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yuminsung · 5 years ago

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NCT 2020: SYNERGY (my wishes for an album)

I was positive we were getting an NCT 2020 comeback at the start of the year, however now I have realised I am a clown. So, instead, I have spent longer than I should’ve creating an album filled with stuff that I would like to see.

I want to preface this with the fact that I have no qualifications in anything related to music / album design / production or anything like that, this is just based on my opinions as a fan of music and NCT.

I’m gonna split this into 4 sections to kinda separate my thoughts, and so it’s easier to navigate.

1. TITLE

NCT 2018s album is titled EMPATHY, the definition of this being “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”. I think SM chose this to reflect how NCT 2018 was an amalgamation of 127, DREAM, and U. I wanted to try and keep this theme for NCT 2020, though expand on it due to the addition of WAYV.

SYNERGY is defined as “the combined power of a group when they are working together, that is greater than the total power achieved by each working separately”. To be honest, I think the word ‘synergy’ perfectly sums up NCT’s concept of sub-units, so it would be a good choice for NCT 2020s album’s title due to its meaning as well as its similarity to ‘empathy’ sound-wise.

2. ALBUM COVER

The album cover for EMPATHY was very bright, like all the colours of the rainbow, but still very minimalistic and kinda futuristic? The NCT vibe. I think their second album would suit a slightly more mature design, and as I have no talent in design, I’m going to use existing album covers to give an idea of what i think would work well.

If SM was to go down the route of a similar album cover, I think the best example is the 1975′s newest album:

It still has the text elements that were prominent on EMPATHY’s cover, while being more minimalistic in colour (aside from the yellow side panel which would theoretically be bright neobong green).

If they were to go along a different route to EMPATHY, I think this album cover by Paris Jones could work well for NCT 2020:

If the background surface was black, a polaroid of all 21 members could be a simple but effective album cover.

In terms of promotional photos, this scene from the WAYV ‘Regular’ MV is my first thought:

Photos taken on a set like this, with all the members dotted about the room and maybe the album title + members’ names repeated across the screens could work well to give off the futuristic NCT vibe.

3. TITLE TRACK / CONCEPT

I can’t create a whole album’s worth of songs, so for the next two sections all the songs mentioned are going to be from existing artists. I’m not trying in anyway to suggest that “NCT would do it better” or that NCT should release the exact songs mentioned - I’m just using these songs to represent the styles I would like to see NCT explore.

Title Track: GETTING CLOSER - SEVENTEEN

I think SVT are a really good example of having a lot of members that all have the opportunity to shine. Getting Closer is that bitch, like the line distribution is spot-on and the choreography is one of my all-time favourites.

Black on Black was mainly instrumental to highlight the performance ability of NCT 2018. Getting Closer is reminiscent of BoB in its powerful nature, but would be able to show NCT 2018′s growth into NCT 2020, with further vocal / rap capabilities showcased alongside the previously established performance talent.

The concepts of BoB and Getting Closer are already similar, so this wouldn’t be anything out of NCT’s / SM’s comfort zone, and would also work towards establishing a dark & powerful ‘brand’ for when all sub-units perform together as one.

Special Stage: UH-OH - (G)-IDLE

I would like to see NCT 2020 do something a little bit different than ‘powerful’ for the special stage. Uh-Oh has a really chilled kinda west-coast vibe that I think NCT are yet to fully explore in any sub-unit but could absolutely pull off. It would be a stage where they could genuinely have fun performing all together.

I imagine the stage being done in a way similar to Growl by EXO in that certain groups of members come onto the stage for different verses, then all come on together for the final chorus.

The styling for Uh-Oh is kinda summer streetwear. The best equivalent I’ve found for a boy group in this style is ATEEZ Wave era.

This shows kinda how I think the styling for this stage should be, in particular Jongho, Yunho, and Mingi. Just think lots of colour, street brands, and denim.

Getting Closer and Uh-Oh are the only songs on the album where I’ve put all 21 members on the same track.

4. TRACKLIST

I have no talent when it comes to album design / composition or anything like that, but I tried to create a sort of theme / flow between the songs I picked for the album. NCT songs I’d liken the overall theme to are ‘Love Song’ from Neo Zone, ‘Love Again’ from Reload, and ‘YESTODAY’ from Empathy.

I’ve used an intro, interlude, and outro to show progression of NCT 2020 through the album, with these 3 songs getting more upbeat one by one. Though extremely cringey, I guess I was trying to emulate them growing happier through being together as a group.

Aside from the two tracks mentioned above that feature all members, the rest of the songs are split into sub-units, whether it be pre-existing unofficial units within NCT or a selection of members I think suit the style of a certain song. I have not included any official NCT sub-units on this album, as that was done in EMPATHY. I’d like this to be one big NCT U album, where we get the members in combinations we’d otherwise never get to hear performing together.

The Tracklist:

INTRO: The Unknown Guest (DEAN)

Members: Xiaojun

Xiaojun is a beyond amazing singer (he is my joint favourite vocalist in NCT). This song has an old feel, it’s almost haunting, and I really think Xiaojun’s voice would suit such a song perfectly. Xiaojun performing an intro of this style alone would open the album well and give him the time to shine he deserves !

Track 1: Getting Closer (SVT)

Members: All

(Explained above)

Track 2: CHILLI (SVT)

Members: Rap Line (Taeyong, Johnny*, WinWin*, Lucas, Mark, Hendery, Jaemin, YangYang, Jeno, Jisung*)

I might have completely forgotten some songs but I don’t think NCT have ever released a rap-heavy song of this style. I would love to see them do a rap song with this sort of relaxed vibe - it would show off diversity in their rapping abilities and would be a fun concept to see.

*I know Johnny, WinWin, and Jisung are in both the vocal and rap lines, but I’ve chosen to include them on the rap line track rather than the vocal line track as I think they suit the vibe of this track better than the vocal track. Plus, it would give the three of them more lines (god knows they need them) if they were on this track rather than with the vocal line :)

Track 3: Uh Oh (G-IDLE)

Members: All

(Explained above)

Track 4: The Truth Untold (BTS)

Members: Vocal Line (Taeil, Yuta, Doyoung, Kun, Ten, Jaehyun, Jungwoo, Xiaojun, Renjun, Haechan, Chenle)

Although NCT has released ballads before, I would love to hear members from different subunits singing together. Like, imagine Renjun, Xiaojun, and Jungwoo on the SAME track - the power. Taeil and Chenle harmonising? Iconic.

Track 5: Spotlight (1the9)

Members: Foreign Swaggers / English-Speaking Line (Johnny, Ten, Jaehyun, Hendery, Xiaojun, Mark, YangYang)

I know Xiaojun, Hendery, and YangYang aren’t technically in the Foreign Swaggers, but I feel like spiritually they are. I wanna see 6 of them causing havoc while Jaehyun spectates (https://youtu.be/acsjfk4cz1U). A song with a playful vibe, not necessarily in English, would suit these members well.

INTERLUDE: Dayfly (DEAN)

Members: Taeil, Taeyong, Kun, Doyoung, Jungwoo

I don’t have any reasoning for why I’ve chosen these specific members for this song other than the fact I think the style suits them well. I think the 5 of them together on an interlude with a relaxed feel would just be a really calming break in the album.

Track 6: Vibe (1Team)

Members: Taeyong, Yuta, Jungwoo, Jeno, Jaemin, Haechan, Jisung

This is quite a broad range of members in terms of age but I don’t think that matters as each of their styles would suit a song like this. A relaxed style and structure similar to the one this song has would allow each of them to shine, as it’s nearly an equal split of rappers to vocalists.

Track 7: Retro Future (Triple H)

Members: Johnny, Ten

Baby Don’t Stop 2.0. I can just imagine these two singing a song like this and having so much fun. A JohnTen duet track is giving the gays (read @incorrectnct ) not only what they want, but what they deserve.

Track 8: Base Line (J-HOPE)

Members: 99 Line (Lucas, Mark, Hendery, Xiaojun)

The 99 line is 3/4 rappers so a song that is rap-heavy in style would best showcase their ability. We’ve heard Mark and Lucas together during EMPATHY era, and Lucas with Hendery and Xiaojun in WAYV, so I have no doubts the 4 would work together. Plus, rapper Xiaojun could be something that we don’t yet have but definitely need.

Track 9: Focus on Me (JUS2)

Members: 97 Line (Jaehyun, WinWin)

These two are made for a sexy concept like the style of this song, and their voices complement each-others’ so well. I always felt Jaehyun was one of the members of 127 WinWin was most comfortable around, so their existing chemistry would make a track together even better.

Track 10: Second Life (SVT)

Members: China Line (Kun, WinWin, Lucas, Hendery, Xiaojun, Renjun, YangYang, Chenle)

They have the range.

Track 11: New Rules (TXT)

Members: 00 Line (Haechan, Renjun, YangYang, Jaemin, Jeno)

A song with a fun feel to it like this is the only way to go for the 00 line. They are almost an even split of rappers and vocalists, so a song like this would allow each member to shine. I know any song with these 5 together would make me smile while listening to it.

OUTRO: Blue Side (J-HOPE)*

Members: Yuta

Imagine if SM gave Yuta his own solo track,, just kidding,,, unless? But for real, Yuta has managed to prove how talented an artist he is despite SM only giving him 2 lines and 8 seconds of screen time each comeback, so imagine how amazing a whole song by him would be.

*Song will be in Japanese.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I tried to split the members evenly between tracks, which I know is unrealistic but is what we want to see (SM please let Mark, Taeyong, and Haechan rest). I’m not sure if we’ll ever get another full group album, I’ve heard some people saying it will be NCT 2021 for 21 members, like the 18 members for NCT 2018. Regardless, making this made me feel happy thinking about the possible interactions and the songs that could come from it.

If you’ve made it this far thank you for sticking with my jumbled thought process. Please message me if you have any thoughts about anything in this post or just about NCT ot21 in general :)

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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years ago

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Shannon Lay Interview: A Still Spirit

Photo by Kai MacKnight

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“Have you always been who you are?” asks Shannon Lay on “Rare to Wake”, the opening track to her incredible new album Geist, out tomorrow via Sub Pop. She presents these type of earth-shattering questions with remarkable calm, though they entered her mind with anything but. The songs on Geist--the German word for “spirit”--came out of an intense period of self-reflection for Lay. In 2019, she released and toured on the terrific August, on which she observed the headspace of others, from Nick Drake’s mother Molly to a spider on a stack of records. After that, she began an inward process that, ironically, wouldn’t have been able to happen without the forced break of a global pandemic. Realizing that she perceived many aspects of her creative life past and present (which included working at a vintage clothing store, playing in the punk band Feels, and playing in Ty Segall’s Freedom Band) as brought upon by external forces, she took the opportunity to craft herself anew.

For many artists, songs that are born out of the desire to leave their comfort zone tend to be their most abrasive-sounding. Geist is instead Lay’s most beautiful and gentle record, played with a nylon-string acoustic guitar, her vocals and guitar recorded before she sent the tunes out to other musicians to add their own layers. That it was recorded this way yields a record that’s warm and oscillates gently on songs like “Sure” and “Time’s Arrow”. None of the songs even reach what sounds like a full-band choogle--the closest it comes is the end of “Rare to Wake” and “Untitled”, which has the only audible percussion on the record--but the record is rich in its assured calm. At the center of it all is Lay’s smoky voice, layered a capella on “Awaken and Allow” and traveling with her guitar on the album’s title track.

I spoke with Lay over the phone from her home in Pasadena, CA last month about Geist, her creative process, and cover songs. Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: What about Geist is unique as compared to anything else you’ve ever released?

Shannon Lay: With this one, the biggest difference was being more comfortable with what I felt called to offer. From the background of music I did and the scene I grew up in, when I started presenting my solo music, it always felt like it had to be edgy, tough, cool, or punk. There had to be something rough about it. With this one, I just embraced the fact that one of my specialties is creating really beautiful music. I’m so happy that I did, because the result really is this beautiful experience. I think it’s because I became so much clearer with the goal of it. I wasn’t so confused and wrapped up in the identities I had accumulated beforehand.

SILY: Did that goal influence your decision to release “Rare to Wake” before even announcing the album?

SL: Yeah, totally. We also knew [Geist] would be a very appropriate fall record, so we saw this long span of time between finishing and releasing it, so it felt appropriate to trickle out songs. It seems that’s how people are digesting music now anyways, in smaller increments. It felt nice to present the single and make a video for it that felt appropriate.

SILY: It’s jacket weather here, finally. We just turned the heat on. Listening to Geist earlier today, I could tell it will be a popular record throughout the season.

SL: Oh, I love that! Yay! I know, I had my first jacket day the other day here, too, and then it went back to 100 degrees. But I really enjoyed it. [laughs]

SILY: Is “Rare to Wake” inspired by Dune?

SL: Yeah. I had never seen David Lynch’s version. It blew my mind, the content and message behind it. It really got my wheels turning. [Protagonist] Paul in the movie really has to prove to himself that he is who he is, and I think we’re all on that journey, but the conclusion of it is we’ve always been who we are and everything we can be. We’re just on different steps of the journey to that. [laughs] The new [Dune] looks pretty good.

SILY: Are you gonna see it in theaters?

SL: Oh yeah. I love movies where that’s the way you have to see it, in a theater. This one for sure is gonna be like that.

SILY: On the track “Awaken and Allow”, when you sing, “I have to get out of California / The days go by like smoke in the wind,” is that a reference to the wildfires?

SL: Oh man, it wasn’t, but that is an appropriate interpretation. I like that. California basically represents my comfort zone in my life. I grew up here, I’ve always lived here, and I think that line was a poetic way of saying, “I need to step out of what makes me comfortable in order to grow.” If you don’t, time can slip away, and you can excuse the things you’re called to do because you’re fine where you’re at. It’s about challenging yourself, and California is just really safe and easy for me.

SILY: The title of the album is the German word for “spirit.” What led you to that word and in that language?

SL: I was actually looking through a 1930s music vocabulary book, all these cool words used to reference different moments in music or levels of playing and types of instruments and singing. That word came up in there. I loved the conciseness of it. It felt very appropriate. This record, I wanted it to be this very dense content delivered in a very gentle way. Disguising the word “spirit” in this kind of mystical sound-- “geist” is almost a sound--felt like a nice way to tie everything together. The whole time I was writing this, I was reflecting on the human spirit, how adaptable it is and how persevering it could be, [as I was] watching everyone go through hard times and triumphs. People finding themselves and taking the opportunity to get to know themselves and new ways of being. It was cool to hear people’s stories trickle in as I reconnected with folks. It’s a definite nod to how strong we are. I feel like “spirit” can have a religious context to some people. The problem with self-improvement in general is it can be off-putting with the way it’s worded, so “geist” felt like a poetic way of lightening the load of what I was handing you.

SILY: Was wanting to touch on adaptability and strength in the face of challenges directly inspired by anything going on in your life during the writing process?

SL: Before the pandemic even started, I was feeling a lot of cracks forming in my foundation. Who I was and who I thought I identified with was slipping away, and I couldn’t hold on to it anymore. I felt this need to drop it. It was like holding something really slippery. I dropped it all and was trying to rebuild as the pandemic hit. It was really an amazing opportunity to me to surrender and explore within myself a fresh start. It occurred to me that everything I thought I was, was built up from other people and their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. We’re these sponges in the world, and I had picked up a lot of stuff that wasn’t mine. I began this process of sorting through. The first thing I did was recognizing what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to work on. It was an intense process, and I don’t think I could have done it continuing to exist in the world as I was, pretending like I was okay. It allowed me to fall apart in this really amazing way that gave me a vantage point to all the broken pieces I could put back together in a much more stable, nurturing way.

SILY: Is this identity reclamation process part of your embracing your Irish roots in “Awaken and Allow”? It sounds like a traditional Irish folk song.

SL: I felt very connected to that, for sure. I think it’s a big part of who I am and where my family came from. I’m hopefully gonna go there next year. I’m so excited; I’ve never been. It’s good to keep falling down that rabbit hole. It felt like the first glimpse of the river that runs through everyone’s culture you can go to and take home. It was a cool experience having that song happen kind of organically. I felt very connected to ancestral energy.

SILY: "Awaken and Allow” and “Rare to Wake” share a quality with the album in general: It sounds like it’s precluding something else, in a good way. The first time I heard “Rare to Wake”, I expected it to go into a full band jam at the end, but it stops. The a capella in “Awaken and Allow”, and “Untitled”, which has the only audible percussion on the record, made me think that because you expect the songs to go somewhere else but they don’t, it almost serves to reemphasize the importance of the present moment.

SL: Oh, I love that so much. I absolutely had the intention of a lot of stillness surrounding this record. It kind of requires you to have a moment of calm. Music all serves such different purposes...with this one, when I was figuring out what I wanted to put out into the world, in this moment in time, it feels like we all need as many reminders as possible to just sit there and be. We’re brought up to do, which is cool, too, but something about sitting and breathing and feeling your life force, everyone should experience that at some point. For people who feel like the world is happening to them, that kind of victim mentality. If you just take a minute to appreciate the fact that you can hear your heartbeat if you listen long enough or take a deep breath into your lungs. I wanted to promote moments like that, and I love that you got that out of it. It’s perfect.

SILY: I think living in the present is something that a lot of people have learned to do, almost by necessity, during long periods of isolation.

SL: Yeah. It’s a tough time for sure. It’s easy to feel like it’s happening to you. It’s either an excuse or an opportunity, and to make it an excuse is all too appealing. My gosh, it’s so nice to have that to reach for, because then nothing’s your fault. It’s all happening to you! When you flip your perspective, it’s such divine timing, and you’re absolutely meant to be wherever you’re meant to be. Even if it’s a difficult spot, there’s knowledge in that moment you need to search for. It’s so important to remember. It all comes back to being present. [laughs]

SILY: On August, you covered Karen Dalton. On Geist, you cover Syd Barrett’s “Late Night”. When did you first hear “Late Night”, and why did you decide to include it? Do you think including a cover is going to become a tradition on all of your records?

SL: I love covers so much. I love taking artists that more people should know about and giving them a little shoutout. Karen Dalton, ever since August has come out--and I’m not saying it’s me who did this--but I’ve noticed buzz around her. This documentary [Karen Dalton: In My Own Time] is coming out. It’s cool that these people who were maybe not so appreciated in their moment can now leave this legacy. The ripple effect of music is so incredible. Syd Barrett was one of those people, too. That guy was a weirdo, man. The music he made kind of reminds me of Arthur Russell. The first time you hear it, you may not like it. You have to sit with it and be in the right mood. It’s so beautiful and so off-kilter and has this very child-like maturity about it. “Late Night” especially has this innocence, but so much wisdom. It’s a really wild combo, and I feel it every time I play or listen to that song. He had that magical mix of being 80 and 8 at the same time. [laughs] It’s so weird.

When I try a cover, I don’t like to push it too hard. If it doesn’t come out immediately, I just move on. With [“Late Night”], I tried it, and it felt so nice and natural. Working on the harmonies was fun, and it felt like it had a place within this record. There’s an embrace of change and a loving yourself vibe within this record but a lot of projecting love outward and loving people and appreciating the relationships that have come and gone in your life. That song sums that up so beautifully.

SILY: I agree with you about Arthur Russell. It’s not sounds you traditionally associate with being beautiful, but when you listen to them and take it for what it is, it very much is beautiful. I think I feel the same way about someone like Kate Bush.

SL: Yes! The true weridos. Just pure freaks in the best sense of the word.

SILY: I’m not trying to think of others like that. Daniel Johnston, too.

SL: Absolutely!

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art for this record?

SL: I reconnected with an old friend during the pandemic, and we ended up falling madly in love. We knew each other in middle school and were actually each other’s first kiss in middle school. We drifted apart as we got older and came back together. He became this really crucial piece of the visual aspects of this record. He directed all three of the music videos I did for it and took both of the cover photos. He lives in the Lincoln Heights area of Los Angeles, and there’s all these amazing hills around there. You walk up these craggy little paths, and all of a sudden, you’re on top of the world. On his street, there was this house that used to be there but got torn down, and the wall behind me was the retaining wall very poorly keeping the dirt held up behind me. [laughs] I loved the idea of presenting the confidence I was feeling grow within me on this record. I wanted to include the instrument I used as well, since everything came out of that Nylon-string guitar.

We did these photos on film, so when we got them back, I thought, “This is it. This is how I feel in a really cool visual representation.” It was this very baller confident chick standing in front of this huge crack that I felt happen within myself. My whole self was shattered at the beginning of this journey, and it was this process of picking up the pieces. This image was so good, and on the back is this photo of me cracking up in the same position, which is the perfect juxtaposition. Another thing we have to remember in this life is to not take ourselves too seriously. It’s so important to have fun and be light about even the heaviest of things. It’s just a way to carry around less weight. It felt classic--I felt very inspired by classic country records, really straightforward, “Here’s the photo, some colors, and a great font.” [It's] so serious on the front, and you turn it over, and you’re like, “Oh yeah, this is all in good fun.”

SILY: It’s got some Gram Parsons energy.

SL: Yeah, totally. I can’t wait to get the vinyl. The yellow, we put this cool texture on it. It’s gonna look really beautiful.

SILY: Have you played these songs live?

SL: Yes, it’s been really fun. I’ve actually been practicing here with a stand-up bass player and a keyboard player who also sings. It’s been really, really fun to bring them to life. It requires this delicate touch that if it lines up just right, it’s powerful in its simplicity. I’m just obsessed! I’m playing a solo show tonight where I play most of the record because I can’t get enough of playing these songs. They feel so good and fit in so well with the electric stuff I do during the set.

SILY: Do you have any other covers you’re doing on this tour?

SL: I’m doing a good amount of solo shows, and I really like including Sibylle Baier covers. She was a really big influence on this record, and I was going to include one of her covers, but I don’t want to just cover the song and play the song. I want to put my own spin on it, but her songs are perfect as is. I’ll definitely do “Late Night”. I’m always down for covers. I always have a couple Arthur Russell covers in my pocket. Those are the best.

SILY: When I saw you at Lincoln Hall, you and your band did an a capella version of “Everybody Everybody”.

SL: Yes! That is to this day one of my proudest accomplishments. [laughs]

SILY: Are you the type of songwriter who is always writing songs? Are you working on anything?

SL: I’m not! I feel very called to rest at the moment. I’m trying to reenter things so I can honor the fact that I’m not built to tour all year and only say yes to the things that feel really genuinely good. I’m really excited to see what comes next, because part of what’s hard about being creative is learning to honor and trust your process. One ingredient that gets introduced that could be avoided a lot of the time is worry. I’m trying to notice the pattern of my creativity and in the moments I don’t feel called to write, know that one day I’m gonna wake up and it’s gonna feel so good to go in there and go nuts and lose track of time and forget to eat and get lost in the flow. I think Neil Young said it: “If it’s not comin’, just mow the lawn.” I moved into a house by myself in February and have just been nesting, so that’s been really nice.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that you’ve enjoyed?

SL: I just finished [Dr. Nicole LePera’s] How to Do the Work, which is a great book that came out recently if you feel called to work on yourself and work on your behavioral patterns. It’s a really helpful book of stories and experiences from this one doctor. She has this Instagram called The Holistic Psychologist. She’s great. I just started [Steven Pressfield’s] The War of Art, which talks a lot about how you can get in the way of your creativity. It’s a very triggering book, so I’m gonna keep reading it. [laughs] It talks a lot about resistance and the way that we self-sabotage. I see so much of the things I wouldn’t really think of as self-sabotage in there. I just rewatched The Matrix trilogy after I saw the new one was coming out, which was fantastic. I’m always down for some Keanu. I’ve been listening to a lot of 90′s dance, or Steven Halpern meditation music. I’m either sleeping or dancing.

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 4 years ago

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Amy Lee Dives Into the Tragedies That Inspired Evanescence’s ‘The Bitter Truth’ — Exclusive Interview

Congrats on the release of The Bitter Truth — how are you feeling?

Thank you, I'm feeling so happy that it's out. It's hard to really sum it up — awesome feelings of satisfaction. I'm really happy that it's out there and everybody's listening to it, it's cool to see the fans react to it and dig into it. We're going to be releasing our video for "Better Without You" (which came out on April 16), I'm so excited about the video!

So we're in a good, happy place right now. Looking forward to when we can be together again, for sure.

Obviously this wasn't your first record, but is the first new, original material you guys have put out in about a decade. Do you still find it nerve-wracking when you release new music, especially when fans have been waiting awhile for something new?

(Laughs) Well, I don't find it nerve-wracking as far as anticipating a reaction, I'm mostly just excited for that. It's just getting back into the groove of doing a lot of press and promo, and running around. And it's different nowadays with the pandemic because it's like, "Do your own lighting! Do your own audio! Do your own everything," and like, make it work from home most of the time.

So it's been a lot of work, but when you're working for something that you really love, it's worth it. I mean, it's fun. So I'm feeling good.

Have you seen any fan theories about any of the songs come up at all, and were any of them accurate?

That's a good question. I can't think of something off the top of my brain like that. I don't know, I feel like mostly they're just getting it. But you ask me whatever you want, and I will answer to the best of my comfort zone (laughs).

How did all of the personal tragedies that the band went through, and all of the events that have been happening in the world impact this album?

Those two things are literally the biggest lyrical catalyst for this time and for this album, particularly the grief. That's what started the whole thing. We started writing this album, focused on it, in 2019, at the beginning of the year. And I'm so glad we did, we had a bunch of writing sessions throughout 2019 in between touring, we'd just get together when we could and write. I was writing on my own, but just setting aside time as a band to write.

I lost my brother in 2018 at the beginning of the year, so that was just a really, impossibly hard life change. So I think I've learned, yet again, that the biggest challenges and the biggest pains in my life are usually what lead me to music, and it's hard to admit this, but what tend to make the best work for me. Not just grief, but challenges — things that are hard.

And the whole world has been going through incredible challenges over the last year, the last couple of years actually with everything going on, the pandemic and the fight for democracy in the world. All of that came at the right time, where I was coming out of grief. I'm still living in it, but processing it, and then this fire and this fight became a part of it. So the journey through all of that, that is the majority of what the album's about.

You kind of hit the nail on the head there because I was going to ask if you think that the best art seems like it comes out of a place of sadness and pain, since it is so cathartic for artists. And as you've called it — it's "writing to heal." So do you find yourself gravitating toward music that is more emotional?

You know, I don't even know if I can say it's "the best," but it's the deepest. It's the most meaningful. You have to go through something to have something to say that is going to touch somebody on a deep level. And for me personally, music has always been my therapy, my catharsis, the place to pour it out and spin it into something good that I can love and reflect on.

Instead of running away from all of the hard things in life, if I dive into them through music and really start pouring it out and processing there, it's like you're able to make it worth something. It wasn't just all a waste, because I have seen, over the last 17 years, with interacting with our fans how much that it can mean to them and help them connect and process and be something good in their lives.

Knowing that now, too, was something that pushed me forward in the times when I felt like it was too hard. Knowing that we were all going through something and our fans were down too and hoping for something, we promised we were gonna come out with a new album in 2020. We just all kind of made a pact at the beginning of the year when everything started getting shut down that we weren't gonna let anything stop us.

So how was your experience writing this album versus others in the past, and how do you think you've grown as a songwriter and a musician this time around?

We had to be brave. And you know, I have to say, it's weird to connect it to this, but Synthesis taught us something about being brave and trusting that something would work that we'd never tried before and just going for it.

I have always been the person who over prepares, practices for way too long before we get together, has everything totally run through when we're gonna play a concert that we've done before a lot of times. And I have broken from that routine so much in the past years.

Synthesis was important for us because we had to trust every day, the only way to do it was to work with a different orchestra every night. Having a different group of musicians onstage every single night was the only way to make that happen. You don't have time to have rehearsed the whole entire set with that group that day, and then play that whole concert that night, it's just not possible.

So we were literally playing the majority of our sets on that tour for the very first time with that group of musicians — without a click and everything else — just live in front of the audience. It was literally like a tightrope, like there's no way to know if something's gonna go horribly wrong, and we just had to trust that we were gonna be good enough musicians and performers to handle it and look at each other, and work through it and get to the next place.

Man, it was so satisfying, it was such a good experience, and it was so beautiful and rewarding. Part of the takeaway from that for me was to be confident and not to be afraid, and just to trust that we've got it in us to do what it is that we think we can do, that we dream of.

This year, going into it, we just started breaking rules. Before the pandemic even hit it was like, 'We don't have the whole album written. We just have a few songs and a whole bunch of pieces. We're not going on tour 'til March." That actually didn't happen, but we weren't planning to go on tour until last March (laughs).

Why don't we hit the studio for just a couple of songs and avoid burn out of having to have all of the songs before we go in, "Let's just go in for a couple of songs." It went really well, it turned into four and then we had to be apart for the rest of the album.

It was another one of those moments where it's like, "Okay, we can either have faith and just say 'Fuck it, I don't know what's gonna happen with the pandemic or when we're ever gonna be able to go back and get together again in person. But I have faith that we're gonna find a way to work it out no matter what. So let's go ahead and start putting singles out.'"

It was either that or just wait and go, "Sorry everybody, I know we said we were gonna release music, but we're not going to." I didn't want to be another disappointment. There was so much of it last year, I wanted to be something that was proof that life could go on.

So the decision was just like, "Okay, we're gonna go ahead. We're gonna put out 'Wasted On You' and make a video from home, and then release another one in a couple of months." And it wasn't just about not knowing when we were gonna get back together, it was that the songs weren't written, and for me, that's terrifying. Like, before the songs are written, we're already on a promo schedule and talking about the album, releasing songs already and like, the clock is ticking in a way.

That was a lot of pressure to put on ourselves, but it really was just like, "We're just gonna have to have faith in this. I know we can do it somehow. We always do. In the end it works out, it's gonna work out!" And thank god it did, we finally got to get together, most of us, last end-of-July. Jen [Majura, guitarist], we still haven't seen since those first four songs right before the pandemic lockdown.

That's wild. I mean, it's out now, and it seems like it came just at the turning point in all of this with the vaccine and everything. Everybody's starting to get back on their feet.

Yeah, I think it's working out honestly. Because now, it's just come out and we can at least see the light at the end of the tunnel. Like you said, with the vaccines and stuff and getting back and eventually going on tour. Because the next thing that we're all just looking towards and dying for, is to play these songs live.

Absolutely. How do you think that these songs might translate live differently from anything you guys have done in the past?

It's just going to feel really good to have new material to play live, like so much of it. Because for so long, we've been playing shows a lot over the past, I don't know how many years, during this time that we haven't been putting out new music. So our live show has really just been about picking out hits and our favorites and whatever, and making set lists out of our music that's been there.

We finally have something that represents us now that isn't, there were a couple of songs on Synthesis, but literally since like 2011. We're a new band since then, a lot happened since then. So to put something out now that feels so exactly in tune with who we are, what our tastes are, what our abilities are, is just gonna feel really good. It's gonna be hard to play the old ones, honestly.

So let's dive into the album a little bit. Starting with the opener, I'm not sure if there's an actual significance to this or not, but is there a reason "Artifact" and "The Turn" are split into different parts?

They're different songs in my head, it was kind of a decision about the first bit, the second bit and "Broken Pieces Shine," like where the track markers were gonna go. And that was a tough choice for me because I know the majority of people aren't really listening in order on a CD, a lot of people are just plucking out a song.

So I want you to be able to click to "Broken Pieces Shine" and just hear the song, but it so needs that build-up, that's part of it in my mind. So it really was just a decision about clipping it.

The first part — "Artifact" — that's me in a hotel in the middle of the night on tour in 2019, just recording into my laptop. I just had an idea. We actually kept it and didn't re-record it, which was really weird, and I didn't expect to happen. But it just made sense in the end.

That next portion — "The Turn" — that's a collaboration between Scott Kirkland from the Crystal Method and myself. We just sorta met on tour one day and made friends, and decided, "Hey, send me stuff! I'd love to work with you, okay I'd love to work with you." And he sent me a bunch of stuff, and I sent him stuff. He had that bit of music sort of, and I rearranged it and wrote vocals to it and that turned into that part.

I knew early on that I wanted that into "Broken Pieces Shine" to be the beginning of the album because of the way the lyrics set it up. The first part, "Artifact," lyrically is just a dedication to my brother. I'm just gonna put it that simply — it's a dedication to my brother.

And then when "The Turn" starts, it's sort of just like this calling-us-back, like calling all of the spiritual forces in the universe back to ourselves and collecting all the pieces of who we've been, who we were, who we are and who we're gonna be.

After all this time that we haven't been out, it's like we need to just build into the moment where you finally hear the guitars come in. So that's part of it.

And then when "Broken Pieces Shine" happens... I've always sort of seen this album, the moment, like where it begins and what it's about, is it begins sort of at ground zero of a tragedy. The result of the album is about the journey getting back up.

So when I hear those guitars, and the first line starts, "There's no way back this time / What is real and what is mine / Survival hurts," it's like I see somebody face-down on the ground standing back up again and dusting off, clawing back up and then starting to walk forward and refuse to just lay there and die.

So that's the setup to the beginning of the album, and then the rest is plenty of ups-and-downs, and it's about plenty of things. But that's the beginning of the journey.

"The bitter truth" is a line that's repeated a couple of times throughout "Wasted on You." How did you go about choosing that as the title for the album, as opposed to any other phrase that's repeated throughout the album?

I think it really sums up a theme that we come back to a lot on the album, which is about facing the pain. The only way out is through, not just the pain, but facing the broken pieces, facing the things about ourselves and about our society that aren't perfect, that are flawed, that are broken or that are wounded.

Because we can't heal, we can't improve, we can't change, we can't grow and we can't ever leave the horror of the moment until we first accept the brokenness of ourselves. Until we accept that something's wrong, we can't fix it.

That song, "Wasted on You," that was one of the first ones that was really finished, and it was time to pick the album title and we were still writing songs. But it was already forming and I was like, "This sums up what we're talking about now and what we're going through in a really big way on an outward-in, inward level."

Based on the lyrics in "Wasted on You," do you consider yourself someone who has a hard time getting over things and moving on from things? What advice can you give to people who do struggle to move on from either failed relationships or a loss?

It's hard, because sometimes you're in a relationship that you just need to cut out of your life in order to move on. It's just true. It doesn't make you a bad person for you to just step completely away and cut somebody out of your life, and there are times I've had to do that. It sucks.

But you don't need to feel guilty about it if you're making a choice that's for health and stability and all of those things. But I think that we don't always have to do it that way either, and I do also think it's important to remember it's important not to just stuff stuff down like it never happened deep within yourself. I feel like it's better to hold onto your memories.

And even in those bad relationships, those bad breakups and those moments in time that you've had to move on from, I'm at a place in my life now where I'm not feeling anger anymore really. Not for the most part, even the people that were horrible (laughs). I'm not sitting around thinking about horrible, I wasn't able to actually still remember the good moments, too.

It's weird to say that. It took a really long time. But you only get one life. So I don't know, I try not to be the person who's constantly saying, "Oh that time was terrible, that person was terrible, everything about that was a monster," and flush it all away and forget about the parts about it that were why you were in that situation, too.

There's things that you need to move away from and then there's also things that you need to learn from, as well, so it's better not to forget, I guess is the right way to say it.

In "Yeah, Right," you talk about getting paid. Is that a literal reference to getting paid by an actual job, or is it in allusion to something deeper?

Uh, it's about money (laughs). I've seen money change people more often than I would've liked to. And it's always in a negative way.

Well I guess maybe this follows suit, does "Better Without You" happen to be about the music industry?

Part of it is, but it's not entirely about that. "Better Without You"... so each verse is dedicated to a different person or entity in my life along the way. And they go in order. I don't want to name-call, and I've carefully avoided doing that with this song and it's hard because they're about really specific things to me.

If you know me personally, then you know who it's all about. I don't really want to drag people into things many years later. So it starts out a long time ago (laughs) in the first verse with some battles there — a big one for independence. All of it was really a fight for independence.

The second one is the one that's more for the industry. And then the third one kind of brings us to today, in our world and the world around us. I sang the last few lyrics to "Better Without You," including the bridge, the day they called it for Biden. Not to make it political, because the song isn't really. But that was in my heart. I mean, "It's over. It's over now." Feeling it. And it felt so good to sing it knowing that it was true, at least in regards to Trump

Wow that's cool, I wouldn't have looked at it like that. There were a couple of songs where I was wondering if it was about a relationship or something on the grander scheme, and you letting go of that.

Yeah, it is. And it's funny because I don't want it to seem like it's all about the label. It's really not. That's been part of my journey, but there is stuff that's been way more personal than that, and harder. But when I say "the industry," it does mean more than the label. It's just the whole world of people that surround you when you're doing this.

And there was definitely more to it than the label that I was fighting against and struggling with during my journey, but one of the things that I remember being a threat at times was like, "If you don't do this or you don't do that, then it's just all gonna fall apart. You're not gonna have it. This is all gonna crumble. Everything that you have."

And I'm looking at it and going, "I don't want what I had. I want my future, I have an idea for something more." So the chorus, "As empires fall to pieces / Our ashes twisting in the air / It makes me smile to know that / I'm better without you," going like, "It's okay, go ahead. Let it burn down. Let the old idea of the tiny thing that you thought this could be go ahead and burn down because I have an idea for something bigger."

Can you explain the chorus of "Blind Belief," specifically the lines, "We hold the key to redemption / Let icons fall?"

This is another one that's a little bit in the political zone, or social. Why do we believe what we believe? Why do we do the things we do? Why are the laws that are in place, some of them aren't there for good reasons. Some things are just the way they are because they've always been that way.

And I think we've reached a time where we need to say, "That's not enough. We need to make changes that make sense for how much our world and our awareness has grown, and how we need to be better." We need to improve over time and not just leave things the way that they are.

I was actually writing those lyrics, being inspired by the Confederate statues coming down. We can still love our ancestors even if they made mistakes, and we can actually love them better, we can actually do better for our world. It doesn't have to be a betrayal if your grandparents thought differently than you.

We can only grow by moving forward and making better and better decisions as the generations go on. And if we want this place to get better, then we need to admit that things are wrong!

Saying "We hold the key to redemption" is saying you don't have to stand by something that's wrong. Go ahead and let icons fall! Just because something is the way it is and it's always been that way doesn't make it right. We should be asking those questions, and sometimes change is good. It's nothing to be afraid of.

To wrap up, of all of the topics that you cover on The Bitter Truth, what are you hoping at the end of the day that people will take away from this album as they sit with it?

I hope they feel empowered, I really do. I didn't go into this writing process feeling empowered, I started to feel that way through the process. It starts from feeling human, feeling vulnerable, feeling fragile and feeling broken.

But as I start to work, especially together with my friends, with people that support me and I support them, having a band is a really cool thing. Just having something to work on together last year and the year before, amidst the pain and the loss and the frustration, just made it so much better. It was such a healing thing for all of us, and I'm hoping that that same healing and empowered feeling can spread to those who listen to it. I really do.

Instead of just wallowing in grief, we found a way through the music to feel strength and inspiration and hope for something better in the future. I think, if there's a punchline, the biggest thing is that life is worth living.

I think that's something that people need to hear right now, because there has been so much to just feel sad about, so much to feel depressed and frustrated about and helpless, without a voice. Like, "It doesn't even matter what you do, I'm just one little drop in the bucket." But it's not true, that's a lie. We are strong, and change is happening.

And the greatest losses that we can imagine, we actually can overcome and there can still be good things left in life to experience, you just don't know what they are yet. If it can be empowering and spread hope to people, that's what I would most hope for.

#Amy Lee #Evanescence #2021 interviews

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tswiftdaily · 5 years ago

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In the 2010s, she went from country superstar to pop titan and broke records with chart-topping albums and blockbuster tours. Now Swift is using her industry clout to fight for artists’ rights and foster the musical community she wished she had coming up.

One evening in late-October, before she performed at a benefit concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Taylor Swift’s dressing room became -- as it often does -- an impromptu summit of music’s biggest names. Swift was there to take part in the American Cancer Society’s annual We Can Survive concert alongside Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Camila Cabello and others, and a few of the artists on the lineup came by to visit.

Eilish, along with her mother and her brother/collaborator, Finneas O’Connell, popped in to say hello -- the first time she and Swift had met. Later, Swift joined the exclusive club of people who have seen Marshmello without his signature helmet when the EDM star and his manager stopped by.

“Two dudes walked in -- I didn’t know which one was him,” recalls Swift a few weeks later, sitting on a lounge chair in the backyard of a private Beverly Hills residence following a photo shoot. Her momentary confusion turned into a pang of envy. “It’s really smart! Because he’s got a life, and he can get a house that doesn’t have to have a paparazzi-proof entrance.” She stops to adjust her gray sweatshirt dress and lets out a clipped laugh.

Swift, who will celebrate her 30th birthday on Dec. 13, has been impossibly famous for nearly half of her lifetime. She was 16 when she released her self-titled debut album in 2006, and 20 when her second album, Fearless, won the Grammy Award for album of the year in 2010, making her the youngest artist to ever receive the honor. As the decade comes to a close, Swift is one of the most accomplished musical acts of all time: 37.3 million albums sold, according to Nielsen Music; 95 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 (including five No. 1s); 23 Billboard Music Awards; 12 Country Music Association Awards; 10 Grammys; and five world tours.

She also finishes the decade in a totally different realm of the music world from where she started. Swift’s crossover from country to pop -- hinted at on 2012’s Red and fully embraced on 2014’s 1989 -- reflected a mainstream era in which genres were blended with little abandon, where artists with roots in country, folk and trap music could join forces without anyone raising eyebrows. (See: Swift’s top 20 hit “End Game,” from 2017’s reputation, which featured Ed Sheeran and Future.)

Swift’s new album, Lover, released in August, is both a warm break from the darkness of reputation -- which was created during a wave of negative press generated by Swift’s public clash with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West -- as well as an amalgam of all her stylistic explorations through the years, from dreamy synth-pop to hushed country. “The skies were opening up in my life,” says Swift of the album, which garnered three Grammy nominations, including song of the year for the title track.

She recorded Lover after the Reputation Stadium Tour broke the record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour late last year. In 2020, Swift will embark on Lover Fest, a run of stadium dates that will feature a hand-picked lineup of artists (as yet unannounced) and allow Swift more time off from the road. “This is a year where I have to be there for my family -- there’s a lot of question marks throughout the next year, so I wanted to make sure that I could go home,” says Swift, likely referencing her mother’s cancer diagnosis, which inspired the Lover heart-wrencher “Soon You’ll Get Better.”

Now, however, Swift finds herself in a different highly publicized dispute. This time it’s with Scott Borchetta, the head of her former label, Big Machine Records, and Scooter Braun, the manager-mogul whose Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group and its master recordings, which include Swift’s six pre-Lover albums, in June. Upon news of the sale, Swift wrote in a Tumblr post that it was her “worst case scenario,” accusing Braun of “bullying” her throughout her career due to his connections with West. She maintains today that she was never given the opportunity to buy her masters outright. (On Tumblr, she wrote that she was offered the chance to “earn” back the masters to one of her albums for each new album she turned in if she re-signed with Big Machine; Borchetta disputed this characterization, saying she had the opportunity to acquire her masters in exchange for re-signing with the label for a “length of time” -- 10 more years, according to screenshots of legal documents posted on the Big Machine website.)

Swift has said that she intends to rerecord her first six albums next year -- starting next November, when she says she’s contractually able to -- in order to regain control of her recordings. But the back-and-forth appears to be nowhere near over: Last month, Swift alleged that Borchetta and Braun were blocking her from performing her past hits at the American Music Awards or using them in an upcoming Netflix documentary -- claims Big Machine characterized as “false information” in a response that did not get into specifics. (Swift ultimately performed the medley she had planned.) In the weeks following this interview, Braun said he was open to “all possibilities” in finding a “resolution,” and Billboard sources say that includes negotiating a sale. Swift remains interested in buying her masters, though the price could be a sticking point, given her rerecording plans, the control she has over the licensing of her music for film and TV, and the market growth since Braun’s acquisition.

However it plays out, the battle over her masters is the latest in a series of moves that has turned Swift into something of an advocate for artists’ rights -- and made her a cause that everyone from Halsey to Elizabeth Warren has rallied behind. From 2014 to 2017, Swift withheld her catalog from Spotify to protest the streaming company’s compensation rates, saying in a 2014 interview, “There should be an inherent value placed on art. I didn’t see that happening, perception-wise, when I put my music on Spotify.” In 2015, ahead of the launch of Apple Music, Swift wrote an open letter criticizing Apple for its plan to not pay royalties during the three-month free trial it was set to offer listeners; the company announced a new policy within 24 hours. Most recently, when she signed a new global deal with Universal Music Group in 2018, Swift (who is now on Republic Records) said one of the conditions of her contract was that UMG share proceeds from any sale of its Spotify equity with its roster of artists -- and make them nonrecoupable against those artists’ earnings.

During a wide-ranging conversation, Billboard’s Woman of the Decade expresses hope that she can help make the lives of creators a little easier in the years to come -- and a belief that her behind-the-scenes strides will be as integral to her legacy as her biggest singles. “New artists and producers and writers need work, and they need to be likable and get booked in sessions, and they can’t make noise -- but if I can, then I’m going to,” promises Swift. This is where being impossibly famous can be a very good thing. “I know that it seems like I’m very loud about this,” she says, “but it’s because someone has to be.”

While watching some of your performances this year -- like Saturday Night Live and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert -- I was struck by how focused you seemed, like there were no distractions getting in the way of what you were trying to say.

That’s a really wonderful way of looking at this phase of my life and my music. I’ve spent a lot of time recalibrating my life to make it feel manageable. Because there were some years there where I felt like I didn’t quite know what exactly to give people and what to hold back, what to share and what to protect. I think a lot of people go through that, especially in the last decade. I broke through pre-social media, and then there was this phase where social media felt fun and casual and quirky and safe. And then it got to the point where everyone has to evaluate their relationship with social media. So I decided that the best thing I have to offer people is my music. I’m not really here to influence their fashion or their social lives. That has bled through into the live part of what I do.

Meanwhile, you’ve found a way to interact with your fans in this very pure way -- on your Tumblr page.

Tumblr is the last place on the internet where I feel like I can still make a joke because it feels small, like a neighborhood rather than an entire continent. We can kid around -- they literally drag me. It’s fun. That’s a real comfort zone for me. And just like anything else, I need breaks from it sometimes. But when I do participate in that space, it’s always in a very inside-joke, friend vibe. Sometimes, when I open Twitter, I get so overwhelmed that I just immediately close it. I haven’t had Twitter on my phone in a while because I don’t like to have too much news. Like, I follow politics, and that’s it. But I don’t like to follow who has broken up with who, or who wore an interesting pair of shoes. There’s only so much bandwidth my brain can really have.

It’s sort of an amalgamation of all of it. People who aren’t active fans of your music, who like one song but love to hear who has been canceled on Twitter. I’ve had several upheavals of somehow not being what I should be. And this happens to women in music way more than men. That’s why I get so many phone calls from new artists out of the blue -- like, “Hey, I’m getting my first wave of bad press, I’m freaking out, can I talk to you?” And the answer is always yes! I’m talking about more than 20 people who have randomly reached out to me. I take it as a compliment because it means that they see what has happened over the course of my career, over and over again.

Did you have someone like that to reach out to?

Not really, because my career has existed in lots of different neighborhoods of music. I had so many mentors in country music. Faith Hill was wonderful. She would reach out to me and invite me over and take me on tour, and I knew that I could talk to her. Crossing over to pop is a completely different world. Country music is a real community, and in pop I didn’t see that community as much. Now there is a bit of one between the girls in pop -- we all have each other’s numbers and text each other -- but when I first started out in pop it was very much you versus you versus you. We didn’t have a network, which is weird because we can help each other through these moments when you just feel completely isolated.

Do you feel like those barriers are actively being broken down now?

God, I hope so. I also hope people can call it out, [like] if you see a Grammy prediction article, and it’s just two women’s faces next to each other and feels a bit gratuitous. No one’s going to start out being perfectly educated on the intricacies of gender politics. The key is that people are trying to learn, and that’s great. No one’s going to get it perfect, but, God, please try.

At this point, who is your sounding board, creatively and professionally?

From a creative standpoint, I’ve been writing alone a lot more. I’m good with being alone, with thinking alone. When I come up with a marketing idea for the Lover tour, the album launch, the merch, I’ll go right to my management company that I’ve put together. I think a team is the best way to be managed. Just from my experience, I don’t think that this overarching, one-person-handles-my-career thing was ever going to work for me. Because that person ends up kind of being me who comes up with most of the ideas, and then I have an amazing team that facilitates those ideas.

The behind-the-scenes work is different for every phase of my career that I’m in. Putting together the festival shows that we’re doing for Lover is completely different than putting together the Reputation Stadium Tour. Putting together the reputation launch was so different than putting together the 1989 launch. So we really do attack things case by case, where the creative first informs everything else.

You’ve spoken before about how meaningful the reputation tour’s success was. What did it represent?

That tour was something that I wanted to immortalize in the Netflix special that we did because the album was a story, but it almost was like a story that wasn’t fully realized until you saw it live. It was so cool to hear people leaving the show being like, “I understand it now. I fully get it now.” There are a lot of red herrings and bait-and-switches in the choices that I’ll make with albums, because I want people to go and explore the body of work. You can never express how you feel over the course of an album in a single, so why try?

That seems especially true of your last three albums or so.

“Shake It Off” is nothing like the rest of 1989. It’s almost like I feel so much pressure with a first single that I don’t want the first single to be something that makes you feel like you’ve figured out what I’ve made on the rest of the project. I still truly believe in albums, whatever form you consume them in -- if you want to stream them or buy them or listen to them on vinyl. And I don’t think that makes me a staunch purist. I think that that is a strong feeling throughout the music industry. We’re running really fast toward a singles industry, but you got to believe in something. I still believe that albums are important.

The music industry has become increasingly global during the past decade. Is reaching new markets something you think about?

Yeah, and I’m always trying to learn. I’m learning from everyone. I’m learning when I go see Bruce Springsteen or Madonna do a theater show. And I’m learning from new artists who are coming out right now, just seeing what they’re doing and thinking, “That’s really cool.” You need to keep your influences broad and wide-ranging, and my favorite people who make music have always done that. I got to work with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Cats movie, and Andrew will walk through the door and be like, “I’ve just seen this amazing thing on TikTok!” And I’m like, “You are it! You are it!” Because you cannot look at what quote-unquote “the kids are doing” and roll your eyes. You have to learn.

Have you explored TikTok at all?

I only see them when they’re posted to Tumblr, but I love them! I think that they’re hilarious and amazing. Andrew says that they’ve made musicals cool again, because there’s a huge musical facet to TikTok. [He’s] like, “Any way we can do that is good.”

How do you see your involvement in the business side of your career progressing in the next decade? You seem like someone who could eventually start a label or be more hands-on with signing artists.

I do think about it every once in a while, but if I was going to do it, I would need to do it with all of my energy. I know how important that is, when you’ve got someone else’s career in your hands, and I know how it feels when someone isn’t generous.

You’ve served as an ambassador of sorts for artists, especially recently -- staring down streaming services over payouts, increasing public awareness about the terms of record deals.

We have a long way to go. I think that we’re working off of an antiquated contractual system. We’re galloping toward a new industry but not thinking about recalibrating financial structures and compensation rates, taking care of producers and writers.

We need to think about how we handle master recordings, because this isn’t it. When I stood up and talked about this, I saw a lot of fans saying, “Wait, the creators of this work do not own their work, ever?” I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity, and I just don’t want that to happen to another artist if I can help it. I want to at least raise my hand and say, “This is something that an artist should be able to earn back over the course of their deal -- not as a renegotiation ploy -- and something that artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.” God, I would have paid so much for them! Anything to own my work that was an actual sale option, but it wasn’t given to me.

Thankfully, there’s power in writing your music. Every week, we get a dozen synch requests to use “Shake It Off” in some advertisement or “Blank Space” in some movie trailer, and we say no to every single one of them. And the reason I’m rerecording my music next year is because I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it.

Do you know how long that rerecording process will take?

I don’t know! But it’s going to be fun, because it’ll feel like regaining a freedom and taking back what’s mine. When I created [these songs], I didn’t know what they would grow up to be. Going back in and knowing that it meant something to people is actually a really beautiful way to celebrate what the fans have done for my music.

Ten years ago, on the brink of the 2010s, you were about to turn 20. What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time?

Oh, God -- I wouldn’t give myself any advice. I would have done everything exactly the same way. Because even the really tough things I’ve gone through taught me things that I never would have learned any other way. I really appreciate my experience, the ups and downs. And maybe that seems ridiculously Zen, but … I’ve got my friends, who like me for the right reasons. I’ve got my family. I’ve got my boyfriend. I’ve got my fans. I’ve got my cats.

#taylor swift #interview #billboard #women in music #woman of the decade

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path-of-my-childhood · 5 years ago

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Billboard Woman of the Decade Taylor Swift: 'I Do Want My Music to Live On'

By: Jason Lipshutz for Billboard Magazine Date: December 14th issue

One evening in late October, before she performed at a benefit concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Taylor Swift’s dressing room became - as it often does - an impromptu summit of music’s biggest names. Swift was there to take part in the American Cancer Society’s annual We Can Survive concert alongside Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Camila Cabello and others, and a few of the artists on the lineup came by to visit.

Eilish, along with her mother and her brother/collaborator, Finneas O’Connell, popped in to say hello - the first time she and Swift had met. Later, Swift joined the exclusive club of people who have seen Marshmello without his signature helmet when the EDM star and his manager stopped by.

“Two dudes walked in - I didn’t know which one was him,” recalls Swift a few weeks later, sitting on a lounge chair in the backyard of a private Beverly Hills residence following a photo shoot. Her momentary confusion turned into a pang of envy. “It’s really smart! Because he’s got a life, and he can get a house that doesn’t have to have a paparazzi-proof entrance.” She stops to adjust her gray sweatshirt dress and lets out a clipped laugh.

She also finishes the decade in a totally different realm of the music world from where she started. Swift’s crossover from country to pop - hinted at on 2012’s Red and fully embraced on 2014’s 1989 - reflected a mainstream era in which genres were blended with little abandon, where artists with roots in country, folk and trap music could join forces without anyone raising eyebrows. (See: Swift’s top 20 hit “End Game,” from 2017’s reputation, which featured Ed Sheeran and Future.)

Swift’s new album, Lover, released in August, is both a warm break from the darkness of reputation - which was created during a wave of negative press generated by Swift’s public clash with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West - as well as an amalgam of all her stylistic explorations through the years, from dreamy synth-pop to hushed country. “The skies were opening up in my life,” says Swift of the album, which garnered three Grammy nominations, including song of the year for the title track.

She recorded Lover after the Reputation Stadium Tour broke the record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour late last year. In 2020, Swift will embark on Lover Fest, a run of stadium dates that will feature a hand-picked lineup of artists (as yet unannounced) and allow Swift more time off from the road. “This is a year where I have to be there for my family - there’s a lot of question marks throughout the next year, so I wanted to make sure that I could go home,” says Swift, likely referencing her mother’s cancer diagnosis, which inspired the Lover heart-wrencher “Soon You’ll Get Better.”

Now, however, Swift finds herself in a different highly publicized dispute. This time it’s with Scott Borchetta, the head of her former label, Big Machine Records, and Scooter Braun, the manager-mogul whose Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group and its master recordings, which include Swift’s six pre-Lover albums, in June. Upon news of the sale, Swift wrote in a Tumblr post that it was her “worst case scenario,” accusing Braun of “bullying” her throughout her career due to his connections with West. She maintains today that she was never given the opportunity to buy her masters outright. (On Tumblr, she wrote that she was offered the chance to “earn” back the masters to one of her albums for each new album she turned in if she re-signed with Big Machine; Borchetta disputed this characterization, saying she had the opportunity to acquire her masters in exchange for re-signing with the label for a “length of time” - 10 more years, according to screenshots of legal documents posted on the Big Machine website.)

Swift has said that she intends to rerecord her first six albums next year, starting next November, when she says she’s contractually able to - in order to regain control of her recordings. But the back-and-forth appears to be nowhere near over: Last month, Swift alleged that Borchetta and Braun were blocking her from performing her past hits at the American Music Awards or using them in an upcoming Netflix documentary - claims Big Machine characterized as “false information” in a response that did not get into specifics. (Swift ultimately performed the medley she had planned.) In the weeks following this interview, Braun said he was open to “all possibilities” in finding a “resolution,” and Billboard sources say that includes negotiating a sale. Swift remains interested in buying her masters, though the price could be a sticking point, given her rerecording plans, the control she has over the licensing of her music for film and TV, and the market growth since Braun’s acquisition.

However it plays out, the battle over her masters is the latest in a series of moves that has turned Swift into something of an advocate for artists’ rights, and made her a cause that everyone from Halsey to Elizabeth Warren has rallied behind. From 2014 to 2017, Swift withheld her catalog from Spotify to protest the streaming company’s compensation rates, saying in a 2014 interview, “There should be an inherent value placed on art. I didn’t see that happening, perception-wise, when I put my music on Spotify.” In 2015, ahead of the launch of Apple Music, Swift wrote an open letter criticizing Apple for its plan to not pay royalties during the three-month free trial it was set to offer listeners; the company announced a new policy within 24 hours. Most recently, when she signed a new global deal with Universal Music Group in 2018, Swift (who is now on Republic Records) said one of the conditions of her contract was that UMG share proceeds from any sale of its Spotify equity with its roster of artists - and make them non-recoupable against those artists’ earnings.

During a wide-ranging conversation, Billboard’s Woman of the Decade expresses hope that she can help make the lives of creators a little easier in the years to come - and a belief that her behind-the-scenes strides will be as integral to her legacy as her biggest singles. “New artists and producers and writers need work, and they need to be likable and get booked in sessions, and they can’t make noise - but if I can, then I’m going to,” promises Swift. This is where being impossibly famous can be a very good thing. “I know that it seems like I’m very loud about this,” she says, “but it’s because someone has to be.”

While watching some of your performances this year - like SNL and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert - I was struck by how focused you seemed, like there were no distractions getting in the way of what you were trying to say. That’s a really wonderful way of looking at this phase of my life and my music. I’ve spent a lot of time re-calibrating my life to make it feel manageable. Because there were some years there where I felt like I didn’t quite know what exactly to give people and what to hold back, what to share and what to protect. I think a lot of people go through that, especially in the last decade. I broke through pre-social media, and then there was this phase where social media felt fun and casual and quirky and safe. And then it got to the point where everyone has to evaluate their relationship with social media. So I decided that the best thing I have to offer people is my music. I’m not really here to influence their fashion or their social lives. That has bled through into the live part of what I do.

Meanwhile, you’ve found a way to interact with your fans in this very pure way - on your Tumblr page. Tumblr is the last place on the internet where I feel like I can still make a joke because it feels small, like a neighborhood rather than an entire continent. We can kid around - they literally drag me. It’s fun. That’s a real comfort zone for me. And just like anything else, I need breaks from it sometimes. But when I do participate in that space, it’s always in a very inside-joke, friend vibe. Sometimes, when I open Twitter, I get so overwhelmed that I just immediately close it. I haven’t had Twitter on my phone in a while because I don’t like to have too much news. Like, I follow politics, and that’s it. But I don’t like to follow who has broken up with who, or who wore an interesting pair of shoes. There’s only so much bandwidth my brain can really have.

You’ve spoken in recent interviews about the general expectations you’ve faced, using phrases like “They’ve wanted to see this” and “They hated me for this.” Who is “they”? Is it social media or disparaging think pieces or... It’s sort of an amalgamation of all of it. People who aren’t active fans of your music, who like one song but love to hear who has been canceled on Twitter. I’ve had several upheavals of somehow not being what I should be. And this happens to women in music way more than men. That’s why I get so many phone calls from new artists out of the blue - like, “Hey, I’m getting my first wave of bad press, I’m freaking out, can I talk to you?” And the answer is always yes! I’m talking about more than 20 people who have randomly reached out to me. I take it as a compliment because it means that they see what has happened over the course of my career, over and over again.

Did you have someone like that to reach out to? Not really, because my career has existed in lots of different neighborhoods of music. I had so many mentors in country music. Faith Hill was wonderful. She would reach out to me and invite me over and take me on tour, and I knew that I could talk to her. Crossing over to pop is a completely different world. Country music is a real community, and in pop I didn’t see that community as much. Now there is a bit of one between the girls in pop - we all have each other’s numbers and text each other - but when I first started out in pop it was very much you versus you versus you. We didn’t have a network, which is weird because we can help each other through these moments when you just feel completely isolated.

Do you feel like those barriers are actively being broken down now? God, I hope so. I also hope people can call it out, [like] if you see a Grammy prediction article, and it’s just two women’s faces next to each other and feels a bit gratuitous. No one’s going to start out being perfectly educated on the intricacies of gender politics. The key is that people are trying to learn, and that’s great. No one’s going to get it perfect, but, God, please try.

At this point, who is your sounding board, creatively and professionally From a creative standpoint, I’ve been writing alone a lot more. I’m good with being alone, with thinking alone. When I come up with a marketing idea for the Lover tour, the album launch, the merch, I’ll go right to my management company that I’ve put together. I think a team is the best way to be managed. Just from my experience, I don’t think that this overarching, one-person-handles-my-career thing was ever going to work for me. Because that person ends up kind of being me who comes up with most of the ideas, and then I have an amazing team that facilitates those ideas. The behind-the-scenes work is different for every phase of my career that I’m in. Putting together the festival shows that we’re doing for Lover is completely different than putting together the Reputation Stadium Tour. Putting together the reputation launch was so different than putting together the 1989 launch. So we really do attack things case by case, where the creative first informs everything else.

You’ve spoken before about how meaningful the reputation tour’s success was. What did it represent? That tour was something that I wanted to immortalize in the Netflix special that we did because the album was a story, but it almost was like a story that wasn’t fully realized until you saw it live. It was so cool to hear people leaving the show being like, “I understand it now. I fully get it now.” There are a lot of red herrings and bait-and-switches in the choices that I’ll make with albums, because I want people to go and explore the body of work. You can never express how you feel over the course of an album in a single, so why try?

That seems especially true of your last three albums or so. “Shake It Off” is nothing like the rest of 1989. It’s almost like I feel so much pressure with a first single that I don’t want the first single to be something that makes you feel like you’ve figured out what I’ve made on the rest of the project. I still truly believe in albums, whatever form you consume them in - if you want to stream them or buy them or listen to them on vinyl. And I don’t think that makes me a staunch purist. I think that that is a strong feeling throughout the music industry. We’re running really fast toward a singles industry, but you got to believe in something. I still believe that albums are important.

The music industry has become increasingly global during the past decade. Is reaching new markets something you think about? Yeah, and I’m always trying to learn. I’m learning from everyone. I’m learning when I go see Bruce Springsteen or Madonna do a theater show. And I’m learning from new artists who are coming out right now, just seeing what they’re doing and thinking, “That’s really cool.” You need to keep your influences broad and wide-ranging, and my favorite people who make music have always done that. I got to work with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Cats movie, and Andrew will walk through the door and be like, “I’ve just seen this amazing thing on TikTok!” And I’m like, “You are it! You are it!” Because you cannot look at what quote-unquote “the kids are doing” and roll your eyes. You have to learn.

Have you explored TikTok at all? I only see them when they’re posted to Tumblr, but I love them! I think that they’re hilarious and amazing. Andrew says that they’ve made musicals cool again, because there’s a huge musical facet to TikTok. [He’s] like, “Any way we can do that is good.”

How do you see your involvement in the business side of your career progressing in the next decade? You seem like someone who could eventually start a label or be more hands-on with signing artists. I do think about it every once in a while, but if I was going to do it, I would need to do it with all of my energy. I know how important that is, when you’ve got someone else’s career in your hands, and I know how it feels when someone isn’t generous.

You’ve served as an ambassador of sorts for artists, especially recently - staring down streaming services over payouts, increasing public awareness about the terms of record deals. We have a long way to go. I think that we’re working off of an antiquated contractual system. We’re galloping toward a new industry but not thinking about re-calibrating financial structures and compensation rates, taking care of producers and writers. We need to think about how we handle master recordings, because this isn’t it. When I stood up and talked about this, I saw a lot of fans saying, “Wait, the creators of this work do not own their work, ever?” I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity, and I just don’t want that to happen to another artist if I can help it. I want to at least raise my hand and say, “This is something that an artist should be able to earn back over the course of their deal - not as a renegotiation ploy - and something that artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.” God, I would have paid so much for them! Anything to own my work that was an actual sale option, but it wasn’t given to me. Thankfully, there’s power in writing your music. Every week, we get a dozen synch requests to use “Shake It Off” in some advertisement or “Blank Space” in some movie trailer, and we say no to every single one of them. And the reason I’m rerecording my music next year is because I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it.

Do you know how long that rerecording process will take? I don’t know! But it’s going to be fun, because it’ll feel like regaining a freedom and taking back what’s mine. When I created [these songs], I didn’t know what they would grow up to be. Going back in and knowing that it meant something to people is actually a really beautiful way to celebrate what the fans have done for my music.

Ten years ago, on the brink of the 2010s, you were about to turn 20. What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time? Oh, God - I wouldn’t give myself any advice. I would have done everything exactly the same way. Because even the really tough things I’ve gone through taught me things that I never would have learned any other way. I really appreciate my experience, the ups and downs. And maybe that seems ridiculously Zen, but... I’ve got my friends, who like me for the right reasons. I’ve got my family. I’ve got my boyfriend. I’ve got my fans. I’ve got my cats.

Taylor Swift Discusses 'The Man' & 'It's Nice To Have a Friend' In Cover Story Outtakes

Billboard // by Jason Lipshutz // December 12th 2019

During her cover story interview for Billboard’s Women In Music issue, Taylor Swift discussed several aspects of her mega-selling seventh studio album Lover, including its creation after a personal “recalibrating” period, her stripped-down performances of its songs and her plans to showcase the full-length live with her Lover Fest shows next year. In two moments from the extended conversation that did not make the print story, Billboard’s Woman of the Decade also touched upon two of the album’s highlights, which double as a pair of the more interesting songs in her discography: “The Man” and “It’s Nice To Have A Friend.”

“The Man” imagines how Swift’s experience as a person, artist and figure within the music industry would have been different had she been a man, highlighting how much harder women have to work in order to succeed (“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can / Wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man,” she sings in the chorus). The song has become a fan favorite since the release of Lover, and Swift recently opened a career-spanning medley with the song at the 2019 American Music Awards.

When asked about “The Man,” Swift pointed out specific double standards that exist in everyday life and explained why she wanted to turn that frustration into a pop single. Read Swift’s full thoughts on “The Man” below:

“It was a song that I wrote from my personal experience, but also from a general experience that I’ve heard from women in all parts of our industry. And I think that, the more we can talk about it in a song like that, the better off we’ll be in a place to call it out when it’s happening. So many of these things are ingrained in even women, these perceptions, and it’s really about re-training your own brain to be less critical of women when we are not criticizing men for the same things. So many things that men do, you know, can be phoned-in that cannot be phoned-in for us. We have to really — God, we have to curate and cater everything, but we have to make it look like an accident. Because if we make a mistake, that’s our fault, but if we strategize so that we won’t make a mistake, we’re calculating.

“There is a bit of a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don’t thing happening in music, and that’s why when I can, like, sit and talk and be like ‘Yeah, this sucks for me too,’ that feels good. When I go online and hear the stories of my fans talking about their experience in the working world, or even at school — the more we talk about it, the better off we’ll be. And I wanted to make it catchy for a reason — so that it would get stuck in people’s heads, [so] they would end up with a song about gender inequality stuck in their heads. And for me, that’s a good day.”

Meanwhile, the penultimate song on Lover, “It’s Nice To Have A Friend,” sounds unlike anything in Swift’s catalog thanks to its elliptical structure, lullaby-like tone and incorporation of steel drums and brass. When asked about the song, Swift talked about experimenting with her songwriting, as well as capturing a different angle of the emotional themes at the heart of Lover. Read Swift’s full thoughts on “It’s Nice To Have A Friend” below:

“It was fun to write a song that was just verses, because my whole body and soul wants to make a chorus — every time I sit down to write a song, I’m like, ‘Okay, chorus time, let’s get the chorus done.’ But with that song, it was more of like a poem, and a story and a vibe and a feeling of... I love metaphors that kind of have more than one meaning, and I think I loved the idea that, on an album called Lover, we all want love, we all want to find somebody to see our sights with and hear things with and experience things with.

“But at the end of the day we’ve been searching for that since we were kids! When you had a friend when you were nine years old, and that friend was all you talked about, and you wanted to have sleepovers and you wanted to walk down the street together and sit there drawing pictures together or be silent together, or be talking all night. We’re just looking for that, but endless sparks, as adults.”

Read the full Taylor Swift cover story here, and click here for more info on Billboard’s 2019 Women In Music event, during which Swift will be presented with the first-ever Woman of the Decade award.

[link to this tweet]

Was there ever a part of you that was like, “Oh shit, I like this darker vibe, let’s go even further down that path?” I really Loved Reputation because it felt like a rock opera, or a musical, doing it live. Doing that stadium show was so fun because it was so theatrical and so exciting to perform that, because it’s really cathartic! But I have to follow whatever direction my life is going in emotionally... The skies were opening up in my life. That’s what happened. But in a way that felt like a pink sky, a pink and purple sky, after a storm, and now it looks even more beautiful because it looked so stormy before. And that’s just like, I couldn't stop writing. I’ve never had an album with 18 songs on it before, and a lot of what I do is based on intuition. So, you know, I try not to overthink it. Who knows, there may be another dark album. I plan on doing lots of experimentation over the course of my career. Who knows? But it was a blast, I really loved it.

I mean, look, a Taylor Swift screamo album? I’ll be first in line. I’m so happy to hear that, because I think you might be the only one. Ha! I have a terrible scream. It’s obnoxious.

Why Taylor Swift's Lover Fest Will Be Her Next Big Step

Billboard // by Jason Lipshutz // December 11th 2019 - [Excerpt]

On why she chose to put together Lover fest: “I haven’t really done festivals in years - not since I was a teenager. That’s something that [the fans] don’t expect from me, so that’s why I wanted to do it. I want to challenge myself with new things and at the same time keep giving my fans something to connect to.”

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lokisasylum · 5 years ago

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Map of the Soul: 7 Album - First listen review

[I won’t bother reviewing the ones from PERSONA that were added, since I already did a post for Persona when it came out. Only the new songs]

#1. Interlude: SHADOW

WOW.... just when you thought the first version hit hard/differently. The extended version comes in to choke-slam you against the wall.

#2. Black Swan

Our new Royal to take a spot in the throne of power along with Blood Sweat & Tears, Spring Day, Fake Love, and Outro: TEAR.

Do we even need to add more additional to what we’ve been saying since its release? As an artist, the lyrics still pull at my heart strings the same way they did the first time I heard it. Especially the verse that says:

‘If this can no longer resonate No longer make my heart vibrate Then like this may be how I die my first death But what if that moment’s right now Right now .’

This verse can be applied to ANY time we loose faith in ourselves or have to give up on a dream/passion and how that separation slowly kills us inside.

#3. Filter (Jimin’s solo)

....Not gonna lie, this song gives me TRUST ISSUES just because its Jimin LOL!

‘Cause I remember seeing & hearing Serendipity for the first time and it was such a lovely melody and the lyrics were so soothing like a lullaby expressing Love in its purest form.

But then you see the choreo and it all went Magic Mike SO FAST X”D.

Because on one hand the lyrics (at first glance) can be interpreted as Jimin seeing himself through Army’s eyes. How WE see his “Duality” - cute/adorable/lovely one minute and then sensual/tantalizing the next.

That boring expression of yours, boring feet Please look at me now Put down your phone, don’t even think about turning your head Let me know your type You can choose and use me yeah

Oh I cover your eyes with my hand Oh go towards the secret I’ll take you to a brand new world Yeah open your closed eyes now go!

Mix the colors of the palette, pick your filter Which me do you want? The one who’s going to change your world, I’m your filter Cover it over your heart

(Ok) How is it, do you feel it a bit? Is it still not enough? (Yes) Girl you have your chance I can be your Genie How ’bout Aladdin? I’ll become anything [for you] You can choose and use me yeah

That first part really does sound like how he would accommodating his “Persona” to make us happy. And every-time something he does isn’t enough he changes again.

Of course this doesn’t have to mean what he’s doing in the present, “Filter” could be just like “Lie” which spoke of his past-self and how he used to blame himself for the group’s failures. So maybe he’s expressing how’s he’s had to change himself throughout the years to please the fans as long as they understood and accepted who HE REALLY IS beyond the Idol persona.

Or y’know, this is just a very sexy number he wanted to try and shy away from his comfort zone XD. And I’ll bet all my money that the choreo’s gonna be SEXY AF and WE AIN’T READY FOR IT.

P.S. that moment when the music stops and he goes: “OKAY.” WITH HIS SEXY DEEP AF VOICE, JESUS!!!!

#4. My Time (Jungkook’s solo)

Kook’s solo not only reminded me heavily of “Begin”, but it also sounds like what “Decalcomania” should’ve been if he had released the full version.

He’s seeing himself not as an Idol, but not quite as Jeon Jeongguk either.

Like he’s just standing in the middle watching his two selves, his two Personas and trying to find which one is his. Which reality he is living in--or should be living in. Which part of his life belongs to his “normal/non Idol self” and which one is part of the mask/Idol self he puts up for the fans.

And yes, you know, yes. you know Oh I can’t call ya, I can’t touch ya Oh I can’t Let me know Can I someday find my time? Finna find my time Someday finna find my time

This verse sounds like he’s still experiencing that loneliness that all artists experience during stardom very often (Note on how in Shadow Yoongi is the one who says: “Nobody ever told me how lonely it is up here.” ). Like how he sometimes wishes he could tell someone, but can’t?

#5. Louder than bombs

All rise for our National Anthem!

If Shadow hit hard while choke slamming you. Then this song is the overkill.

The vocals are insane, and the lyrics mixed with the music tell one story through two points of view. Actor in the spotlight and Actor as a Spectator.

This is BTS telling us how people view them and having to keep their emotions in check in the face of criticism from general audience and even antis, versus how they truly feel inside and behind close doors.

Break, unwind, let it out, breathe out, stand up, pray for better days and keep moving.

#6. ON

THIS👏SONG👏FUCKING👏SLAPS👏PERIOD👏!

The energy, the rap line, the vocal line, the CRAZY FOOTWORK AND INSANE CHOREO.

THE JIKOOK NIP-SLIPS

THE BODY ROLLS

THE TATTOOS---

THE SUBTLE “GO FUCK YOURSELF!”

I LOVED IT and it gave me such a strong throwback to NOT TODAY.

#7. UGH!

This is CYPHER_pt3 Killer, CYPHER pt. 4, TEAR & DDAENG’s lovechild.

This song is the Rap Line going like: “THESE MOTHERFUCKERS WANTED TO TRY ME (AGAIN) AND IMMA GIVE THESE BITCHES A CYPHER.

BITCHES LOVE CYPHERS.”

#8. 00.00 (Zero o’ Clock)

When I saw that we were having another Vocal Line unit song the first thing I kept praying for was: “PLEASE don’t let this be another Truth Untold...”

Because I absolutely HATED the hypocrisy that came out of this fandom ESPECIALLY the toxic Solo Stans who did nothing but hype up their faves while shitting on other members (I will never forgive those who went so far as to defame and even act as if Jimin wasn’t part of the Vocal Line, ya’ll are still trash for that).

But I gotta say Zero o’ Clock was totally something I can see them enjoying while performing. Despite, of course, the song talking about hardships and finding a new way to be happy throughout the tough times even when you don’t feel like smiling.

I liked it, the vibes are a bit like “2,3″ and “Magic Shop”. A song for HEALING.

#9. Friends (VMIN sub-unit)

VMIN

SOULMATES FOREVER.

I also LOVED that they added the voice messages Jimin & Tae used to leave each other since their recording schedules were different and they didn’t see each other. That was such a nice touch. T_T

That little “Hello my Alien” .... that made me emotional. I kept imagining those mischievous kids running around playing pranks on the other members, like that one time they made Hobi fall off the chair and got chased by him XD ...*SOBS*

#10. Inner Child (Taehyung’s solo)

All the time I kept listening to this song I kept imagining Taehyung sitting in a park next to his Younger Self, like the way a father sits with their youngest son and talks to them about life. What to expect, what will change and how to go about these changes.

Really heartfelt song.

#11. Moon (Jin’s solo)

Just like Tae’s song, “Moon” makes me thinking of all those moments when Jin kept doing his “Heart Event” where he kept pulling out hearts out of nowhere. Each time more clever than the first, just to show ARMY how much he loves us.

I wonder all of a sudden, do you really know yourself? Do you know how pretty you are? I will orbit you I will stay by your side I will become your light All for you

This part in particular makes me think of Jin up on stage staring at a stadium full of bright little stars that are in reality Army Bombs.

#12. Respect (Namgi Unit-song)

Fave verse from this song is:

“Re-spect”, it’s literally looking again and again Looking again and again and you’ll see faults But despite of that you still want to look

And the fact that you have two members of different ages (Hyung/Donsaeng), in a sort of conversation that goes back and forth between what the real meaning of “RESPECT” is and how people throw the word around, even those who speak ill of others behind their backs.

And were they talking in Satoori in the end??? That was nice XD

#13. We are Bulletproof: the Eternal

Throw stones at me We don’t fear anymore We are we are together bulletproof (Yeah we have you have you) Even if winter comes again Even if I’m blocked off, I will still walk We are we are forever bulletproof (Yeah we got to heaven)

#14. Outro: EGO (Jhope’s Solo)

EGO is Jhope and Jhope is EGO in all it’s glory.

Like “Just Dance” i like the contrast how in EGO he’s doing a back-track to his younger self, how he used to dance to prove something TO OTHERS, where as now that he’s older he just accepts that everything that happened is just part of life. So he’s a happier now doing what he loves BECAUSE he loves to dance.

#15. ON (feat. Sia)

....WHY?

Like... I don’t wanna be THAT BITCH and drag nobody, but like... was this really necessary?

I mean atleast Nicki Minage and Halsey had their own parts that they owned like the bad bitches that they are.

But like...

Yeah, Imma stop right here.

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handsofdarkness · 5 years ago

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Sharon den Adel interview for RTL.de

RTL: You actually come from the fashion sector, right?

Sharon: Yes, at first I did an apprenticeship in fashion management, but of course I also worked a lot on design. I actually wanted to do design, but I thought that management had more career opportunities. I spent a lot of time with clothes as a child. But then my career changed completely (laughs).

How did you get from fashion to music?

Music has always been my first love. And with the band I had the opportunity to make my own music. But you always need a plan B - and plan B was fashion! And now I can combine that too. I partly create my stage outfits myself or let my ideas flow into them. It would be boring if you always looked the same, because new ideas were always needed. And so I can finally connect my two great loved ones!

Let's talk about your current album "Resist" * Does it mean a new chapter of Within Temptation after a five year break?

Yes, the music has changed a lot in my opinion compared to our previous records. In the intervening years I had a phase when I didn't know where the band was going. I also worked on my solo project "My Indigo", which naturally led to new influences. Back then I really had to leave my comfort zone because I had never released a solo album and I learned a lot in that time. It took a lot of me, and so a new sound developed with the band. More up-tempo, a little more groovy, completely new elements were added to our music. This gave the band a new base. With "Resist" everything feels different and new to me.

"Resist" refers to the resistance to completely engulfing the digital world and having its behavior recorded and monitored on the Internet. Where did the inspiration come from?

In the past, we were very often inspired by what had happened in the past. But of course we found that we are now facing new major problems. A lot of things made me very angry, although of course we live here in a comparatively very comfortable world. And then there is this amount of social media and how people interact with each other there. As a result, so much has changed and so much is happening that I disagree with. And so many people were still in sleep mode, they didn't even notice what was happening there. And I was completely in "Resist" mode (laughs). But in the time we worked on the album and released it, many finally woke up.

Which song on the album means a lot to you personally?

"Raise Your Banner" because for me it's a kind of wake-up call. It's time to stop hiding behind the music as a band. I think, first and foremost, we make music and not politics, but you should express your opinion. As a musician, you have so many expressions. If a president can share his views on Twitter, then we can say what we think. In this way you can stimulate other people to think as an artist. I don't mean giving someone an opinion, but food for thought is important.

Do you plan to continue with your solo project "My Indigo"?

At some point I would like to do that, but at the moment we are so filled with Within Temptation - it's always like a roller coaster ride (laughs). Especially now with the upcoming tour with Evanescence. But if I have time again and everything is a bit more relaxed, I would like to continue with "My Indigo", yes.

You have already worked with various other artists - Jacoby Reddix from Papa Roach, Xzibit, Tarja Turunen ... is there anyone else on your wish list?

Oh, the list is endless (laughs). We work with so many great people, and often we write a song and think about who we could add, who would fit. So that depends on the music.

How did the idea of a tour with Evanescence come about?

I don't even know exactly where it originally came from! We met about two years ago. Evanescence played in the Netherlands and invited us. That was great, of course, because we were always compared, and then it was exciting to see who it was, the people behind the band. And after only five minutes we noticed that we definitely have a connection to each other, we understood each other as well as it rarely happens the first time. I hadn't expected that. I think Amy and I have been thinking about doing something together ever since. But I can no longer say exactly who initiated it. Last year we had a gig together in Switzerland and that turned into the tour.

How would you compare the music of Within Temptation and Evanescence?

There are many parallels, but also many differences. We are both from the "heavy" corner, of course, but Evanescence are American and we are European. And I think that's the difference! The way we make music is different. There is the European sound with us and the American sound with Evanescence. But the music is definitely different. I think the parallels are mainly that both bands have a front woman, our styling is often similar, so of course the comparisons come.

What is special about this tour?

For many fans it is definitely great to see two bands they like in one evening in a nice location. It’s not always there, it’s pretty cool! For example, I remember when Metallica were on tour with Megadeth. Many of my friends were absolutely thrilled!

The tour is called "WORLDS COLLIDE". Which two worlds are meant by this?

Two worlds that are similar on one side, but different. Evanescence from the USA, we from the Netherlands ... and both bands have developed differently. But there are many similar feelings in our music, the drama, epic storytelling etc.

Do both bands inspire each other?

Good question - I can't answer that spontaneously! There are so many inspirations for us and I haven't even asked Amy about them. I have to do it! (Laughs)

Are there any differences between fans in different countries? Are German fans different from others?

Yes, there are actually differences, sometimes even within a country, between north and south. Sometimes people find it more difficult to find their way into the music, to go along with it correctly or to drop it. Others are more open. In Spain, for example, the fans go out of their way, they are very extroverted. It's different in the Netherlands. Here people are more relaxed and calm.

What was the strangest thing that happened to you on a tour so far?

I remember when we first played in Germany at the Mera Luna Festival. We didn't know the festival and we didn't have time to look at the audience before our very early performance. We didn't really know that it was a Goth festival and that everyone was dressed and styled really well. I felt totally underdressed! (Laughs)

Is there a place in the world where you absolutely want to play?

I would love to play in Iceland! It's a country I've never been to and it has to be so beautiful

#Sharon den Adel #within temptation #2020 interviews

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hmel78 · 5 years ago

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In conversation with Steve Hackett ...

STEVE HACKETT : FROM “NURSEY CRYME” TO “WOLFLIGHT” - 45 YEARS OF MAKING MUSIC

With a distinguished and well documented career which spans 6 decades , there is probably not much that music lovers don’t already know about Steve Hackett. If, somewhere along the lines, you’ve missed out on the back catalog of his glorious guitar work - there is always time to discover something new ... and you should!

Whilst Steve Hackett is probably best known for his work as guitarist and vocalist with “Genesis” - recording a total of 9 albums with them between 1970 to 1977 - he has also performed and collaborated with numerous incredible musicians; was a key member of ‘Supergroup’ GTR [with Steve Howe] ; and boasts a solo discography that sees Hackett experiment successfully with every musical genre known to man, plus a handful of his own fusions inbetween! With the release of his latest studio album, Steve Hackett is currently enjoying more time in the spotlight, or should we say “Wolflight”? - and deservedly so. According to Hackett himself, “Wolflight” is both “Primal and orchestral” and marks a new, unexplored, chapter in the guitarist's career. “Ever since I got involved in the music business” says Hackett, “I have wanted to make this album, to break the rules ...” Whilst retaining the Hackett trademark of electric guitar running right the way through, the album also encompasses, beautifully, the addition of acoustic guitar, with a bizarre orchestra of instruments from the far reaches of our Earth ( some of which it’s possible you’ve never heard before!) Ten tracks which encourage the listener to “wander between parallel universes, on a journey through space and time, looking at the different faces of the endless fight for freedom”. Helen Robinson embraced a recent opportunity to speak to Steve, and managed to gain a little insight into the man behind this lifetime of amazing recordings. Whether we boldly went where no journalists have ever gone before, remains to be seen - but so far as musicians go, we’re fairly sure that Steve Hackett will continue to travel far beyond the final frontier ... HR - When you first joined ‘Genesis’, it was in advance of the bands 4th album "Nursery Cryme" - compared to the band's previous recordings, your input is immediately clear to the listener. How hard was it for you to join an already established band, and have your ideas included? SH - Very hard indeed! They had their own musical language for various things they had developed since school days and at first I felt an earthling on Mars. I realised I had to learn to speak Martian very quickly and invent some new words too... I realised they needed a harder edge more aggressive aspect. I added some dark colours to their pastels, whilst also embracing their acoustic side with my own ideas for twelve string. With three twelve string players we had the capacity of thirty six strings all chiming away at once. HR - By the time "Selling England by the Pound" was released, ‘Genesis’ had become commercially successful, and You were being recognised as an influence on other musicians with your guitar techniques. Were you aware of that at the time? Did your new musical / celebrity status affect how you continued to progress with playing guitar, or writing songs? SH - I had no idea that I was becoming an influence on players such as Brian May and Eddie Van Halen. We were pleased to learn that John Lennon was listening to “Selling England...” I didn't feel like a celebrity though. I just kept my head down, got on with my gig and continued to work on discovering what was hidden in the corners of the instrument. HR – ‘Genesis’ is clearly a passion that has never left you, and understandably so! ("Genesis Revisited" also landing you an 'Event of the year' award) . Across all of the ‘Genesis’ albums that you were a part of, have you a favourite track, or a favourite memory of recording with them? SH - I was particularly proud of 'Dancing with the Moonlit Knight' because that one single song contained so many contradictory styles, which somehow all worked together beautifully. "Selling England by the Pound" was a great blast for me because I feel we were on the cusp of several planes, including rock, classical and jazz. HR - You've appeared on dozens of significant artists' recordings - which means most to you to have been a part of? HR - I very much enjoyed working with Icelandic band ‘Todmobile’ recently because of the quality and power of their writing and performance. It was great to both record and then play with them along with a choir and orchestra in Iceland. There have been numerous others I've enjoyed too. It's wonderful to be part of a large ocean of talent. HR - And I must ask about supergroup "GTR"! Is that something you look back on fondly, or was it hard to retain a musical identity, and remain diplomatic, when recording as a unit with other successful musicians who are renowned for making music in the same genre? SH - I think the positives outweighed the difficulties. Although as with all groups compromises had to be made, I loved several aspects, such as the song 'When the Heart Rules the Mind' which successfully bridged the gap between progressive rock and accessible pop. It wasn't always an easy road but I do look back on it fondly. HR - Your first solo album, "Voyage of the Acolyte", was recorded whilst you were still with ‘Genesis’. Was it difficult for you to step out of their zone, and into your own, Or was it completely refreshing, to have the freedom to do something which was entirely yours? SH - It felt liberating to bypass band politics, but at the same time to have the full cooperation of the band's rhythm section. Also it was an early example of Phil's ability to carry a complete song as lead singer. Many ideas had been bubbling under for me during the whole period of rehearsing, recording and touring “The Lamb..”, and it was great to pilot my own dingy, which became a flagship for the whole fleet of albums that were to follow. HR - "Bay of Kings" was your first fully instrumental album - what inspired you to record something different, and how do you feel it was received? SH - Although it was an album of almost exclusively acoustic nylon classical guitar pieces, it was immediately accepted by an audience that were ready to try on something new from me. I've always had a lot of respect for the classical guitar, which I liken to an orchestra in miniature. HR - You've experimented with a number of musical genres, but where is your comfort zone musically? SH - I've had this chameleon like approach for as long as I can remember. I feel that rock 'n roll doesn't have to be just basic. It can be multi-faceted. Rock's shoulders ought to be broad enough to carry something of the unfamiliar. I always feel the need to bridge different genres, sometimes forming a new style as a result. It's also lovely to discover how one instrument can morph into another. Let's hear it for psychedelic skiffle! HR - Have there been any albums which you found particularly difficult to record, or which you now find difficult to listen to? SH - No album is easy to record or it wouldn't be worth doing. Sometimes the sculptor hates the stone and has to sweat blood before he is satisfied with the results. I struggle with listening to some of my early efforts because techniques come more easily to me now. HR - There's a whole host of guest musicians throughout your solo recordings - who have you most enjoyed working with? Who would you most like to work with? SH - It was wonderful to work with the late great Richie Havens. He had the most incredible voice, sweet yet with infinite power... A rare combination of velvet and leather. I would love to work with everybody. Another singer I once knew called Dave Thompson also had a lovely voice and I've often thought I would like to do something with him. I enjoyed working with the Royal Philharmonic orchestra for my album "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and it would be great to work with them again. HR – with 45 years of a phenomenal, and successful musical career behind you, along comes your new solo album "Wolflight", which you say yourself is the best thing you've ever done. Please tell us more about it. What is it particularly that you love about the album? SH - I enjoy the cinematic scope of "Wolflight" - the breadth of the instrumentation. The whole thing works like an enlarged orchestra featuring world music instruments, rock instruments and vocals. It's like travelling in a time machine through the ages and around the world at the same time. It's full of complimentary opposites and unlikely pairings such as Australian digeridoo with tar from Azerbaijan or Armenian duduk alongside harp, and oud from Iraq with classical violin and viola... There's a strong sense of the primal and the exotic with a Gothic aspect. The subtext of the album is the long fight for freedom in all it's forms - freedom from slavery, freedom to retain multi-cultural diversity and personal freedom from repressive relationships. The title means the hour before dawn, hour of the wolf hunt. The album begins with a wolf cry and the characters in the title track see the wolf as their totem. The wolf binds all aspects of the album. HR - And for the future - can "Wolflight" be bettered for the next Steve Hackett solo album? SH - I don't know whether I can better this, but I'll always be on the hunt for unlikely and ancient instruments, be a musical archaeologist on Earth, search for life on planet Zog and explore more of those dark crevices and yawning caverns. To boldly go...

#steve hackett #genesis #wolflight #guitar #lespaul

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fmdtaeyongarchive · 6 years ago

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↬ do you love me?

date: early 2019.

location: n/a.

word count: 2,048 words not including lyrics.

summary: n/a.

notes: creative claims verification for do you love me. no, i didn’t proofread or reformat this so i’m sure there’s mistakes aplenty.

“do you love me” comes after “free somebody” has already been sold off to gold star with an unclear future. it also happens to come early in the process of ash feeling the pressure to learn to write sexier music on demand instead of incidentally, so that he can fit into the image bc seems to be pushing him toward for his next album without sacrificing his control in the creative process.

he has no idea that the song will end up on the same album with “free somebody” that summer at the time of writing it. their genres of retro-inspired pop and alternative r&b and the process they go through from beginning to end aren’t close enough for him to consider that thought, but when he finds out a couple of months later, it will feel fitting in some broad, existentialist way ⁠— a way of thinking ash is admittedly highly prone to when it comes to music. the thing is that they’re both a challenge for him in different ways, but “do you love me” is well within his comfort zone and it comes into existence with ash less self-aware of its challenges. “do you love me” wouldn’t sound too off on his last album or among the other music he works on while the song sits unfinished with all of his other endless drafts of songs, but that doesn’t change how much he likes the song once he finishes it. he approaches all of his music with a self-critical eye, of course, but he can acknowledge when he likes something he’s made, even if he still sees all of the flaws he believes a better writer and producer would have improved on.

this time, the song’s concept and themes aren’t something passed down as a commission from bc’s a&r department, but are part of a personal project to better himself. he just wants to make a song he enjoys again and doesn’t doubts so much while making. it’s after the release of his “swim good” bc portal collab with sohee but before the release of “fantasy” and “lust” on candy’s mini-album that ash first creates his file for what will become “do you love me”.

it’s a cold late winter seoul day. the air from outside turns ash’s nose red and as soon as he’s inside the studio and sheds his coat, he curls in on himself in the studio chair. the bc studios aren’t the most comfortable places in the world with the knowledge that none of them are his in any true capacity beyond the hours he occupies them and other producers come in and out during the day, never leaving everything in quite the same place he’d left them even if he’d been there only the night before.

but that’s okay. he tells himself he’ll have a studio of his own soon. he’ll have earned it by then. all he has to do is keep working and he’ll have that studio of his own in a few months. he hopes. if no one in knight fucks up again. but their track record for not fucking up is admittedly not the best, his own in particular, so he never lets himself think on the realisstic odds of that for too long.

ash logs in to the computer and opens up cubase and his numerous files of unfinished and abandoned works. his phone is cradled in his lap as he consults old memos and notes to see if anything sparks inspiration in him today. there’s file after file of forgotten half-lyrics and messy, hummed melodies that had come to him at inconvenient times ⁠— on the van ride to a schedule or right before a meeting with management or on a water break in the middle of dance practice with the rest of the group. many of the clips fall short of pure genius, but he’d read many years ago, when he’d still been a novice in songwriting by most considerations, that he should save every idea he has because it was impossible to tell when one might be the exact snippet he needs. ever since, he’s done so dutifully, his dedication to this particular subset of his craft one of the few things he can confidently say he likes about himself.

there’s a few ideas he taps on through the touch screen and listens to that he mentally notes to come back to, but it’s when he lands on an older clip he remembers recording when his main focus had been on songs for his own album (causing other ideas to be thrown to the wayside until he could spare time for them) that he thinks he’s found something he can really work with. it’s not too long, the digits underneath the voice memo reading about fifteen seconds in total, but upon hearing himself sing the melody and lyrics he’d all but forgotten about, he starts to see and hear ideas for how it can be fleshed out and built upon, a surefire sign that this might be something good. or something promising, at the very least. it wasn’t enough to be good yet, so he shouldn’t get ahead of himself.

“do you love me? are you feeling me?” his own voice sings to him from his phone, the english beginning of the phrase sliding smoothly into the korean of the second half. the next line is vocalizations mixing actual korean words and unintelligible sounds. he clearly hadn’t had the time to come up with the rest of the lines to accompany the melody in his head when he’d recorded the voice memo, and that isn’t anything new. his brain has become more and more wired to being a twenty-four-seven songwriter, but that doesn’t mean perfect lyrics pop into his head to accompany any random melody that runs through it. life would be better if that was the case, but unfortunately, ash had yet to achieve the precision and reliability of a songwriting robot (though, he considers, bc would surely love it if he was so easily programmable to pump out pop perfection). your in korean is the only actual word he can make out in the second line, but the third line is much clearer. it’s an obvious spin off of the first line, even if he can tell he wasn’t sure about the ending at the time: “i’m feeling you,” there’s hesitation in his voice on the recording but ash likes the way the line flows anyway, “my babe.”

eager to get started with the gem he’s found, he moves to transpose the basic melodic line into cubase on the digital piano hooked up to the computer, then pulls out the pop filtered microphone to lay his own vocals over it to work with. he doesn’t get into full recording artist mode because he knows these won’t be the final vocals on the track, but he has a vision already of how the vocals and instrumental will intertwine in a close, intimate way and he doesn’t want to wait until later in the process to start to tie that in. he plays around with what could go in place of the previously unspecified middle line before he settles on something he feels sets the proper mood for the rest of this song. it ties the bookends of the first and third line together more naturally than any of the other ideas he comes up with. he’s decided he wants to turn this into a fully fledged track already and his brain has already switched over all of the concentration he can manage with that in mind.

he spends the rest of that night on the same song without bothering to even pull up any of the others he’s been working on (despite their impending deadlines), expanding the composition on either end of the tiny snippet he’d started with. it fits nicely into the category of the alternative r&b genr, and ash finds himself more sure of where the songs going once he discovers its fleshing out well within his area of past experience. it’s not too different from songs he’d already released like “dive” and “daydream”, and the trap beats underneath fall into place because of that, part conditioned instinct thanks to the fondness he’s grown to have for how accented punctuation can sound under smooth, silky synths and vocals.

it takes a few weeks for his work to form into a real song because he eventually has to focus on other work that has a deadline or that other producers are depending on him to contribute his time to. or, more accurately, tracks which he’s depending on them to let him contribute his time to. any of them could surely finish it on their own, but ash ghosting on them because of some track of his own becoming his white whale obsession wouldn’t be a good look if he wants to keep working with them.

the rest of the lyrics continue to form as the track becomes more full. he isn’t sure of the context of the original lines at first other than being a part of something romantic and tonally sensual, but after the usual trial and error, he settles into crafting a lyrical story befitting of the song. much like he wants the vocals to weave seamlessly with the instrumental, he wants to lyrics to match the atmosphere the song sets. like the music ebbs and flows, so does the tale the lyrics tell ⁠— an intimate push and pull that leads to the repetition of “do you love me?” and “tell me how you feel”. it’s an emotion ash is all too familiar with, the question of reciprocated feelings and the tension of reading into every word and every mood, so it comes easily as he forces himself to recall what it feels like.

he’s been on the side of elation to discover the object of his affections does love him just as he’s been on the side of dejectedness to realize they don’t feel the same. that need to know is what ash keeps in mind. he doesn’t really want to dwell on the latter emotion

it’s late in the process that ash gets the idea for the song to have two vocals, a more prominent voice that’s likely to be female and an accompanying one that’s likely to be male. he’s not married to the genders of them, but the song is too explicitly instrumental for ash to fool himself into thinking that if it ends up in someone’s hands for actual release one day, it’d be made into a same-sex duet in this industry.

ash brings in one of bc’s female producers to help him record the final demo track and he manages to find a buyer in the form of gold star media again. he doesn’t expect to hear from the company about the song so soon, or at all, but when he hears they’re planning to put it on cherry’s debut solo album, he can only hide his excitement for the sake of professionalism. once the real vocals are laid down, he’s put in charge of finalizing the production to be album ready before it’s sent off for final mixing and mastering and he pushes aside his other projects to focus on the track fully again. there’s something about the song that continues to demand his full attention when it’s in front of him, like a favored child.

there isn’t much he changes about the production now that it has artists on it who will be presenting it to the world, but he keeps in mind the intricacies of cherry’s voice and her delivery, uno’s too, and how they differ from his own and the female producers. he’s had some distance from the initial production now, so he alters small parts he’s had more time to think on, but not enough that he’ll be giving a different song back to gold star.

despite his hectic schedules, he puts the finishing touches of what he’s responsible for on the song ahead of schedule instead of pushing the deadline like he usually does, but some way part of the way through, this song had become easy for him. easy, but not boring, and it doesn’t make him any less satisfied with the final product.

#fmdverification #&& queued

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ladyteacups · 6 years ago

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The Boy With the Spider Tattoo

IMAGE NOT MINE

Warnings: Curse words.

Summary: Peter has a crush on Tonys intern Y/N, who is covered in tattoos and has a thing for piercings. Natasha tries to let him down easy by telling him she’s too hardcore for him. Peter, with the intent to impress her, decides to get a tattoo himself.

A/N: For those who don’t know, I’m a total metal head. So I’m very interested in how our boys would react to someone with a tongue piercing. My apologies for not posting in a while but I had to get over my total lack of drive to write.

“Peter, are you sure about that?” Ned was looking at the girl wide eyed. “She’s kinda scary,” he whispered to him. Peter only laughed. “C’mon man, she’s so cool. Look at her tattoos.” Peter raised an arm to gesture to the woman. “And she’s crazy smart. I mean she has an actual internship with Stark.”

Ned nodded as if to say ‘I guess you’re right’.

The woman looked over at the two friends, catching them staring. Her face turned pink and she suddenly fell self-conscious. She was used to it though. People staring. She bit at her lip ring with a nervous wave directed at the friends. Sure she liked Peter. He was a nice guy, kind smile, soft looking hair, thoughtful, great hands- She looked away quickly, realizing she was now the one staring. She fiddled with her chunky skull ring and tried to pay attention to Tony. When she glanced back up, they were gone.

Natasha laughed loudly. “Y/N? Really?” She smacked her hand against the table. “Sweet little Pete,” wheeze, “likes,” wheeze, “punk and all around badass Y/N?” She couldn’t contain the fit of giggles, condemning Peter to the abyss of bashfulness. “Peter, she’s a little hardcore. Do you really think you can handle a girl like that?” She shook her head.

“She’s just like everybody else Nat.”

“No no no no no,” she interrupted. “She gets tattooed for fun, She has doll heads nailed to her bedroom walls, she had a death hawk for a good three years. I once caught her listening to some band called “murder bitches.” Natasha gave Peter a pitiful look. “Pete, you built a lego death star with Ned in high school, while she was in metal shop building cars and an actual sword. I’ve seen it. It’s right next to her battle axe.”

Peter looked a little confused. He didn’t quite understand what Nat was getting at. He couldn’t hangout with Y/N because she liked different things? It didn’t make sense to him.

“Nat, I don’t understand. She’s cool.”

“Peter, a girl like that want’s someone like Matthew Heafy. An all-around badass needs an all-around badass. Someone who will still cuddle up to ear piercings and skull tattoos, without getting scared.”

“I can totally do that!” Peter threw up his hands, he felt at a loss. On one hand he could ignore Natasha and probably get shot down for not being cool enough, and on the other he could just go on living without her.

“Well, what if I get a tattoo?”

Natasha covered her mouth and shook her head. “Peter, you’re the kindest guy I know. I don’t know if I could see you with a tattoo.”

“Well I could do it.” Peter was apprehensive about the idea anyway but Natasha’s teasing was getting to him. Maybe he really would get a tattoo.

“Hey Pete, Natasha.”

“Hey Y/N,” Nat answered quickly.

“Did my ears deceive me, or did I hear you say something about a tattoo?” Y/N raised a brow at Peter, leaning in softly.

He just stood there making that confused face and thinking of what to say.

“Maybe?”

She smiled at him, and noticed Nat now leaving silently. “I think you’d look cool with some tattoo’s Pete.”

Peter loved when she got that kind look in her eyes. He thought it complex and he wanted to spend all day searching them.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she laughed. “Well listen, I’m going to my artist in about two hours. If you wanna come get an idea for what it’s like, you’re more than welcome.”

She saw the hesitation in his eyes and immediately regretted inviting him. Of course he wouldn’t want to go. Who wants to be pressured into getting a tattoo.

“I mean, you don’t have to.” She looked nervous. Her eyes flinted around, avoiding Peter and searching for a place to rest.

“No, no, I… would love to go.”

Peter, what are you doing? If he goes, there’s no way he could back out of getting one himself, without looking like a big child in front of her. He wanted to slap himself for agreeing, but she’s so pretty, and her smile made everything worth it.

“Great! So I’ll see you in two hours yeah?”

Peter just nodded as she smiled, the gleam of the metal through her lip catching his eye. She held his gaze for a second longer before leaving the room.

Once the door closed Peter released a harsh breath.

“Y/N! How are ya baby cakes?” The lady behind the counter greeted her with a warm smile.

“Better now that I’m here,” she sighed in relief. Pete could tell this was her comfort zone as he saw her shoulders eased up.

The woman laughed, telling Y/N she’d go find Lars and be right back.

The two sat on the loveseat positioned by the window. Peter was starting to relax until presumably Lars, called Y/N’s name and escorted them into a back room.

He sat back, playing on his phone and not paying attention to what was going on, until Y/N crossed her arms over her stomach and pulled her shirt over her head. The tattoo’s she reveiled to him were beautiful. They streached with her along her spine and sides, draping snuggly over her back and hips.

Peter wasn’t shy about admiring her until he caught her gaze. “I’m sorry, it’s just,” he gestured to her back piece, “It’s beautiful.”

“Yes, it is. Lars is incredible. Beyond talented. I trust no one else.” She looked smug about it.

The artist gave her a thoughtful look. “Anything for my best girl.”

The way they smiled at each other made him suddenly nervous.

“So how do you two know each other?” Peter twisted his hands together, feeling them clam up a bit.

Lars eyes met Y/N’s and she gave him a smile before she took a seat to display her back. “We go way back man.” He gave Peter a wink and got ready to start on Y/N’s shoulder blades.

It had been three hours and Peter still wasn’t tired of watching her in this intimate moment. He could see her fists clench, her eyes squeeze shut, and her breathe leaving in a controlled rhythm. She was in obvious pain but the way she smiled and spoke, he could also tell she was happiest in this moment. He was watching the way she bit her lip when she spoke to him.

“Peter, come here. Lars says he’s starting in on the white and I need someone to hold my hand.”

He hesitated for a second before moving to kneel next to her, and grip her hand; letting her squeeze as hard as she needed to get through the immense pain. It didn’t last long before Lars announced they were done for the day. She still didn’t release his hand as the artist cleaned up his work, or maybe it was Peter who didn’t let go..

Peter watched the exchange between client and artist loosely. He mostly tuned it out until he saw her kiss his cheek affectionately. That caught his attention. Lars was gone two seconds later.

“So what do you think? Are you ready for one now?”

The smile she sported was encouraging and Pete decided, fuck it.

“Yeah, why not?”

She grinned like a wolf. “So what are you thinking of getting? Lars is taking a break but I’m sure George could take care of you.”

He reached into his pocket to pull out a picture of the spider on his suit, handing it over to her.

“A spider?” She looked surprised, until a wide and wicked grin stretched her lips. “Peter that’s hot.” Normally she would feel embarrassed at having uttered those words, but she was in her happy place. Nothing could touch her.

His cheeks burned up at her words. Hot? No way would anyone use that word with his name and mean it. Nevertheless it was blush inducing.

“Don’t speak too soon.” He leaned in, looked left then right, despite them being completely alone. “I’m too nervous to show my aunt. It’s going on the bottom of my foot.” He sat back and waited.

Y/N looked confused. That’s gonna fade fast Pete, are you sure about that?”

He smiled at her. “Yeah, why not right,” he asked with a nonchalant shrug.

She nodded with a huge smile on her face. She was enjoying this carefree wild side of him, and it was showing.

Peter took advantage of the ‘fuck it’ attitude he now exuded and asked, “so what’s with him?” He nodded to the door where the artist had just exited.

“What? Lars?” Y/N smiled. “He’s my older brothers best friend from childhood. He took care of me on the playground.”

Peter nodded. “And you guys are- together now?”

Y/N licked her lips and smirked. “He’s married, to my older sister actually. He’s my brother in law.”

“Is that so?” His eyes looked hungry. The tension was certainly building and pressing against his self control. He tried to hold it in but looking at her with that sexy smirk he didn’t care about the possible rejection.

“Do you wanna go out sometime? Like a date.”

“Yes.”

“Great.”

“Alright Peter, George is available now if you wanna come with me.”

The pair looked up at the girl from the front desk, then back to each other.

He stood up and smiled at Y/N. He may have been feeling overly confident from her yes, but he couldn’t help it. He winked at her and left with the woman. Y/N’s face heated up and she tugged at the edge of her shirt nervously. This boy was affecting her in a way that was completely new to her, and she was loving it.

Peter was ambushed when he got home. Everybody wanted to know how his “date” went.

“It wasn’t a date” he would say, but he couldn’t get rid of his smile. They weren’t convinced though. It seemed a permanent blush had dyed his cheeks pink. Something was up.

Natasha and Tony pushed him harder. “Tell us or we’ll ask her about your date.”

“No! I just.. It wasn’t an official date or anything.” He held his hands up as if he had nothing to do with the situation. “We just got tattooed is all.” Peter walked quickly to the kitchen to get away from prying teammates and to get some juice.

The Avengers looked at each other.

“They got tattoos, together,” asked Bruce.

“Tattooed,” repeated Sam as if to emphasize the point.

“Oh yeah, something happened.” Wanda looked unsurprised. She of course knew Y/N thought Peter adorable. All though she wanted it to be clear that it was an unintentional snoop.

Natasha followed Peter, and chuckled at him. “I can’t believe you’re gonna actually get this girl.” She shook her head at him exasperated, when the thought came to her. “Oh hey! Let’s see that tattoo then!”

Peter smiled and began to remove his shoe. “Check it out.”

Taglist Angels

@redeyed-winchester @sophiealiice

#spiderman #peter parker #spiderman imagine #peter parker imagine #spiderman x reader #peter parker x reader #marvel imagine

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thebandcampdiaries · 4 years ago

Audio

Introducing VDX: An Artist With A One-Of-A-Kind Take On Music.

February 2021 - VDX is a music producer who stands out for one thing above all: his incredibly kaleidoscopic touch. He is a self-taught musician with a passion for electronics, programming, and microtechnology, which all tie in together, at least to some degree, since he actually uses a computer to simulate instruments and even create some amazing sounds, following his inspiring gift for great melodies and hooks (oh yes, a great melody can be hooky, even without a vocalist!)

I really admire artists who never get stuck in their own lane, and prefer instead to explore a broader set of roads and opportunities to branch out. If you get stuck in your comfort zone, it is easy to achieve greatness and break your flow. However, it is possible to accomplish so much if you are willing to take a chance on yourself, and unleash the free flow of your creativity. This is most definitely the case of VDX. If you head over to the artist’s official page on Soundcloud, you might realize that his sound is actually incredibly diverse and mercurial, with each track exploring something different. As a result, his sound his broadly appealing, enabling listeners of all walks of life to connect with his groundbreaking music and creative vision.

Inspired by forward-thinking pioneers such as Vangelis, VDX wanted to do so much more than just record layers and layers of sound. That’s quite easy to do with multi-tracking, but maybe, there is a more interesting and fulfilling approach to making music. Vangelis knowingly stated he was able to literally perform his compositions in real time with a direct method, and VDX tried a similar approach. His composition “Vulnerable Rebellion” is actually a really good example of what I am talking about. The artist himself reported that he painstakingly performed the piece over and over again, until everything worked to suit his vision and concept. The work really paid off, because this approach enables a bit more of an organic flow of music, which might get lost in a more traditional production environment where everything can be seamlessly overdubbed, edited, quantized and polished without taking a risk. While some composers tend to focus a lot more on sound design, VDX loves to create memorable melodies which make an impact. His track “Voice Of The Mountains” is a really perfect example of this. There is a bit of a folk-inspired twist to this particular composition, which suits the theme of the track.

VDX’s releases might surprise you, because there is something quite special about his way to always set the bar higher. At times, a good way to achieve this is to actually strike up collaborations with other artists. This is exactly what he did on “A Greek In Vienna.” This track is actually composed by Fivos Valachis, while VDX worked on the arrangement and performance. This is yet another different stroke of paint in VDX’s extremely colorful palette, and it is very interesting to see how he works in relation to someone else’s compositional input as well.

All in all, VDX really stands out as a charismatic and passionate producer. He is, without a doubt, somebody who puts a lot of heart in what he does with his music, and any genuine fan of great songs will immediately connect with his sound, because it just so personal and honest. I would not hesitate to recommend this release if you are a fan of film scores and trippy electronic music with a bit of an 80s twist to it. Artists like Vangelis, Goblin or John Carpenter come to mind immediately, as VDX also captures that really unique old-school vibe with his sound.

Find out more about VDX, and dive deeper into the artist’s page on Soundcloud, where he uploaded a huge collection of tracks throughout the year. Get comfortable, put on your favorite speakers and let the sounds of VDX take you on a fantastic musical journey, where anything is possible and there are no boundaries when it comes to creating wonderfully creative and innovative sounds that will instantly make an impact.

https://soundcloud.com/vdxi

We also had the opportunity to ask VDX a few questions: keep reading to learn more!

I love how you manage to render your compositions so personal and organic. Does the melody come first, or do you focus on the rhythmic elements beforehand?

Answer: I actually start with most often with programming a playable “jam-track” which includes drums and a bass line. It’s playable because it dynamically reacts to my chord inputs on the keyboard. After this I’ll usually be doing some sound design to fit the drums and bass. I keep adding elements to my playable jam-track such as guitar rhythms or other background stuff. Then I start to improvise melodies in realtime while “playing” the jam-track with my left hand and pedals. Once something good comes out, I start repeating it over and over until I have a structure I’m happy with.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, did you ever happen to perform your work live? If so, do you feel more comfortable on a stage or within the walls of the recording studio?

Answer: I’ve never done a live show. That would be a dream come true, but I have to prepare a lot, and my setup is… well not really portable at the moment with the scripting and the pedals and all. Sometimes I start making mistakes just because I hit that record button. It’s difficult to imagine the weight of a live audience. I need to work on that.

If you could only pick one song to make a “first impression” on a new listener, which song would you pick and why?

Answer: That’s really difficult, if I know nothing about the listener. Generally, I improve my quality with time, and my latest tracks are also my best crafted tracks. I’d probably say I’d pick “Vulnerable Rebellion” for a totally random person. However, if I knew the person were into evolving ambient music, I’d probably suggest “Meditation”. I consider that to be the most organic, free flowing piece yet. It’s possibly closest to what Vangelis would do.

What does it take to be “innovative” in music?

Answer: I don’t think the best music comes from pure innovation. I strongly believe that a piece of music should have a strong melodic theme. Something to hum, or remember in your own head. In my case, one could consider that the way I play my keyboards is something rather innovative. This is because I’ve developed my own combination of keys to change the chords in realtime with just two fingers of my left hand. I don’t play like a trained piano player. Music teachers won’t forgive or accept me like that…

Any upcoming release or tour your way?

Answer: This will depend on the amount of free time in my life, which is continuously decreasing. I hope to release a new piece of music every few months.

Anywhere online where curious fans can listen to your music and find out more about you?

Answer: Not really. I’m just starting in trying to “promote” my own music. I realize that just putting stuff there isn’t enough. So, for now it’s just the Soundcloud page.

#SoundCloud #music #VDXi ✅#Rock #Electric #VDX #VDXi

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shemakesmusic-uk · 5 years ago

Photo

INTERVIEW: Sea Change.

Norwegian electronic artist Sea Change has announced her new album INSIDE is set for release Nov 15. The first two singles from the record ‘STEPPING OUT’ and ‘FLOWN’ are streaming online now.

2015’s Breakage LP, the debut album from Sea Change, felt drenched in Nordic atmosphere, that somewhat implacable magic found in so much of the region’s music. Veining its way through the record in ways both bold and beautiful, it produced shimmering pop soundscapes that felt full of natural life and adventure. INSIDE, Sea Change’s brand new album, set to be released in November, is an altogether different beast.

Just as the landscape that surrounded her debut album had such a profound effect on the finished piece, so to does it do so here, only this time the environment is significantly altered. Gone are the bright and wide open spaces of its predecessor, swapped for the dark, mysterious, often claustrophobic realms of the city and the underground spaces that offer dark illumination for the abstract fringes of society.

We had a chat with Ellen Sunde all about INSIDE, her struggles in the music industry, dream collaborations and more. Read the interview below.

Hi Ellen! How are you? What have you been up to since your debut album Breakage came out?

“I’ve been traveling, shapeshifting and trying out new things. I lived in L.A for 8-9 months, and then I moved to Berlin. I went through a phase where I was gonna stop doing music, but after a while I came to my senses.” You recently returned with your latest singles 'Stepping Out' and 'Flown'. Where did you draw your inspiration from for these tracks? “‘Stepping Out’ came from a urge to transform into something else. If I could cut myself lose from the human constrains and responsibilities like making a living, or how to deal with other people or the pressure to make good choices, but to just be, follow your instincts like an animal. I was aiming for something hypnotizing and mediative, chopping up my vocals to make that intense rhythm of the track. “‘Flown’ is an urge to break free from the past, letting go of it and walking further into something new. I realised that my identity has so much to do with what I do, who would I be if I stopped doing music? And within that thought it lies something universal, how much we need others and the things around us to define ourselves. It's also a need to break free from other expectations and letting go of the past, keep walking further. I wanted the track to slowly build up and to have a proper release in the end.” 'Stepping Out' and 'Flown' are taken from your upcoming new album INSIDE. What can you tell us about the record? And how does it compare with Breakage? How has your sound evolved? “The record is very personal and intimate. It touches on topics of body, transformation and intimacy, and is definitely inspired by club music and the club scene, which also has a very intimate yet visceral side. The record is filled with ambiguity because I worked very intuitively with it. The sound is a natural evolvement combined with my amazing co-producer that helped me lift the tracks up to their potential. “Breakage was different because many of the songs from that record I played live a couple of years before I started recorded them, which made the tracks evolve over time, for good and bad. In the end I had to rush to get that record done, which made some of the songs on Breakage a little longer and not so album friendly as they could have been. INSIDE is made very intuitively but its also very thought out and I think its bolder and more direct, and that's also the reason it’s quite short. “The first record was almost purely made of soft synths and general MIDI from Ableton Live, which looking back to it is a quite cool dogmatic concept. But at that time I did it because that was what I had. This time I worked with some analog synthesizers and drum machines for the first time which made the creative process a little bit different. “On Breakage I experimented with writing proper radio friendly pop songs. Because I wanted to see if I was able to do that while still keeping my integrity intact. Which was really fun to do. This time around I knew I wanted to to take a left step and try something else. I always wanted this record to be more experimental, bold and personal and it’s me inviting the listener inside this world.” What was your favourite part recording INSIDE? Did you learn anything new during the creative process this time around? “I knew early that I wanted to work with a co-producer for this record, which for me was a way of challenging myself. I’m used to doing most of the production myself. However I really wanted to take this record to the next level, and I needed to go out of my comfort zone and to get a second opinion. And for me it was amazing to work with BAYA/Andrew Murray because he also works very intuitively. In studio he was always trying to push the boundaries, asking questions and searching for something new. It was challenging and pretty intense. One of my favorite parts was to work with him in studio daytime and then walk around in Oslo and listen to the mixes in the weekends. “I also learned that writing from an intellectual point of view does not work for me. I need to work intuitively, thats when I’m able to get to the core of what i need to express. When I overthink or intellectualize over lyrics or themes like I tried in the start, the music sounds forced and dishonest.”

Were there any other songs written during this period that didn’t make it onto the album, and if so, will you revisit them again in the future? “Theres many songs I wrote that was planned to go on this record, but didn’t make the cut. I tried many different things cos I really felt the need to do something different. I had this obsession with Drake for a while and I even made a trap song lol. Didn’t make the cut. I wrote a lot of songs, and made even more sketches. But in the end the songs that made the cut told the story I wanted to say, so I chose to go for a shorter album. I might want to revisit some of the songs, but most likely not, I usually like to make new things for each album and rather perform some of the unreleased songs live.” What do you hope fans will take away from your new music? “I hope they will feel something. Thats the most important thing. I hope they can recognize something of themselves in it and connect to it on a personal level. It’s a personal record and I really think that the more particular you get, the more universal it can be. I hope its a record that can intrigue you so you want to put it on again over and over, cos it brings out something new each time. “I think it’s a record thats easiest to listen to by yourself, alone on the subway or on the bus on your headphones.” What struggles, if any, have you faced as an artist in the music business and how have you overcome them? “I think my struggle is mostly the insecurities in being a musician and a solo artist. I constantly need verbal support or a boost from someone else to not fall into a hole of self doubt and insecurity. The longer you wait to release something, the harder it is. For me it really helps playing shows every now and then to get a little ego boost, and to talk with other artist or musicians that are in the same boat. It can be incredible lonely to be a solo artist, even if you might have a team around your or you travel with bandmates. Releasing music is super vulnerable and scary, and when you do it by yourself its even more scary. So to meet up with likeminded people to talk about these challenges is a life saver and I would recommend it everyone who’s a solo artist.” If there was one thing you could change about the music world today, what would it be?

“I wish there were more female producers and mixers. I see theres more and more women doing production not only for themselves but also for others, but theres still so few! I think the world needs a female perspective from this side, and I would love working with more female producers, and musicians. And I wish that you didn’t have to constantly update your social media to be a functioning musician. Social media is great to use to connect to other artist and your fans, but it can very easily be a stress factor.” Which artists/bands are you listening to right now? Is there anyone you would love to collaborate with? “The last months I’ve been listening a lot to one song of Peder Mannerfelt - ‘Lucid in the Sky’- I’m totally addicted to that song. I'm also a huge fan of Smerz. I love their minimalism, its genius. I listen to Jenny Hvals latest record every day. And I recently discovered Nkisi, Rrose and Joy Orbison whom I listen to a lot. The last weeks I’ve also had a little revisit of Alice Coltrane. I love listening to her on the night bus or the subway on my headphones after a long day.” Finally, what else is next for Sea Change? Any shows to support INSIDE? Any non-musical goals? “I’m gonna have a couple of release shows in Oslo, Berlin and in London, but I can’t give you any more details right now. I also plan to play more shows in the UK. I will go on a small tour in Germany in January. And I hope to do some more DJ-ing. But my main goal is to make a new record cos I really want to release a new one soon.”

Photo credit: Fotini Chora

#interview #sea change #inside #flown #stepping out

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obstacles100 · 8 years ago

Text

Tegan and Sara on being honest with your collaborator

Name

Tegan and Sara Quin

Vocation

Musicians

Fact

Tegan and Sara is the Grammy-nominated Canadian pop duo of twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin. They performed “Everything Is Awesome,” their The Lego Movie collaboration with the Lonely Island, at the 2015 Oscars. Their eighth album, Love You to Death, was released in June 2016.

Photo credit: Pamela Littky

March 2, 2017 - Grammy-nominated pop duo Tegan and Sara Quin discuss how having creative different approaches has kept their band interesting and why you don't need to be your collaborator's cheerleader. As told to Brandon Stosuy, 2864 words.

You have a long-term creative partnership. Is writing music still complicated, or do you have it down?

Tegan: I definitely don’t feel like we have it down. Every record poses new problems or challenges. In my opinion, what’s kept our band interesting is that we definitely approach music, our career, production, all of it, pretty differently from one another. We’re very Yin and Yang. We compliment each other. I do think we push each other, too. We’re not making a Sara record or a Tegan record ever—we’re always making some sort of compromise between where we both want to be.

For instance, Sara keeps saying to me—she’s said it about about three times now in the last six months—she keeps talking about Nashville and writing with country singers. That makes me want to quit our band. So annoying. Not because I don’t think Nashville or country singers are great, I just wish she’d stop projecting. I can feel her projecting. I don’t know if this is true, but I feel like she’s annoyed with pop music or annoyed with what’s happening in the mainstream, so now she’s picking some sort of alternative direction. I just hate that she’s trying to influence me to go in that direction.

First of all, I don’t feel prepared to write a new record now anyway, so why are we even talking about it? Stuff like that will happen, but that’s our process. Then I’ll start playing things. Like the other day I played some rough demos and Sara basically checked her text messages, then never commented about the song.

Sara: That’s not true. That is not true! [laughs]

Tegan: But that’s part of the process between Tegan and Sara. That’s part of what makes our band cool. First of all, neither one of us is ever blowing hot air at the other one, neither one of us is ever saying what they think the other one wants to hear—neither one of us ever goes out of our way to do that. It’s not that we don’t want to compromise, but we don’t start from a place of compromise. We negotiate until we get to a place where we’re both happy. So, we always start by truly projecting what we want. I think we do it in a way that’s mostly conflict free because it’s a safe space. Sara doesn’t have to get the cheerleader pom poms out when I play a new song. She doesn’t need to. I know Sara respects me, I know Sara likes what I do. The process is super interesting. From my perspective it’s the same as it always was, it really hasn’t changed.

Sara: To be fair… When I think about working in a band or collaborating with each other, it’s so much more serious than a hobby. This isn’t a jam band where we get together on the weekend. Tegan’s not my child who I have to coddle and help raise her self-esteem. I mean, we are grown women. We’re 36 years old. At this point, we’ve been very lucky to make ourselves a comfortable and exciting career. We didn’t get there by lying to each other and saying, “Nice song, Tegan. You’ve got some real skills.” I’m just like—either I like it or I don’t. I’m not here to go, “Wow, Tegan. It seems like you really spent a great deal of time on those demos.” [both laugh]

Tegan, you said you’re not necessarily ready to start working on a new record. When you’re in this space, between records, do you do anything to nourish your creative side? Do you have side projects or do other kinds of things? Or is it more like getting caught up on reading books and doing other stuff?

Sara: Kind of all of the above.

Tegan: Yeah. It’s a bit of all of it. I mean, we both write. Even though I’m not ready to go in and make a new record, I love making music all the time. I love repurposing old demos. We’re always open to submitting stuff for soundtracks. I definitely keep the creative juices going.

Right now, it’s almost like we’re just taking in everything we possibly can. I think that will influence the record. The longer we wait and the more we read and see films and experience stuff and let time pass, the more interesting our next record will be. That’s how I always think about it. It’s not that I don’t like writing, I write in between records. But I still like the longer we wait to write, or the longer we wait to really follow through with those ideas, the better the songs will be because more time will have passed.

Sara: You’re absorbing and hunting and gathering. For me, it’s like all of the things that were influencing me leading up to the record, I need time for those things to get out of my system. I don’t want to rush into doing something and then maybe accidentally be still drawn to the same sounds or the same sort of progressions. Right now, it’s really interesting listening to all the production and all the big singles and albums coming out. I almost feel like you have to let that wave go. For me, it’s almost like patience, waiting for that series of breaks to happen. Then I can potentially make space to see what’s going to come down the pike later. I don’t want to make records that sound like what’s happening right now. You almost need time to absorb enough different things that you create something new.

Tegan: I think being uncomfortable, being outside your comfort zone, and being in a room with strangers are really great techniques to challenge yourself. I think also as women, there’s probably been this thing where Sara and I do have to prove ourselves every time. There is no comfort for me in music. There is no comfort in writing. I can’t imagine a time—I don’t know that this is a bad thing either—where I’m like, “Yeah. I’m the best,” and so confident. When I see artists talking about how good they are, propping themselves up and talking about how they’re geniuses… I just don’t ever see a time where I’ll be like that, and I’m okay with that. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me have to try harder. I don’t think I’ll ever become so comfortable that I’d just phone it in. I think it’s a strength that we have to constantly prove ourselves.

Do have techniques to help you move past creative blocks?

Tegan: If I start to feel bored or blocked or frustrated with something, I’m comfortable walking away. When I was younger, I pushed through or forced it… but in the last five or six years, I’ll literally close a session and be like, “I’ll go back to this in a day or in a week or two weeks.” The second I give it space, I tend to feel more motivated to go back into it.

If I’ve written a track and try to come up with a cool melody or whatever, and if I start to feel strained or I can’t figure out what to do, I will all of a sudden change the way I’m listening to it. I’ll put it on different speakers. I’ll walk around or do something else. I have this little trampoline in my studio office; I’ll jump on it and do other things. For me, it’s a change of scenery. Whether it’s something super temporary or a small change just in the house or actually shutting the session down.

Sometimes there just needs to be faith. I’m an earworm person. If something isn’t catchy… or if I work on something for 20 or 30 minutes, stop, and then can’t sing the melody back to you, then to me it’s no good. So, I like to delete things. Often I find if I’m struggling, I’ll erase something because I don’t think it’s good. When I’ve written something that’s good, I just know it’s good. I don’t think you can force something to be good. It’s either good or it’s not.

Sara: On one hand, I totally agree with Tegan. But, I also totally disagree. I’m like, “No way. You have to work on things for a long to make them good. You can’t know after 30 minutes. That’s insane.”

Tegan: Well, that’s why I walk away. That’s the thing—if I’m doubtful, I’ll walk away and come back. There’s nothing more exciting than working on something, going for dinner or going on tour for three weeks, coming home, opening up a session and being like, “Oh shit, that was really good. Why didn’t I feel like it was good in the moment?” I have absolutely no problem walking away from things, but I also feel confident that I’ll be able to replace it with something better.

Sara: I think this is where we’re very different, because I have a hard time letting things go. I will definitely know when to stop working on something, but I’ll go back to it over and over and over and over again, and think to myself, “Maybe if I hear it fresh, I’ll still want to work on it.” Whereas I know that Tegan probably would have totally trashed the session. I’ll definitely still take little shots at it.

I have songs from a few albums ago where I’ve kept certain lyrics or melodies. I’ll sort of hold onto them and think, “The rest of this is garbage but this thing still means something. I’m just not sure exactly how it will fit into the future.” But if I keep revisiting it, one day it’ll work. I know this sounds so stupid, but sometimes I almost feel like it’s not the right time for it to happen now. It’s almost like a science fiction thing where it’s foreshadowing, and it will eventually make sense. Then eventually I’ll open a session and think, “I know exactly what this needs. It needs these lyrics, that line, or that melody from that other thing I did five years ago.”

Do you find the current political situation influencing how you think you want to go forward with your music, or what you want to say with your music?

Tegan: For most of our career there would be a push from the queer community, or the LGBTQ community, for Sara and me to be more outspoken about LGBTQ rights. Isn’t it powerful enough that we’re two openly queer women who are on the radio? We’re opening for Katy Perry or Neil Young. Isn’t that in itself a really incredible, progressive act? Do we actually have to get up there and draw their attention to it? Then there was the whole part of our career where we were like, “Well, that’s not good enough, we do want to draw attention.”

On some level, I often reject this idea that I have to be saying something intensely political to be political. I just feel like at this point, it’s still pretty obvious to me that being outspoken, queer, feminists in the mainstream is already still a pretty political move, if you think about it.

Sara: Tegan and I have talked a lot on this recent tour actually, about a few songs off of our new album. When we were making the album, I didn’t necessarily think of them as being explicitly political. But in the months after we released the album, suddenly they took on a very different feeling. There’s a song on the record, “Be With You,” which for me is a political song about my choice as a queer woman—and just as a human being—not to participate in marriage. I have an incredibly difficult time with the institution of marriage. I feel like it’s been a struggle for me to participate authentically in the marriage equality movement on a personal level because I just wish we were just… My politics are radical, and I want to dismantle the institution, not invite gay people in. But then when I step outside of my own personal views, I’ve been really moved by the movement and feel it’s really important in terms of establishing equal rights for LGBTQ people. But interestingly, when we were releasing the album I didn’t necessarily think the song was that political.

In today’s climate, every night that we play this song, there’s this really intense, visceral response from people in the audience. I see grown men singing along at the top of their lungs. I’m like, “What does it mean to them? Why is this song resonating?” Sometimes I think to myself, “Oh, If Tegan and myself weren’t 5’2, pop girls, would it be different?” “If Fugazi was singing ‘Be With You’ would it be like a political anthem?” Is it because we’re not men? Is it because we’re not screaming? Is it because there’s no guitars, or swords, or blood?

Tegan: On this last tour, we just toured through Europe. The reaction to “Be With You” was much more visible. Sara and I were hypothesizing backstage about it a few nights in a row. She was saying, “Are they singing along because they’re also feeling against marriage?” All these gay guys and all these people standing there. I was laughing and saying that my theory was that this was because in most of the countries we just toured in for the last month, gay marriage is not legal. So, to me, when I heard the song the first time, what moved me so profoundly was that I didn’t hear it the way that Sara had written it, right? I listen to Sara’s music as if it’s just a song I’m hearing.

I heard the song as, even though I can’t marry you, I don’t care, I don’t need it, so promise me your first born, so promise me these things, it doesn’t matter. So, when I was looking out into the audience in Europe in most of these countries where gay marriage is still not legal, I was seeing these people say, “I love you anyway. It doesn’t matter that the institution doesn’t accept us.” It’s just so interesting how differently even Sara and I see the audience and feel that political undertone.

Five things / inspirations/ ideas to recommend to someone who wanted to know more about our work:

Tegan and Sara: The Official Vinyl Collection is a good place to start if you’re looking for a sample of our older work. Often described as “indie rock” or “indie pop.” These were our guitar and synth driven days of less polished, melancholic albums. The collection includes home recordings and demos that strip back the production and expose our early songwriting.

The Minipops! A British television show that we watched feverishly as children. It was our introduction into pop music—the twist being that the music was performed and sung by pre-teens dressed up to look like the original stars of the songs. Favorite performance was “I Love Rock and Roll.”

We don’t remember any controversy but as adults when we revisited the program we learned the show was cancelled after one season!

From Wiki:

“Though the series was a success for Channel 4 (gaining 2,000,000 viewers), little thought was given to the ethics of child performers singing songs originally written for older artists and dressing and dancing in a provocative style (often influenced by the original performance). Whilst embraced by children who loved the idea of ordinary children singing and dancing (as they did) along with their favourite songs, the show sat uneasily with some adults; this was capped by a performance from five-year-old Joanna Fisher, who covered the Sheena Easton song “9 to 5” (known as “Morning Train” in the U.S.) in nightclothes and included the lyrics “night time is the right time, we make love”.”

Bruce Springsteen, The River, Live 1975-85

We listened to this version of The River (with gorgeous extended intro) hundreds of times growing up. Our step dad would blast it through our house-wide speaker system, or in the minivan on long drives to visit his family in BC. As moody, sullen teenagers we’d listen in the dark of our bedrooms on full blast. Springsteen’s storytelling was deeply influential and is possibly what inspired our instinct to tell stories about our lives at our first performances as a band. Partly to pass the time, we never had more than a dozen songs at less than 2 minutes each, but also because it seemed like what you were supposed to do before you performed a song.

Teganandsarafoundation.org

A great deal of our energy and time is now focused on the Tegan and Sara Foundation. Launching the foundation will allow us to be more strategic about our advocacy and public activism around health, representation and economic justice of self identified LGBTQ women and girls.

Cats. Just google “cats”. Videos, music, articles, memes. We really can’t get enough.

#tegan and sara #quin #Tegan and Sara on being honest with your collaborator

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jivingcryingboy · 7 years ago

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26 // TWENTY SIX

If there’s anything I’ve learnt about anything on my 26th Birthday, it’s that contradiction is ok. It’s ok to contradict yourself. Just emotion clashing with the physical beasts that we have to attempt to pacify each day. Sunglasses covering what’s there. How the hell are we supposed to deliver same reaction all the time, by a supposedly unmoved set of morals and codes, as we get older through the nature of time?

Secondly, I remember thinking, like I guess anyone does, mid twenties is old. Or an age where maturity levels should be nearing an all time high. In truth, I don’t feel any different to how I was when I was fifteen. The way I know I’ve changed or how I’ve become different is how I judge my reactions to events now against how I reacted to events when I was younger. Basically meaning, my emotional reactions feel kind of the same in terms of love, anger, happiness (bar a few complex ones that I have felt now I’m older, however that’s probably because I’ve experienced more events and scenes which clash simultaneously, that’s another issue though). But they’re basically the same. The way I thought a scary film was really scary at 10 years old is not going to be as scary as I would find the film now, as now, I’m an adult. I’ve noticed how we interpret these raw, fresh emotions from when we were children and compare them to emotions of how we feel as a more experienced, weathered adult. Memories from a scary film seen in the eyes of a child can still appear daunting to the same person as he or she becomes an adult. Memories must manifest through time in a way that protects us I guess, to help maintain interpretations of life that define the means in which we have experienced life, through happy, euphoric, sad or tragic experiences.

On positive memories, what underlines that concept for me is that Tom Wait’s Lyric from Time

And the things you can’t remember Tell the things you can’t forget that History puts a saint in every dream

Clarifying materialistic experiences, such as something as seemingly illusive as space perception I would say is slightly different. When you are a kid, I remember several times walking into a building of a grand size, such as a museum, and being overwhelmed by it’s enormity. When I revisited the same building years later, I am then underwhelmed with how much smaller it actually was compared to how big I originally though it was. This is visible though. This you can measure. Even though the memory of this gigantic room is still present in your memory as a child, it can be quashed by your experiences later in life as adult. But only up until you revisit it though, in my view.

I think this differs from emotion though. Emotion, through my perception, is intangible. Like I said before, experiences felt through youthful, unexperienced eyes can be compared to experiences felt now, and can be interpreted by the mind on a shared emotional gauge if you like. And this is why I think people can be scarred by childhood traumas. The rawness of a particular experience from a child can equate to same degree the extent of the emotions felt by the same person as an adult from another experience in adulthood. Even though the incident experienced by the adult could be, technically speaking, so much more grave. A memory of a bully from primary school could still haunt the person when he becomes an adult. The same words and experience probably wouldn’t hurt the adult now, but the emotions evoked from the incident alter the way we decipher our memories and the world we currently live in. Even born from a innocent child. Obviously our parameters of experiencing life change as we get older, but I feel sometimes, the way in which we gauge emotions can be almost impossible to measure as absolute, as our mind is constantly bouncing from one emotion to another. My mate who I adore once told me he wouldn’t settle down in another relationship until he found someone who made him feel the same way in which he felt about his first girlfriend. At the time I remember thinking that that would be almost impossible, as a first-time relationship at eighteen/seventeen is totally different to a relationship at your mid twenties. We have changed as people. We experience life differently to when we were younger. Emotions were new, experiences were new. The way in which our mind deciphers events is never completely consistent, no matter how similar the experiences are. That’s why a first love, a first kiss, a first fight, a first bliss is so hard to forget. We cannot completely, relationally compare emotional experiences from different ages to one another on a consistent, trustworthy tangible level.

So therefore, after that waffle, what I’m saying is, is that I’ve learnt to analyse my reactions objectively and rationally; to seek out patterns to my behaviour. Instead of gauging the breadth of emotions I feel from a certain incident, I look at what commonplace did my reactions share similar factors. Is this film scary, or really, did I find this film scary because I am remebering it through the eyes of 10 years old version of me? Was your first love something you can never get over, or was it a new experience in which you couldn’t compare it to anything else? Did she get angry because of him, or because of herself? Yeah, you are still doing this through the filter of your wanky emotions, but being aware that emotions are so fluid, does give you a chance to look at things through hindsight.

I think that’s another lesson I’ve learnt as well. Emotions, reactions you feel aren’t from other people, they come from you. It’s seems like such a simple point to make but I feel it gets overlooked. Quite simply, if you turn up to work pissed off, if someone you don’t get on with makes a joke about you, inside you’re probably shouting all kinds of cusses towards him and may show that through body language on the outside. If you turn up to work skipping down the road happier then ever, you’ll probably ignore the the joke or even laugh at it and move on to whatever you’re doing next. Too many times we blame external stimuli, if you like, for our circumstances. If you are sad or angry, how can you expect to judge a separate situation rationally or even in a way that is true to yourself? Me personally, I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship as I feel I’m still striving for a place I want to be in life, physically and mentally. When I’m there, or get to a place where I’m content, then I feel as though I can be me in that relationship, who judges things in a much truer way.

I’m sure there’s more shit I’ve learnt but it’s getting late and I’m in up in a few hours. I’m 26. I’ve always wanted to be 26 ever since I was a teenager. Not really sure why, think it looked cool. Looked like a good age. And I’m still young. Just about, but still there.

I’ve decided this year to give it a go. Not that I haven’t been trying before, I really have. I guess I’m throwing away safety nets. I can comfortably stay in my room, release music, gig, repeat, all day long. It’s not a bad way of doing things, I think that’s what most people do. But I need to change. If I want a career in music, I need to change. I need to go meet people. And that’s something I’m really shit at. I’m good when it comes to normal day life, house parties, meeting new people, that socialising thing, but when it comes to promoting me.. I am awful. So that needs to improve. Meeting people is key I think. I’ve gone on before about how I think good and bad music is irrelevant. It’s who you know. Boom. Go do it. Meet people. Working in a cafe. It’s good, don’t get me wrong. It’s given me money to live, for music. This is something where there is a gamble. I’m going to leave my job so initially, and hopefully only initially, there won’t be too much income. But more importantly, my music needs time. I need more time, so the job has to go. I want to get music jobs or jobs that are gonna pay me more for less time.

So this is it. Well it isn’t like the last crusade, but it’s where I feel I break free from a comfort zone. I hesitated to call it that, because yeah I do feel I work hard. But I guess I need to go deeper, need to do even more. And I think that means taking a leap of faith. Rather than effort, it’s conscious and at the same time blind decision making. Run towards it, be rationally irrational. It might not work, but I don’t wanna coast along acting like it wasn’t going to work in the first place. I want to make that leap of faith knowing that even if it doesn’t work out, I tried. I will be happy if I tried. I might realise I want to do something else along the way, but I want to know that I gave it my all doing it. I do better without a safety net too, that’s what my Dad always told me. It’s so true what they say, the only thing that stops you from doing from something is you.

Go do it sonnn.

*****

I’m gonna keep this blog going even if I’m the only one who knows it’s here. I’m not gonna treat it like the bandpage facebook, soundcloud and all the rest of the social media, this is more a artist diary type thinggg. Keeps me on top of things. And I guess if you are reading this in the future or now, and you are an aspiring musician like me, it could be pretty cool to read about someone who’s trying/tried to do it.

I’m not a believer in fate, wouldn’t say I was a pessimist but I’m not one of those guys who would ever think I was born to do this shit, no matter how bad or good I am. I’m here, I’m healthy again, I can sing, I can write a tune. Let’s see how far this rabbit hole goes. It might be something that I hate after a while. But who knows? Let’s see how far I can take this thing

#26 #twenty six #october 26th #artist blog #artist #musician #lessons #what i've learnt

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creed4fan-blog · 8 years ago

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