#it is a great comfort to me that ethel cain hates these people���️

[cleradinthealps]

people on tiktok/tumblr will post a picture of a rural appalachian town and caption it “ethel cain core southern appalachian gothic catholicism americana lana del rey vinyl” like my god you were raised in a protestant suburban home in washington.

[0girlblog0]

Preacher’s Daughter: How Ethel Cain’s Cannibalistic Concept Album Changed My Relationship with Religion

I never experienced great Catholic guilt, or religious trauma, but my family’s Presbyterian beliefs wrapped around my limbs and I’ve had a hard time untangling myself. When I was younger, I was the perfect child of God: I went to church every Sunday and youth group every Wednesday, we played “Bible Jenga” every game night, and I had five copies of the bible before I could even read. My mother had been a preacher for over ten years by the time I was born, and it was her whole life. Scripture was as familiar to me as the alphabet, and I watched more VeggieTales than Disney movies, but I never really understood what it all was about. 

As I grew older, I discovered that the appeal didn’t lie in the scriptures or sanctuary, but within the people, the songs we sang, and the kindness around me. And as I grew older, I found that those things are everywhere, not just in the church. In middle school, while working through my sexuality and identity, I realized I never really liked going to church, and I didn’t feel fully accepted by the community. It felt more like an obligation than salvation, and sitting through an hour-long service, listening to people ramble on and on, made me feel like I needed to climb out of my skin and get out of there before I suffocated. In high school, my parents and I made an truce: I only had to go once a month. While this felt like necessary freedom, I’ve also realized it was slander against what my mother loved the most. She dedicated her whole life to the church because it was her home; I hated it because I felt like it wasn’t mine. 

That was around the time I ran into Ethel Cain, hitchhiking on the thoroughfare. She, too, was a preacher’s daughter, and while I can’t relate to most of her story - i.e. murdering a man, going on the run, getting kidnapped, murdered, and eaten - her story and music resonated with me. In “Sun Bleached Flies,” we find her dying in an attic. She reflects on her life, all the pain inflicted upon her by her father - the preacher - and her kidnapper, and she decides that all she wants is to be back in church. Even after all the torture she experienced, knowing that God did nothing to save her from it, she still finds comfort in His power. The song is almost ironic, but Cain sings with hope and faith in the idea that “if it’s meant to be, it will be.” She believes every word. This song shows how false religion can be, while also proving why we need it. Instead of regretting her life, she trusts in a higher power and dies believing that all the pain was for the better, even forgiving those who hurt her. 

This album gave me the confidence to live in the grey area between atheist and religious. Even if the Church is imperfect, even if God is imperfect, Christianity can still comfort me when I need it, give me hope, and take a weight off my shoulders when I leave things in His hands.  Still, I don’t see myself going to church by choice, or reading scripture anytime soon. The church can be a place of nostalgia and comfort, and it doesn’t need to be more. Even through my rocky relationship with Christianity, I have held onto the core beliefs it gave me: kindness, forgiveness, and humility like a lifeline, and I can be thankful for those lessons even if I don’t necessarily ‘believe.’ I’m grateful to Ethel for opening my eyes to the nuances of believing, and for making an album so intoxicating that I couldn’t stay away even when it discussed something I thought I hated.

[anemoiawithatouchofobsession]

Now that I actually have discovered new music this past week, I can make my new music of the week again lmaoooo

[KOR]

Kang Susie - The Reason I Live [City Pop, Synth Pop]

What a wonderful song and just the perfect song to join 주어진 모든 것 and 오래전 나에게로 on this album as city pop perfection. Kang Susie's city pop songs are criminally underrated and virtually unknown and I want people to know and love this side of her!

[NON-KOR]

Ethel Cain - Crush [Southern Gothic, Pop Rock]

This song is on repeat on my phone rn as I'm writing this. OMFG. The Lyrics are literally so Moraeshigye-core and it's crazy how "being in love with the bad boy" is such an universal theme. "Couldn't fight to save your life but you look so cool" omg I feel like Choi Min Soo himself would like this track along with American Teenager because it's very 70s-80s rock.

2. Metro Boomin, Future, A$AP Rocky - Show Of Hands [Rap, Trap]

I like Metro's beats and ASAP did his thing - he could have been even better tbh. And Future's verse was literally like all his other verses, very forgettable and useless. Sorry Future, your feature ate you up again. But Metro saves the song again.

3. Rodney O, Joe Cooley - Everlasting Bass [Oldschool Hip Hop]

I love the beat of this. The lyrics are goofy and kinda nursery rhyme-y but that's just the generation imo. This was obviously before the 2pac - biggie generation, and rap was still in its baby steps. The beats and 808s still pop and it's still a great beat.

4. Billie Eilish - Birds of a feather [Pop, Indie pop]

I was around when Billie blew up with my peers and I never really vibe with her image, music or vibe. I always associated her with the girl in my class that bullied me and hated me a lot and made 4 years of my life hell, so this is personal. But I appreciate the way Billie has grown to be a musician and artist in her own right and is still so incredibly young and confident jn herself. This song is comforting, nostalgic and really majestic, and I feel like this could be Billie's first proper general public approved bop.