating for the individual as it is, is a common, daily occurrence. And yet the cosmic overview, one’s  knowing that tragedies happen every day offers no comfort to the one who loses a parent, a grandparent, a friend, husband, child, or a dog. And to a much, much lesser extent, someone telling you to look on the bright side on a crappy day is infuriating. But on a rainy day when nothing seems to be working, it feels fitting to sympathize with today’s song. It makes us realize that someday that rainy day will come for us if it hasn’t already. Nobody lives forever. Nothing is really on the up and up with out a nosedive here and there. 

     

  • “Part of It” and "(Outro)*" by Relient K, Tuesday, August 30, 2022 (reworked repost)

    Forget and Not Slow Down is Relient K‘s sixth album. The band had shifted away from “tongue-in-cheek” lyrics in previous albums and had enjoyed mainstream pop radio success as well as topping the Christian charts. Forget and Not Slow Down, however, starts to see a shift away from the safety of the youth group, as vocalist and songwriter Matt Thiessen‘s writes about the dissolving of a  relationship with radio DJ Shannon Murphy, the details of which Murphy shared haven’t been confirmed by the Relient K frontman, but the lyrics become clearer in the context of this interview.

    IT’S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD, JUST YOU AND ME. Forget and Not Slow Down is a breakup masterpiece, and one of the most cohesive and listenable, yet under-rated Relient K records, particularly if you don’t like Relient K. Musically, the band is joined by The O.C. Supertones and Project 86 guitarist Ethan Luck, playing on the drums for this record. The band is also joined by their friends Tim Skipper (House of Heroes), Matt MacDonald (The Classic Crime), Adam Young (Owl City), Aaron Gillespie (The Almost, Underoath), and Brian McSweeney (Seven Days Jesus). The East Nashville production, the American rock ‘n’ roll before it gets processed into country music make the album more Springsteen and less Blink-182. Lyrically, on Forget and Not Slow Down, the speaker is often in denial about his infidelity, yet comes close to admitting it several times throughout the tracks. He moves from being repentant to accusatory, from self-righteous to self-deprecating. Forget and Not Slow Down has a very Tennessee feel to it–not twangy country music, but the album artwork describes it all. Painted by Thiessen’s uncle Linden Frederick, the cover art tells a story about the album. The flat fields of Southern Tennessee in Franklin County where Thiessen hid away, writing, processing his break up.

    IF A NIGHTMARE EVER DOES UNFOLD, PERSPECTIVE IS A LOVELY HAND TO HOLD. “Part of It” (see below) is the fifth track and the fourth full-length song on the record. The first song, the title track, sets a tone about moving on from mistakes. The second, the break up hits Thiessen, but he feels slightly numb realizing that he doesn’t need someone else to define him. By the third track, “Candlelight,” Thiessen is only remembering the good parts of the relationship. By “Part of It,” Thiessen has released that all the “adhesives” in the world couldn’t repair their relationship. However, the outro to this song, which should be listened right after “Part of It,” Thiessen is begging his ex not to believe the rumors. Following the outro, Thiessen has a chance to process his breakup in the songs “Therapy” and “Over It,” the former which sees him “driving in the country just to drive.” I imagine a man who hasn’t slept much for awhile, un-showered and greasy-haired, in his sweatpants, driving through the backwoods of Tennessee. The album mostly plays on similar themes until the closers “This is the End” and “(If You Want It),” which use the same melody, making the latter just a continuation of the same song.

    Here are the tracks unseparated for your listening pleasure:
    *Unfortunately, Forget and Not Slow Down is not available on AppleMusic, so I am substituting their live version of “Forget and Not Slow Down” as it “I Don’t Need a Soul,” and “Sahara” are the only tracks available from the album.

  • "Heaven" by Troye Sivan ft. Betty Who, Monday, August 29, 2022 (updated repost)

    On December 4, 2015, Troye Sivan released his wildly successful first LP, Blue Neighbourhood.  Building a large Internet fanbase, Blue Neighbourhood peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. The standard edition of Blue Neighbourhood  contained 3 of the 10 songs from the previously released Wild EP. The LP, though, gave Sivan his first US Top 40 single, “Youth.” Four of the ten songs on Blue were singles, starting with “Wild,” a remix of which was rereleased with guest vocals by Alessia Cara as Sivan’s fourth single from the album, which was a major hit in South Korea.   

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

    WITHOUT LOSING A PIECE OF ME. The lyrics of “Heaven” deal with a personal crisis, but the video shows historic pride marches and video footage of LGBTQ+ Rights activist, Harvey Milk. The queer-themed music video was meant to be released on January 20, 2016, the day that Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, but the video was released on the 19th because of fans’ responses to the video’s teaser. When I first heard “Heaven” back in 2015, my Adventist-raised brain was triggered. In many Protestant denominations, there’s this delicate dance between grace and works. Adventists preached against more permissive denominations that didn’t take the rules from the Old Testament seriously. In order to become an Adventist, it meant giving up a list of things the world thinks is normal: 1) unclean meats 2) jewelry 3) smoking 4) alcohol 5) working on Saturdays, and that was just the beginning. I remember manipulative sermons that analyzed why ______ was sinful, and if you loved _____ more than God, you’d be sure to be left out of heaven. Adventists claimed to be more biblical than other Christians, and that grace leads to a reformed life. Of course, ask any denomination, they would draw a line on something. And all denominations  that I knew of when I was growing up,  the very basic thing was, don’t be gay. Sivan’s response that if he has to change, he doesn’t want heaven. To an Adventist, this could be just as much for someone who doesn’t want to give up bacon as someone who is gay. They would say it’s all sin and a war with the flesh. Growing up in that religion it made perfect sense, until I realized I couldn’t not be gay.


    Read the lyrics on Genius.


  • “I’ve Got Friends” by Manchester Orchestra, Sunday, August 28, 2022

    Manchester Orchestra began as a project when lead singer Andy Hull dropped out of his Christian high school in Atlanta to study at home during his senior year. Hull grew up in a religious household; his father and grandfather both ministers. Hull went on to form a band with musicians who had a similar faith background. But on the band’s sophomore release, Mean Everything to Nothing, Hull assesses his spiritual trauma, critiquing  mainstream Christianity in the album’s twelve songs. Similar to the work of David Bazan and Pedro the Lion, Manchester Orchestra’s Mean Everything to Nothing is a classic in Ex-Evangelical deconstruction.


    DIRTY ON THE GROUND IS WHAT I NEED. The standard evangelical teaching is that Christians and the non-Christian forces in the world are at war. There are constant temptations that try to distract Christians from their main duty in life: to worship God. Though definitions of sin vary, from a list of actions and thoughts one can do or have to an ethereal essence impossible to avoid completely, certain actions and abstinences are believed to reduce son’s power. Activities like church attendance, fellowship with other godly people (if from one’s correct denomination, it’s better), reading the Bible, attending supporting activities (such as youth group, prayer meeting, church camps, church socials), and partaking of godly entertainment (anything from a Christian bookstore for some; for others only a select part of those stores) were all great ways to avoid sin and build up immunity against it. But inevitably living in the world, some of its influences would take hold. In the case of Hull and his friends, Manchester Orchestra was influenced by the ‘80s music scene in Manchester; Hull took influence from The Smiths and their lead singer Morrissey.
     

    I KNOW THEY DON’T WANT ME TO STAY. So far the Atlanta-based band sounds in line with every Tooth & Nail band’s origin story: a Christian background but a healthy distrust of organized religion and a taste for the forbidden fruit of secular music—New Order and The Smiths being popular influences. But Mean Everything to Nothing opens up with the confessional lyrics to the song “The Only One,” which questions, “Am I the only only son of a pastor I know / Who does the things I do?” With Manchester Orchestra there’s a level of trauma to Hull’s Christian upbringing that places the band a decade ahead of where Tooth & Nail artists and the space created in the the deconstructing Christian Rock sphere. Mean Everything to Nothing is an album about feeling like an outsider to everyone the speaker is supposed to be close to. That includes the family and Christian school friends who cannot accept Hull’s differing opinions, and this theme is particularly examined on “I’ve Got Friends.” The speaker unpacks his trauma in this song, recalling that he wasn’t allowed to play with the other boys when he was growing up out of fear that they would corrupt him. He then grows up with social issues, and his friends “don’t want him to stay.” Manchester Orchestra has some interesting thoughts on modern Christianity, but these thoughts aren’t unique; they’re as old religion itself. And trying to fit into a specific mold can be damaging. By fitting into the mold, you can have the right friends in the right places, but is it worth it?