#obsessed with this lyric and the way she explores yearning | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kamus15 · 3 years ago

Text

Heartbreak Weather 2021 Review*

Heartbreak Weather sound takes me to pop-rock elements where 1D left off, somehow Niall manages to put his on twist on it rather than sounding repetitive or following a certain formula. He found his own voice and niche in his first album and now with his second release, he explores further into lusting and one night stands with strangers. It shouldn’t be shocking on how we hear about his romantic escapades throughout the album and how much he yearns for company and also explores into self-doubt, vulnerability, and being young. Without further ado, let’s break into the album track-by-track:

1) Heartbreak Weather We start off with the title of the album, in this song, Niall tells us how sad and lost he was before meeting this girl whom he now shares a room in a hotel, we can pretty much tell that the girl is the one that takes initiative into this swift hook up as they undress each other and can’t wait to find each other wrapped in arms, legs and bedsheet. Poor Niall, you were probably coming off from a dry-spell and this is all you needed to breathe new energy into your life. The instruments played throughout this song are chill and have this Caribbean-tinged arrangements that makes the song feel rather relaxed despite Niall pleas of desperation and how lonely he must have felt.

2) Black & White The typical perfect song for a wedding. Oh yes, Niall narrates how he pictures himself growing older with who knows, maybe the girl on track 1? It’d be impossible to keep track of how many girls Niall must have dated since 1D began. It’s somehow cheesy but not enough for the whole song not to turn into a cheesy festival.

3) Dear Patience This is such a heartfelt song, where we see Niall talking to inner (younger) self. In a path to self-discovery, it’s easy to get lost in the process, and find it hard to hear your own voice. It’s very refreshing to hear Niall being so honest with himself and admit that he’s had his setbacks, just like any of us. During the song, he pleads for more understanding, to come to terms with being more *pun intended* patient.

4) Bend The Rules This has a rather interesting question-and-answer section where Niall wonders what his partner has been up to, even though he gives us a vague idea that he suspects of cheating, yet he knows there’s no proof and he might be seeing things. The song itself drags on quite a bit for my liking, however, it’s great to hear the vulnerability in his voice. Mr. Horan once again shows off his cleverness with his songwriting on this track.

5) Small Talk We’re back to the one-night stand, hook-up type of songs! We get it Niall, you like to drop your pants faster than a skyrocket! In this song, we hear how much Niall has been craving it and thinking it about it. With this type of song, in my mind, it would be perfect to play on a sleazy bar where you go to pick up your latest tinder hot date. Nothing new we haven’t seen before. Just shut up and F me

6) Nice To Meet Ya *Dua’s voice* One look at the lyrics it’s all it takes to figure out that this Irish leprechaun is either thinking about getting laid or having a nice Guinness stout in his nearest bar. I do like the fact his voice sounds different in this song, I can’t quite describe it, but it does remind me somehow of what brit-pop sounded in the late nineties. Niall becomes the second member of One Direction to dabble in French (cou, cou!), although I can’t see how taking your hot date to the sea will keep her warm. But, alas, I do see an effort in this song for creativity.

7) Put a little love on me This song screams Disney-ballad to me. It’s very syrupy and Niall’s vocals showcase quite some emotion as well. It sounds like something One direction would have put out during their peak. I do appreciate that Niall pushes his vocal range a bit further here.

8) Arms of a Stranger Unsure how to feel about this track, other than it’s a filler track.

9) Everywhere Niall can’t escape this girl who keeps turning up in every single corner he turns to, is he a victim or a perpetrator? The song sounds a bit bland and generic but works for the album body of work.

10) Cross your mind Ahh! at last, we have hit the summit of the record! This is my favorite track of the album and I’d definitely sing my lungs out on a karaoke night! It’s such a shame this wasn’t chosen as a single, because it’s a very catchy song. Niall tells us in this song he can’t let go of a girl that brings heart ache to him, he knows that she is toxic to him, yet, he doesn’t mind as long as she comes back to him. Leaving me in pieces, but I swear it's worth it every time, very clever Niall !!

11) New Angel 1D - Hey, Angel HS - Only Angel NH - New Angel What’s the obsession behind angels? I wonder who will be next in mentioning an angel in their solo albums. Nice song.

12) No Judgement Niall encourages the listener (or rather his lover du jour) that they don’t have anything to prove to be with him, since they are at a point where he is comfortable with that person. it’s nice to hear that Niall’s personality really comes through in this song, the man is simple, give him a golf cart full of equipment and a pint of beer and you have yourself a happy man! sonically, this sounds something Ed Sheeran would’ve put out (Shape of you says hello!), but it’s refreshing nonetheless that Niall makes this song his own.

13) San Francisco A bittersweet song. Can’t say much other than Niall shows how much hurt and PAYNE his last relationship in California has caused him, during his time in the Golden state.

14) Still The closing track, very interesting and quite intriguing that N. Horan/NHHQ chose to close this album with this particular track. The beginning of the song reminds me in a strange way of H. Styles “Canyon Moon”, notice how also towards the end of the song, Horan tells us everything will be alright.. sounds familiar? Harry on Fine Line’s closing track also conveys the same message, could this mean that in the near future there could be a Horan/Styles collab? Who knows! I’m exited regardless, their future seems very promising for both! Closing Remarks : The album works quite well as a body of work, Niall is very cohesive throughout the album with its themes and lyricism, I definitely hear his personality and drive in this songs. From track 1 to track 14, Niall had a hand in writing all songs, which I do appreciate in today’s music, he’s very relatable, his music gives anyone easy access to anyone without going deep for mixed messages or having the FBI decode hidden meanings, yes I am looking at you Harry Styles.

I give this album a solid 8/10 stars.

Disclosure : I do not own any images, music, lyrics alluded on this post. This is merely my take on one of today’s Pop music superstars latest to-date release.

#niall horan #heartbreak weather album #one direction #solo #albumreview #2021review reblog

1 note · View note

eraserhead-baby-girl · 4 years ago

Text

I’ve been tagged by total cutie @c0ttagecorew1re to share ten songs I’m obsessed with at the moment. Prepare yourselves for an incredibly sexy deep dive into my psyche via my current musical hyper fixations 💖

Smog - Natural Decline

I’ve had Rain on Lens playing pretty much none stop for the past month so it was really hard to narrow it down to one song but Natural Decline really captures the essence of the album as well as typifying Bill Callahan’s output under the Smog moniker. A song that both acknowledges the absurdity of life whilst laughing into the void.

“I see the night sky as a jewelry store window And my mind is half a brick”

Mariee Sioux - Bundles

An exquisite exploration of the intersection between femininity and Native American ancestry, that’s both gentle in sound whilst containing some of the most viscerally unpleasant imagery of the commodification of the body I’ve ever heard. Sonically manages to be both ancient and totally in keeping with the mid-2000′s Nevada city folk scene (yes i’m a JNew stan). Honestly the entirety of Faces in the Rocks is such a delight.

“I'm eating my own hide to hide in my own skin 'Till I am left a hanging Upside down and draining Like skinned does a dangling From a hunters oak limb Like my sisters those does, woven in red shrouds Wearing bare ribbons of tightly wrapped muscles”

Shampoo - Bare Knuckle Girl

The perfect song for when you're drunk, pissed off at the world but also feeling sexy as hell (a niche emotion I seem to inhabit most nights). Glorifying whilst satirising the idea of the fucked up young girl. Really good fun.

“Her Skin Is Dead Pale She's Broken All Her Nails And She Spent All Her Life Just Going Off The Rails”

Sufjan Stevens - Eugene

Sufjan Steven’s album Carrie & Lowell has been a constant in my life for years but until the last month this was a song I always skipped. But sometime in the last few months, during a middle of the night sad song session™, listening to it was like a revelation. It sits at the intersection of pain and joy that surrounds childhood memories; the joy of loving and being loved, the emptiness of knowing it has passed and complex grief of seeing yourself slipping into the role of adult and how that interacts with our understanding of our own mortality. There’s a real sense of fragility, weariness and resignation in the vocal that both mirrors and enhances the lyrics and makes for an incredibly powerful listen.

totally don’t listen to it thinking of my fav child from my old job or the passing of my grandmother

“What's left is only bittersweet For the rest of my life, admitting the best is behind me Now I'm drunk and afraid, wishing the world would go away What's the point of singing songs If they'll never even hear you?”

Angel Olsen - So That We Can Be Still

An understated lament for the passing of time and the way in which the diminishing of memories creates a twofold death; a cessation of the past interactions of self. The vocals on the entire ep (Strange Cacti) seem to coming from somewhere beyond the veil and make this song in particular especially evocative.

“Must all of my memories drown into infinity? Try to grasp them, but I always miss Time goes by so fast as if it hardly wants to exist”

Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian at Best

High energy bop about female success and self image. I defy anyone to listen to this and not want to throw themselves around the room and possibly kick the coffee table. Perfect for anyone who thinks they are the both the best and worst at the same time.

“Put me on a pedestal and I'll only disappoint you Tell me I'm exceptional, I promise to exploit you Give me all your money, and I'll make some origami, honey I think you're a joke, but I don't find you very funny”

Lloyd Cole And The Commotions - Rattlesnakes

Whenever my mother feels particularly tenderly about me she plays me this, pats my hair and tells me it could've been written about me. As such, it’s my ultimate pick me up song and I’ve been playing it constantly the last couple of weeks. A tribute to every confused young woman, wrapped up in philosophy, flightiness and an unending sense of her own boredom. also feeds my ego that my mother genuinely thinks i look like eve marie saint

“Jodie never sleeps 'cause there are always needles in the hay She says that a girl needs a gun these days Hey on account of all the rattlesnakes She looks like Eve Marie Saint in on the waterfront As she reads Simone de Beauvoir in her American circumstance Her heart, heart's like crazy paving Upside down and back to front”

Manic Street Preachers - Builder of Routines

There’s never a point where I’m not overplaying at least one of the manics songs and at the moment it’s Builder of Routines (Rewind the Film is criminally underrated in my almost humble opinion). Perfect exploration of the tension between the safety adult life provides and the suffocating nature it has on the soul.

“Builder of Routines It makes me safe and clean It crucifies parts of me But never seems to make me bleed”

Golden Shoulders - the Honey, the Power, the Light (Kyle’s Blues)

As an obsessive Joanna Newsom fan, I thought I’d heard everything she’d ever done. So discovering her pre Milk Eyed Mender work with Golden Shoulders was probably the most exciting thing to happen to me this month. A pertinent rally cry against the soul sucking nature of capitalism with a sound redolent of Bright Eyes’ Landlock Blues.

“I cannot be swayed and I will not be quiet, Tell the fat cats and big wigs to go on a diet. They're taking up space that has better uses, So let's jump the tracks and unhitch their cabooses.”

Sibylle Baier - I Lost Something in the Hills

As soon as the weather turns, I play Colour Green on a loop whilst sitting on my windowsill, coffee in hand, staring out of the window blankly. It’s basically an autumnal tradition at this point. I’ve spent my entire life living semi rural on one side on a steep and densely wooded valley and I Lost Something in the Hills perfectly encapsulates the unique feeling of growing up somewhere that’s beautiful yet remote and enclosed. A song for autumn days spent in moments of abstract yearning and formless nostalgia.

“I grew up in declivities Others grow up in cities Where first love and soul takes rise

There where times in my life When I felt mad and deprived And only the slopes gave me hope”

Why did I write this like I’m being paid by vice to self indulgently talk about my own music taste??? Who knows. is it obvious i miss being a lit student?

I’m tagging @lipsticktraces and @ki-flor as I’m pretty sure they have solid tastes in music and I’m always after song recs.

#smog #bill callahan #mariee sioux #shampoo #sufjan stevens #angel olsen #courtney barnett #lloyd cole #manic street preachers #golden shoulders #joanna newsom #sibylle baier

3 notes · View notes

v-le · 6 years ago

Text

Kmusic: My artists in 4 months

Foreword: PHEW this one took a while.... but I have really had so much on my mind lately that i knew i just HAD to churn this one out asap... I also would’ve tried to include videos rather than images but it’s a pain in the butt... I guess my vids will be top secret for now hehe. But really. a true blessing, these 4 months. Ah, I still really cant believe it..

If you were to ask me how I felt about my first semester at Yonsei and simply the past 4 months in Korea, from August 21st to December 23rd, I would probably just emphasize how grateful I am. But to narrow down this deep affection for all the happenings, I would have to do so in a music context. It is such a fascinating and seemingly mundane thing to go on about: Why does my music mean what it means to me to this day? How have those values shaped my experiences in Korea so far? What does it mean for me going forward? These are questions I want to ask myself, reflect upon, and continue to explore as I await to begin another journey in Korea once again.

If I rewind to when I first started listening to Korean music, it would be when I was… I don’t even know. I was exposed to it since I was about 7 or 8 years old, when my sister was sucked into the very beginnings of OG K-pop: Wonder Girls, Big Bang, 2NE1, Super Junior, SNSD, SHINee, you name ‘em all. I’ve talked about this a lot, but during those days I was never particularly interested in that side of music. It didn’t make much sense to me and it just sounded mreh. But after several years of this exposure, I fell into my own K-pop obsession-hole starting with LEDApple, a very unassuming, catchy-music-making band. I was in it for the music. At first.

Okay, now fast forward past my kpop era: you can read all about it in my very extensive post from about a year ago here. But yes, lets leave that chunk of my life behind and think about where I stand from a “music maturation” perspective. Right here. Right now.

I cannot pinpoint the exact moment or day or time in which I fell into the “deeper” side of Korean music. I am pretty certain that it simply occurred naturally, gradually. What I know for a fact is that I owe so much of myself to my music. At any given point in my life thus far, my music has defined a large portion of my identity: it really does mean a lot to me. I am constantly listening to music. To narrow this down into my current self’s context, my music mostly consists of Roy Kim, Sam Kim, DAY6, Kim Feel, Fromm, Jung Sewoon, Eddy Kim, Kwon Jin Ah, and many many many others.

These artists, the music that they make, is not K-pop. It never will be. I don’t care what those stupid Spotify playlists call some of the songs from these musicians, but they are not and never will be K-pop. (At most DAY6 could come closest to fitting). My discovery of each and every one of these artists varies from person to person of course, but most of my sentiments remain the same all throughout. I would give my everything for these people. But I want to make it very very very clear: it is not necessarily these PEOPLE, these faces, these appearances, these artists themselves that I am oh-so enthusiastic about. It is their voice & music. That is honestly all it really comes down to at the end of day. It is and has always been about the music.

I owe my deep appreciation for my music to several various factors ranging from emotionally & mentally detached parents & family, my somewhat introverted personality, and my incessantly over-analytical mindset. However, what exactly constitutes this deep appreciation is what I want to explore. A certain fact is that I hated high school. As I grew up through the ages of 13 to 17, I completely despised the American public education system that was high school. Without getting into the complex details about my community that was the heart of Silicon Valley and the various cultural pushes, I just have to say that high school felt like a sort of mental torture for me.

And during all those times, when I needed it the most, when I felt so completely lost, when I felt like no one would listen to me, nothing could console my distressed heart and mind, I always fell back to many of those artists listed above. Particularly to Roy and Sam. I owe them SO MUCH. They literally changed my life.

Home. 영원한 건 없지만. Your Song. These three songs, my life songs. Their lyrics literally saved my life. They mean everything to me. Without these songs from Roy & Sam, I would not be where I am today.

All my artists that I mentioned make their own music. They write, compose, produce, everything. They are the true masters of their voices (see, not K-pop). And so, when I listen to them, when I absorb their voices & melodies, I can sometimes really feel their sincerity, their yearning. I am so thankful for what they have produced for this world and for my ears to hear. However, within the past 4 months, I got to see, know, understand, and FEEL these artists on a whole new level.

In chronological order, here is a list of the artists I saw live &/or in person during my time in Korea thus far:

08/31 Roy Kim & Son Seungyeon @ Picnic Concert

09/01 Monogram, Baek Yerin, Kwak Jineon, Paul Kim, Bol4, Crush, Urban Zakapa @ Someday Festival (Day 1)

09/02 Fromm, Jo Hyunah, Jung Sewoon, Roy Kim, Yong Junhyung & Yang Yoseob, K. Will @ Someday Festival (Day 2)

09/08 DAY6 @ You Made My Day Fanmeeting

09/20 Roy Kim @ SNU Fall Festival

11/02 Roy Kim & Kim Haon @ Daellim Univ. Halloween Festival

11/04 Nam Woohyun (& Jang Dongwoo, Kim Sunggyu, Lee Sungyeol) @ 식목일 (Day 3)

11/10 Fromm @ Seoul Music Forum Mini Concert & Free Fansigning

11/11 Eddy Kim @ Miles Apart Album Fansigning

11/22 Sam Kim @ "Sun And Moon" 1st Album Release Showcase

12/01 Sam Kim @ "Sun And Moon" 1st Album Fansigning

12/09 Fromm @ "Midnight Candy" Mini Album Release Concert

12/16 Roy Kim @ ROchestra Live Tour 2018 (Seoul Day 2)

12/21 Sam Kim @ Lotte Tower World Park Christmas Busking

12/22 DAY6 @ "The Present" Christmas Special Concert (Day 1)

Breakdown:

Free: 5 events

Paid Tix: 6 events

Album Purchase & Application: 4 events

🌹 Roy Kim: 5 times

🌚 Sam Kim: 3 times

🌓 Fromm: 3 times

🎸 DAY6: 2 times

As an avid fan of many of these artists for YEARS, like Infinite for 8 years, Roy for 5, Sam since his debut in Apr. 2016, DAY6 since their debut in Sept. 2015, Fromm for over 4 years, Eddy for over 5 years, etc etc. I NEVER thought I would actually get to see or hear these people live. Okay, granted I saw DAY6 live back in Oct. 2017 as well as Sam & the entire Antenna fam in Sept. 2017, both in LA. But doing 3 fansignings????? Meeting and talking with Fromm, Eddy Kim, AND Sam Kim???? Seeing Roy FIVE TIMES??????????? Three times for FREE, once at a festival, and then even being able to go his end-of-the-year solo concert???????? Y’all…. It was literally a dream come true. A stroke of luck tenfold. Twelvefold. I saw at least one treasured artist a total of fifteen times. Whether it was at a college busking event, the Someday music festival, a fansigning, a fanmeeting, or even a solo concert. I was somehow there.

Seeing Roy live was something I thought I would never ever ever in my lifetime get to do. As I explained in my 1st semester wrap-up post found here, Roy’s situation with school made my hopes seem very bleak from the get-go. But still, my luck persisted 5 times throughout. I almost, nearly, COMPLETELY failed to acquire a ticket for his ROchestra solo concert, Seoul Day 2 show. It was probably the most energy-draining, stressful, painful and TERRIBLE ticketing experience I have ever experienced. And trust me, I’ve done lots of ticketing before (unfortunately). But after 1 hour of staying glued to that PC bang computer screen, I managed. And I went. And maybe I’ll have to do a separate post for it, but Roy Kim’s concert on December 16th, 2018, was the best concert I have ever been to in my life. Easily. It was so breath-taking.

But yes, enough with Roy. Fromm is my ultimate indie goddess and she has a charm that is so indescribably perfect. She decided to release a mini album over a year since her last one, in the middle of November while I was there and I wanted to DIE. It was suchhhhh a solid release, and I even got to attend a free fansigning with her as well for her solo concert for the album release. I LOVE her cheeky personality so much. And she really is just sooooo kind. I couldn’t have much of a conversation with her due to the time constraint, but I at least got to snap a quick selfie heh (which i wont exposed bc privacy ya feel??). Her solo concert was gorgeous in every single way; I honestly would be willing to pay any price to go to it again in a heartbeat. Even though it was for her “Midnight Candy” album release, it was basically a Fromm discography concert because she sang EVERYTHING and I was THIS close to wanting to cry because I just felt so grateful & happy in those moments. I love her I really do. Ah, also, 2 out of the 3 times I saw her, I wrote to her & posted on Instagram and she liked both posts for me :”).

Sam…. My luck with Sam was out of this world honestly…. I still get goosebumps thinking about how blessed I was to see Sam 3 times, 2 times in very special instances. First off. He announced the release of his FIRST FULL album after a TWO YEAR & A HALF HIATUS. Y’all. This boy hadn’t released anything for 2.5 entire years since his debut and then suddenly WHAM he does it. Somehow right when I was in Korea. AH… I still….. I’m still screaming inside. I screamed aloud in my room for a good 5 minutes straight when I first saw the news, and yes, to this day I am still screaming. His three pre-release tracks were GORGEOUS & Sun And Moon, track 1, literally brought me to tears without even trying. I had been missing his voice and presence for so long…

And then, for the full album release, Antenna announced a post in which if you pre-order his album when it comes out & email the Antenna staff with the receipt showing proof, you will be put in a drawing to attend his live showcase on the night of its release. OHMYGOSH. I knew I had to do it. I struggled a little bit & even felt like I was doing everything so untimely, but I am SO blessed that I really was able to order & pay for it, shoot Antenna an email real quick, and then nervously await my results for like a week. That one Friday the results were to be emailed out, I remembering feeling extremely anxious all throughout the day. I desperately wanted to go…. And at 6:00PM…. I got the email!!!!! I was literally shaking, hands & knees trembling and everything. I actually got invited to the ‘Sun And Moon’ 1st Album Showcase!!! Y’all!!! It was so amazing. It was the night before I had to leave to Taiwan early in the morning so it was quite stressful, but still!!!!! I felt so honored to be there that night: the venue was extremely intimate and Sam was soooososoooo gooooddd and the tracks he sang were sooo beautiful and just… everything about it was like a dream. I was truly blessed.

A week later…. Antenna announced Sam’s first FANSIGNING & once again I was overwhelmed with this “OMG I WANT TO GO, but how, should I really, but what about….??”. It was a physical album-purchase-based application process which means I had to go to this specific bookstore in Gangnam, buy x-amount of albums, and based on that amount, my name will be put into a drawing that many times. Very basic fansigning grounds. I already pre-ordered his album for the showcase, so I honestly didn’t really need another one… but I decided to test my luck & just purchase 1 measly album & see if that ONE album will help me get chosen. And o boy. I GOT IN :”)). When I saw my name on that list in the official fancafe post, I couldn’t believe it….

On the day of the fansigning which was happening inside a mall, starting at a certain time I was able to walk in and choose a random number from 1-100 and since I arrived early, I got to choose pretty early as well. When I saw my number I literally gasped aloud: #7. I know it’s a corny & cliché favorite number but only bc infinite ok. Being #7 meant that I literally say FRONT & CENTER of the stage…not even stage. There wasn’t a stage... it was just an open area. My turn came around very quickly because I was early and let’s just say I was a fking mess, repeating thank you over and over & literally, incessantly telling him how thankful I am for his music and how grateful that after all that time he took to came back, he came right when I was in Korea and how I was at Antenna in LA & his showcase too and thank you thank you, yadda yadda. Yeah…..I suck at these things I really do. Then, at the end of it all, he took a picture with the crowd of fans and ended up sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME LMAOOOOOOO. Okay here is a picture of maybe my biggest life accomplishment??? jk but no rly LOL.

look ma, i made it :”)

But really, the fact that I actually got to talk to Sam & just try to relay all my thanks that I have been owing to him for many years… wow… I’m still in shock and I am just so eternally thankful. I used to think to myself “damn, I wish I could talk to Sam one day” and damn…. I really did do it…

Eddy Kim was also another meeting that I could have only dreamed of before coming to Korea… His last release was 4 goddamn years ago oh my gosh… This fansign application was not a random drawing like Sam’s but just a “buy his album at this bookstore & u get in” sort of thing. To be honest I could blatantly tell that Eddy’s popularity is definitely not as comparable to the other artists that I cherish & I was quite shocked by this revelation. I knew for sure in America, who the hell would ever know him. But even in Korea, he seemed… just really not that well-known, especially from a music perspective. It was interesting and even a little disheartening to see. He was very kind & cutely impressed with my Korean skills and we literally just talked in a bunch of Konglish & once again I just kept repeating how thankful I was for his music in my life. How I waited for so long and his release literally matched up with my time there as well. Even though I never got to hear Eddy sing live, I am more than happy with the fact that I simply got to chat with him & relay my heart as best as possible.

After doing 3 full fansignings I have fully realized that as grateful for the opportunities I am, they are so difficult and stressful… To be given such a short amount of time to spill out my heart is essentially impossible for me LOL. I’d rather much LOVE to just to sit down with these artists not to fangirl or cry, but to have a real, genuine conversation about their music and why it holds so much sentiment for me. I would love to ask questions about their music and I would love to share with them how much it means me & why I am so thankful at the end of the day. That’s what I really wish I could do. Because even as I hurriedly expressed my countless thanks and probably sounded like a hot mess, I feel like I still just came off as a surface-level fan saying their thanks. But noo! In reality, I just wanted to relay how much their music means to me (I literally just typed this wow repetition is gr8). Which I feel like I really couldn’t do properly… I couldn’t get my heart across all the way ☹ but it’s okay because as I’ve been repeating, I am infinitely thankful nonetheless.

My first DAY6 event, their 3rd year anniversary 1st fanmeeting, was a bit of a flop for me simply because they talked wayyyyy to much & played stupid games & everything… and it was cute, but not what I was there for. I kinda wished I heard more of them singing, but it’s okay. In no way am I undermining this monumental day because I know it meant a lot to the boys & fans collectively. Jae could not participate due to health reasons & it definitely put a huge damper on the entire atmosphere, but the members tried their best and the entire audience even consistently sang aloud all of Jae’s parts during the songs when his voice was not there. They also sang a never-before-released track with Jae and they all just cried a bunch and me, sitting there, watching those light-wrist-band-thingies glow & beam & shine in-sync with the music, all sorts of colors, in a massive wave of lights & fanchants & music sewn together… wow it was honestly stunning & one of the most awesome spectacles I’ve ever experienced. Korean fans are really something else….

Speaking of which, attending 15 events during my 4 months there taught me many things about Korean concerts & fans that I find so extremely fascinating.

For most concerts, whether they are super hype-y & K-pop-y or a ballad one with minimal need for movement, when there are seats, fans with stay seated for the most part. In America, I feel like all fans tend to automatically stand (for basically all K-pop acts) regardless of the seating. But in Korea, at my experiences with DAY6 in particular (I also have heard that BTS in Seoul was the same), fans stayed sitting basically all throughout. The most like bodily movements they require would be the waving of their lightsticks. It was honestly pretty refreshing to see a generally calm & collected audience, at least where there was seating.

The fanchants are out of this world !!!!! Especially for the 2 times I saw DAY6, the fans were so on point with their fanchants: they were loud and clear and crisp AND THEY MATCHED WITH THE LIGHTS ON THEIR WRISTBANDS AND EVERYTHING wow was that so cool to see… The fans are super in unison & it honestly adds such a new level of energy to the experience.

SINGING !! Of course, since all these fans are Korean, they can actually sing all of these songs at concerts, unparalleled to international fans lol. One really cool moment at DAY6 that I will probably remember forever simply because this song is gorgeous & means a lot to me… but at day 1 of DAY6’s ‘The Present’ xmas concert series, Wonpil said “We’ve been on world tour for a while now and I’ve been wanting to try this out… if I play this song, can you sing for me?” and of course we all unconditionally said yes. And he started to play 그렇더라고요 on the keyboard & the ENTIRE AUDIENCE caught on immediately & we all sang the entire intro & first verse together in unison, as loud as we could, as the members joined in one by one w/ their own instruments, just watching us as we SANG FOR THEM. It was so cute & we even did it again with 장난 아닌데. This sort of stuff…. Wow…. Can only really happen at a domestic concert, which was honestly so so so beautiful. I LOVED IT!!!

No crazy, constant screaming during every part of the performance. Fans in Korea honestly only scream when necessary… ya feel? Sometimes at concerts, I feel like fans are just screaming at the top of the lungs the entire time, during every second of a song. But Korean fans chant when there is a chant, and cheer & scream when it really fits the situation. I really liked this more toned-down atmosphere from the Korean audiences.

I think that’s all I can really narrow down from my various experiences at Korean concerts compared to the ones in America… It really is quite different though, and I feel so honored to have witnessed this comparison countless times. I am really just honored to be there at those moments in general.

Which brings back around to this… upgraded level of connection towards my artists. After seeing so many of them in person and more than once for that matter, when listening to their music now… something definitely sounds different. When I listened to these artists before I saw them right in front of my eyes, their real, authentic voices blasting into my ears, I still felt moved, I still felt goosebumps, choked up, a bulging affection sometimes. And not that I have lost those feelings, no, definitely not. Now… now, when I listen to these artists through my earbuds or through my laptop… I can literally hear them in my ear. Does that even make sense? Well, duh… of course I can hear them. But like… it’s like… I can hear them on a much more intimate level than ever before. Now, I can really imagine & sense these voices in my head. I can pick up the sound of their breaths, picture their expressions, and really just HEAR their voices as if they were physically singing into my ear right there in that moment, in person. It’s such a peculiar and special and unique feeling that is honestly so hard to describe with just words…

But to be honest like… to this day I still cannot wrap my head around everything. I can barely count and keep track of all the artists I saw and when I saw them and what they sang. I feel like SO MUCH happened that my mind can barely grasp it all, as much as it wants to do so so badly… I still can barely comprehend it… years ago I would cry to Sam Kim, ponder how amazing he would be live… and then literally somehow, he sang two songs like 7 feet in front of me, and even sat right next to me. I thought Fromm was a goddess from another world: but I somehow got to talk to her & even take a selfie?? What?? I thought the world would never let me see Roy who always has his school life to manage as well…. But I got to see him live 5 times?? And even go to his solo concert?? WHAT??????? HOW????????? YOU GUYS, I could honestly go on and on and on because it still all feels like a dream…

In particular with Roy Kim… I say this to myself all the time, the irony is just… wow. Who would’ve known that after years of watching countless fancams, effortlessly memorizing his scarce yet existent fanchants, also memorizing set-lists without even trying, becoming all-too-familiar with things like the way he talks, addresses the crowd, sings specific songs, even all the way down to the way he does adlibs for certain songs… I unknowingly picked up & knew these performance aspects SO WELL through pure admiration, enthusiasm and just LOVE for every song he sings. And who would’ve known, that years later, I would have my very own fancams to cry over. After years of literally watching almost EVERY fancam of him on youtube, at all the various events he performed at, some years more frequently than others, today I can proudly say that I have my very own fancams of him, too. Ohmygosh, it’s still so hard for me to believe…

It really just….. *breathes deeply & tries to recollect self for the 24980164th time*…. It just goes to show… No, okay I don’t really know what it goes to show… But one thing is a fact: loving, cherishing, being thankful for, dedicating so much of my emotional & mental strength towards these seemingly-no-one artists has paid off tenfold. No, billionfold. I don’t even know. I just…. I just never thought I could do and see and hear and experience the things that I did. Never. These people…. These people have given me so much, and although I tucked them deep into the folds of my heart for years, I never thought I could truly open up these treasured feelings one day & TRULY support them with my very own eyes & ears & heart. IN person. I am just so so so blessed. So thankful. Really. Always.

Now, it’s time to bring myself to reality & to think about what this means for me going forward. I don’t want to believe in my passion for my music as a phase: Infinite & all things K-pop wasn’t simply a phase for me. It literally was a maturation, a self-realization, a loss of support for the things I never really knew or understood until time started to pass. I don’t think I grew out of K-pop. I think I simply grew with K-pop & got to understand more about it. And with that understanding came a change of heart. Which is literally the title of my post from years ago: “why I fell out of love with K-pop”. It’s not just “Oh, I am older now. So, I don’t want to like this seemingly childish stuff”. No, it was never about K-pop’s image or whatever. I can’t emphasize more, but it always comes down to the music for me.

Infinite has been and is a piece of my life that I will never forget. A piece of my life that has literally brought me to where I am today. I sit here, with my experiences and knowledge and feelings, in part, due to Infinite. I can guarantee anyone that much. And so, no, they really weren’t just a phase. Things change, people grow older, time flows. That’s just how it works. Does my heart ache over old K-pop like every day? Hell yeah it does LOL. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I can only thank old & 2nd-gen K-pop for the amazing memories that it has given me.

And so, with my music and my artists today, is this all a phase? Will I stop being as enthusiastic years later, like I did with Infinite? You see, with Infinite, I was always apprehensive. At the age of 12, I KNEW that time would eventually take its toll & my blatant love would not necessarily transcend the years that will drag on in the future. But that never made my appreciation for them dim: it only grew stronger as the days went by. I think I am always apprehensive. I think I always fear losing the feelings that I feel with great passion & love at this moment in time. Just as Roy says, 영원한 건 없지만. Nothing lasts forever (but...). I literally think about this all the time. It is such an important concept to me, and it is how I motivate myself to be thankful for everything and everyone and to just take things one step at a time. And so, to really answer my question: is this all just a phase?

I really, honestly, hope… No, I just think not. I really do not think so. At the age of say, 24, five years from now, will I still be loving Roy & Sam & DAY6 & Fromm & everyone else? I really honestly hope so. For as long as they can make music, I can keep loving them, right? Just as Infinite has done since I was 11, 8 years ago, up until today, I firmly believe that my artists can continue this long-lasting impression on my life. They instill a sort of magic & sentiment in my life that almost nothing else in this world can do for me. And for that, I will stay grateful for & only hope for the best.

Roy is currently back in school right now, finishing up his last semester before he finally gets to graduate! I am excited and proud and a bit sad all at the same time. But honestly, it really just comes down to the humanness of these people. When I first saw Infinite back in 2013 as a lil 14 year-old, I guess you could say I was starstruck. I was like “that’s them??!?? Those dudes ive spent countless hours watching through the computer screen?????? THEY ARE RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME?”. I had similar thoughts at the LA K-pop Festival in Apr. 2014 when I saw many many many of the big, og k-pop groups at that time. It was hard to believe that these people are real. I would say that my experience with the “With Antenna” in LA concert back in Sept. 2017 made me come to this important realization. That was the first concert where I actually spent the entire time sitting down and just listening. Listening to these wonderful musicians playing their instruments & singing gorgeous songs & just absorbing all that godly magic in the air at that place in time.

I really got to feel how human artists are at the end of the day. K-pop is always built up to be this larger-than-life dynamic, but real artists… No, they’re so much more different. They are simply people, like you and me, with a passion for their music & they wish to share that passion with the rest of the world. That’s it. The sincerity & genuineness that goes into my artists’ music can literally be felt from all the way across the world, just through a few audio snippets, fancams, and grainy Instagram videos. And that is seriously so beautiful. They are so amazing at what they do, they truly are.

Roy’s last two songs from 2018 were purely love song ballads, and I am not complaining or anything. As solid and classic as these tracks were, I still miss that acoustic, healing tone from him. Before he left for school again, he mentioned several times that he wants to come back with music that will console listeners. I was honestly so genuinely happy to hear this. He knows, he honestly, really does. He has even said it before, but he knows that his music can literally lift people back up from the dead. He wants to do that for them. For you and me, who struggle in life when the going gets rough, he wants to be of some sort of help, no matter how minuscule. He knows, he really does. And that is just so beautiful. I am so proud of him & I can’t wait to see what he will have in store for us in the coming months (after his grad, that is).

To all my artists that made these 4 months feel like a literal dream: Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. Sincerely. Thank you. Always.

늘 고마워요.

#korean music #roy kim #rochestra #sam kim #sun and moon #fromm #midnight candy #day6 #infinite #woohyun #eddy kim #am i missing anyone #prolly am #sigh i still cant #im so so so blessed #thank you for everything #ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

5 notes · View notes

frankkjonestx · 4 years ago

Text

Two new books explore Mars — and what it means to be human

Science writer Kate Greene couldn’t have known that her memoir about her time on a make-believe Mars mission would be published as millions of people on Earth isolated themselves in their homes for months amid a pandemic.

Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars Kate Greene St. Martin’s Press, $27.99

But her book is one of two about Mars published this month that are oddly well-suited to the present moment. Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars and Sarah Stewart Johnson’s The Sirens of Mars are both about exploration. Yet they’re also about many different types of isolation and the human yearning to not be alone.

Greene participated in a mock Mars mission, called HI-SEAS, for Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, in 2013. She and five others lived in a dome on a rocky, barren patch atop Mauna Loa volcano for four months with no fresh food, no fresh air (all excursions were conducted in clunky “spacesuits”) and no instantaneous contact with the outside world.

NASA and other space agencies run such missions to figure out best practices for keeping astronauts sane and productive in isolated and stressful environments. It’s well-documented that boredom can lead to mistakes or inattention. Other simulated Mars missions suggest that astronauts isolated together could develop an us-versus-them mentality that would lead the crew to stop listening to mission control, which could be dangerous on a long mission.

With humor and sensitivity, Greene relates how her crew got along (or didn’t), what she read, what she ate and the time-delayed e-mails she exchanged with loved ones back on “Earth.” Through the book’s series of essays, she uses the mission as a lens to examine everything from the ethics and economics of space travel to the nature of time, love and home.

Her descriptions of boredom and seclusion feel especially apt in a time of social distancing: “the way certain aspects of your environment, daily schedule and conversations smooth over, lose their texture.” Greene relates her experience to astronaut Michael Collins’ time orbiting in the Apollo 11 capsule alone while his crewmates walked on the moon. She connects both of those experiences to that of her brother, who spent the last year and a half of his life confined to a hospital room.

“On this oasis of a planet,” she writes, “there are so many ways to feel isolated, each of us with the potential to sit with the terror of being alive and possibly alone in the cosmos.”

The Sirens of Mars Sarah Stewart Johnson Crown, $28.99

The Sirens of Mars starts with a much broader view of Mars exploration. In lyrical, engaging writing, Stewart Johnson, a planetary scientist, chronicles how our perception of Mars has swung from a world teeming with life, to definitely dead and boring, and back again over and over since the invention of telescopes.

Stewart Johnson brings together a cast of characters to tell this history, from Galileo to the present-day team working on the Curiosity rover. Those characters include astronomer Carl Sagan, whose Cosmos TV series Stewart Johnson watched as a child. Sagan was almost ridiculed out of science for his obsession with “exobiology.”

She also introduces less famous but equally important people, like Sagan’s colleague Wolf Vishniac, whose “Wolf Trap” life-detection experiment was cut from NASA’s life-hunting Viking landers in the 1970s. To get over his disappointment, Vishniac went searching for microbes in Antarctica and died in an accident there before the Viking missions launched (SN: 12/22/73).

In this sweeping history of human fascination with the Red Planet, Stewart Johnson also tells a personal story of finding her place in the world, from an inquisitive child to an unrooted adventurer to a wife and mother and member of a scientific team.

She makes a clear case that the search for life on Mars is an effort to not be alone. In one of the most poignant scenes in her book, she is hiking on Mauna Kea — the next volcano over from Greene’s Mars habitat — and finds a fern growing amid the volcanic desolation.

“It was then, on that trip, that the idea of looking for life in the universe began to make sense to me,” she writes. “I suddenly saw something I might haunt the stratosphere for, something for which I’d fall into the sea…. a chance to discover the smallest breath in the deepest night and, in so doing, vanquish the void that lurked between human existence and all else in the cosmos.”

Click the book titles or covers to buy from Amazon.com. Science News is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Please see our FAQ for more details.

from Tips By Frank https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mars-books-human-exploration

0 notes

if-only-angels-could-prevail · 8 years ago

Text

On the soon-to-be demolished stage of the Weismann Theatre, a reunion is being held to honor the Weismann's "Follies" shows past, and the beautiful chorus girls who performed there every year between the two world wars. The once resplendent theatre is now little but planks and scaffolding (”Arrival”). As the ghosts of the young showgirls slowly drift through the theatre, a majordomo enters with his entourage of waiters and waitresses. They pass through the spectral showgirls without seeing them.

Sally Durant Plummer, "blond, petite, sweet-faced" and at 49 "still remarkably like the girl she was thirty years ago", a former Weismann girl is the first guest to arrive; her ghostly youthful counterpart moves towards her. Phyllis Rogers Stone, a stylish and elegant woman, also arrives with her husband Ben, a renowned philanthropist and politician. As their younger counterparts approach them, Phyllis comments to Ben about their past. He feigns disinterest; there is an underlying tension in their relationship. As more guests arrive, Sally’s husband, Buddy, enters. He is a salesman, in his early 50s, appealing and lively, whose smiles cover inner disappointment.

Finally, Weismann enters to greet his guests. Roscoe, the old master of ceremonies, introduces the former showgirls ("The Way Old Friends Do"). Former Weismann performers at the reunion include Max and Stella Deems, who lost their radio jobs and became store owners in Miami; Solange La Fitte, a coquette, who is vibrant and flirtatious even at 66; Hattie Walker, who has outlived five younger husbands; Vincent and Vanessa, former dancers who now own an Arthur Murray franchise; Heidi Schiller, for whom Franz Lehár once wrote a waltz (or was it Oscar Straus? Facts never interest her; what matters is the song!); and Carlotta Campion, a film star who has embraced life and benefited from every experience.

As the guests reminisce, the stories of Ben, Phyllis, Buddy and Sally unfold. Phyllis and Sally were roommates while in the Follies, and Ben and Buddy were best friends at school in New York. When Sally sees Ben, her former lover, she greets him self-consciously ("Mamma Mia"). Buddy and Phyllis join their spouses and the foursome reminisces about the old days of their courtship and the theatre, their memories vividly coming to life in the apparitions of their young counterparts ("Our Last Summer"). Each of the four is shaken at the realization of how life has changed them. Elsewhere, Willy Wheeler (portly, in his sixties) cartwheels for a photographer. Emily and Theodore Whitman, ex-vaudevillians in their seventies, perform an old routine ("Me And Bobby And Bobby’s Brother"). Solange proves she is still fashionable at what she claims is 66 ("Dancing Queen"), and Hattie Walker performs her old showstopping number ("Does Your Mother Know").

Buddy warns Phyllis that Sally is still in love with Ben, and she is shaken by how the past threatens to repeat itself. Sally is awed by Ben’s apparently glamorous life, but Ben wonders if he made the right choices and considers how things might have been ("Another Town, Another Train"). Sally tells Ben how her days have been spent with Buddy, trying to convince him (and herself) ("Super Trouper"). But it is clear that Sally is still in love with Ben – even though their affair ended badly when Ben decided to marry Phyllis. She shakes loose from the memory and begins to dance with Ben, who is touched by the memory of the Sally he once cast aside.

Phyllis interrupts this tender moment and has a biting encounter with Sally. Before she has a chance to really let loose, they are both called on to participate in another performance – Stella Deems and the ex-chorines line up to perform an old number ("Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)"), as they are mirrored by their younger selves. Afterward, Phyllis and Ben angrily discuss their lives and relationship, which has become numb and emotionless. Sally is bitter and has never been happy with Buddy, although he has always adored her. She accuses him of having affairs while he is on the road, and he admits he has a steady girlfriend, Margie, in another town, but always returns home. Carlotta amuses a throng of admirers with a tale of how her dramatic solo was cut from the Follies because the audience found it humorous, transforming it as she sings it into a toast to her own hard-won survival ("I Wonder (Departure)").

Ben confides to Sally that his life is empty. She yearns for him to hold her, but young Sally slips between them and the three move together ("Crazy World"). Ben, caught in the passion of memories, kisses Sally as Buddy watches from the shadows. Sally thinks this is a sign that the two will finally get married, and Ben is about to protest until Sally interrupts him with a kiss and runs off to gather her things, thinking that the two will leave together. Buddy leaves the shadows furious, and fantasizes about the girl he should have married, Margie, who loves him and makes him feel like "a somebody", but bitterly concludes he does not love her back ("Knowing Me, Knowing You"). He tells Sally that he's done, but she is lost in a fantasy world, and tells him that Ben has asked her to marry him. Buddy tells her she must be either crazy or drunk, but he's already supported Sally through rehab clinics and mental hospitals and cannot take any more. Ben drunkenly propositions Carlotta, with whom he once had a fling, but she has a young lover and coolly turns him down. Heidi Schiller, joined by her younger counterpart, performs "When All Is Said And Done", her aged voice a stark contrast to the sparkling coloratura of her younger self. Phyllis kisses a waiter and confesses to him that she had always wanted a son. She then tells Ben that their marriage can't continue the way it has been. Ben replies by saying that he wants a divorce, and Phyllis assumes the request is due to his love for Sally. Ben denies this, but still wants Phyllis out. Angry and hurt, Phyllis considers whether to grant his request ("The Winner Takes It All").

Phyllis begins wondering at her younger self, who worked so hard to become the socialite that Ben needed. Ben yells at his younger self for not appreciating all the work that Phyllis did. Both Buddys enter to confront the Bens about how they stole Sally. Sally and her younger self enter and Ben firmly tells Sally that he never loved her. All the voices begin speaking and yelling at each other. Suddenly, at the peak of madness and confusion, the couples are engulfed by their follies, which transform the rundown theatre into a fantastical "Lovelight", an extravaganza even more grand and opulent than the gaudiest Weismann confection: "the place where lovers are always young and beautiful, and everyone lives only for love". Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy show their "real and emotional lives" in "a sort of group nervous breakdown."

What follows is a series of musical numbers performed by the principal characters, each exploring their biggest desires. The two younger couples sing in counterpoint of their hopes for the future ("I Have A Dream"). Buddy then appears, dressed in "plaid baggy pants, garish jacket and a shiny derby hat", and performs a high-energy vaudeville routine depicting how he is caught between his love for Sally and Margie's love for him ("As Good As New"). Sally appears next, dressed as a torch singer, singing of her passion for Ben from the past- and her obsession with him now ("SOS"). In a jazzy dance number, accompanied by a squadron of chorus boys, Phyllis reflects on the two sides of her personality, one naive and passionate and the other jaded and sophisticated and her desire to combine them ("Nina, Pretty Ballerina"). Resplendent in top hat and tails, Ben begins to offer his devil-may-care philosophy ("Dance (While The Music Still Goes On)"), but stumbles and anxiously calls to the conductor for the lyrics, as he frantically tries to keep going. Ben becomes frenzied, while the dancing ensemble continues as if nothing was wrong. Amidst a deafening discord, Ben screams at all the figures from his past and collapses as he cries out for Phyllis.

"Lovelight" has dissolved back into the reality of the crumbling and half-demolished theatre; dawn is approaching. Ben admits to Phyllis his admiration for her, and Phyllis shushes him and helps Ben regain his dignity before they leave. After exiting, Buddy escorts the emotionally devastated Sally back to their hotel with the promise to work things out later. Their ghostly younger selves appear, watching them go. The younger Ben and Buddy softly call to their "girls upstairs", and the Follies end.

108 notes · View notes

fullfrequencycollective · 6 years ago

Text

FFC002: ‘Yosemite’ by Jake Newcomb

I’m excited about FFC002. In April, Full Frequency Collective will release the album Yosemite by Jake Newcomb on cassette, marking the first (and possibly only) physical release of the 2018 album.

In my opinion, Yosemite is one of the best albums of the past many years. I spent my summer last year obsessed with it. I played it during many commutes to and from my many jobs, on all kinds of trains and highways in New Jersey, Manhattan, and Brooklyn.

There’s no new episode of the podcast today--instead of listening to Jake and I talk about the album, go listen to the album, which is out now on Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp (links below). While you’re listening, you can read a track-by-track commentary on the record, written by Jake, which I’m publishing below. We’ll be back to the regular podcast schedule next week.

Per usual, 50% of the total that our Patreon makes over the next two months will by donated to a cause our featured artist believes in. Jake chose to support the Sierra Club with this release. The Sierra Club is a grassroots organization of volunteers dedicated to conservation; their stated mission is: “To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources; To educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.” You can read more about the Sierra Club and what they do by visiting www.sierraclub.org.

Patrons at the $5 level for April will receive a green Yosemite cassette tape packaged in a sleeve made from 100% recycled paper. The whole thing will be tied with twine, and Jake will handwrite the title of the record and track listing on each of the 25 copies we’re printing.

Listen to Yosemite now:

Spotify

Apple Music

Bandcamp

I hope you grow to love this album as much as I do. I think it’s a special piece of music and I’m eternally grateful to Jake for trusting me with it.

- John

A Track-By-Track Commentary on Yosemite

by Jake Newcomb

Yosemite is my first solo album, and it was very challenging to make, both physically and mentally. I believe the album is good, but the stories of the songs themselves are as important to me as the quality of the music. I wanted to give some commentary on the tracks to anyone interested.

Track 1: “Troubles” (Summer 2016)

“Troubles” began as a few assorted slap-guitar riffs that I began developing while on a cruise with my family in the Caribbean, right after I graduated from college. I began playing the chorus guitar riff on a balcony on the ship while we were heading to the island, and really dug into the direction of the song while playing on a beach in the Caribbean. I wasn’t able to put down any lyrics, or finish the structure of the song until a year later, at the beginning of the next summer. But within that year long delay between first conceptualizing and finally finishing the track, I jammed on that riff weekly, almost every day. I knew that it was something special. Initially, lyrically, I imagined it would have something to do with feelings associated with NYC winters (originally I had a running title on a demo as “Winters in NY”). A similar theme survived into the final version of the song, and the themes of friendship and empathy emerged. When I was finishing the song a year later, I tried to write chorus lyrics every day for a week, obsessively. It wasn’t until I began vocalizing “Ooos” over the chorus that I realized that it needed no lyrics, that the guitar was doing all the work anyway. It remains one of my favorite guitar riffs I’ve ever written.

Track 2: “Cross Town Train” (Fall 2016)

“Cross Town Train” was way longer when I first wrote it. It was also slower; I wrote it as a ballad. American Part Two, the band I was in at the time, demoed an early version of the song for an EP we were conceptualizing, but we ended up not using it. I wrote the majority of what became the finished song in one night, and I instantly knew that I had something good. The lyrics flowed out of me. Looking back, writing this song seriously began the writing-process for the entire album. It had been a very long time since I had written a song that had felt as real to me as this song, since I wrote songs years earlier for my old band, Cross Town Train, hence its title. Lyrically, the song is me trying to reckon with the reality of aging, and the immense power of nostalgia, especially in regards to falling in love. There is a deep yearning in the lyrics for youth and freedom—two things I felt evaporating in the moment—and an attempt to explain to a significant other how those realizations came to be omnipresent in my mind. I tried to express the deep conflict between reality and idealism that affects many of us in our early twenties. Which gave “Cross Town Train” a new meaning to me in the context of these themes: an escape from the conditions that we are left with.

Track 3: “Pure” (Winter 2017)

“Pure” was a follow up to Cross Town Train and was, in effect, the reality of life pulling the idealism out from under me. While the lyrics detail a relationship coming un-seamed, for me the song holds a deeper significance. An abrupt end to a relationship was a factor, but the song was born out of a harsher climax of circumstances that terrified me. In that way, this song was a revelation that things as I knew it were wrong, that somewhere along the line I had miscalculated many other factors in my life, which made the end of the relationship all the more tragic. It was an epiphany. Writing it denoted the complete end of one era of my life, and the beginning of a new one. I had Alex and Fred from America Part Two feature on the track, because they were there when I wrote it, and we tracked it together as a band, but never released it. We recorded a version of the song together on a cheap acoustic guitar, but I re- recorded it on a piano while making the record.

Track 4: “Die Alone” (Winter 2017)

Die Alone is the most aggressive song on the album, and I was scared to write it. The lyrics grapple with a fear of death. Specifically, I attempted to elucidate not just a personal fear of dying alone, but the fear of a loved one dying a lonely death. The song begins in 7/4, which I think starts the song at a frantic pace. It dovetails with the lyricism in a way that I love. I wrote the vocal melody following what the lead guitar is playing, which I do not often do, but I think worked well in this case. The vocal takes I did on the track were some of the best I’ve ever done, and are probably my favorite takes from the entire album. On most of the record, I sing softly, but I had to belt this song to match the intensity of the instrumentals. I wrote it maybe a week after I wrote “Pure,” and in my mind, it is a direct response to that track. This was another song that we demoed for America Part Two but didn’t make the cut. When I brought it back to the table for Yosemite, I changed some of the lyrics and made a few tweaks. Those tweaks were the last real changes I made to the album before I went into the studio.

Track 5: “Sparky” (Fall 2016)

“Sparky” is the centerpiece. In the fall of 2016, my family’s yellow labrador retriever, Sparky, passed away. The next day, my dad and I jammed on D Major and this song came out of that session. To me, D Major sounds like how sunshine feels. Sparky had been suffering for months before she passed, and we were all worried about her. We were very upset when she passed, but relieved that her suffering was over. Of every song on the record, this one brings me the most joy.

Track 6: “Warped Tour” (Spring 2017)

“Warped Tour” was written as the winter was finally ending, and I could finally sit on my back porch and play guitar outside again. For some reason, as I was playing on that porch I began to think back to about a decade earlier, when my friends and I first started to get into music. Events like the Vans Warped Tour superseded holidays in our minds, because we could experience live music and the culture surrounding it in abundance. It was a whole new world, and one that sent myself and countless people I know on long journeys playing music, touring, philosophizing music, worshipping it. While writing, I was unaware that the Warped Tour would come to an end in 2018, but by that point, I had stopped attending, as my music tastes had shifted significantly from what the festival was promoting. With the lyricism of this song, I tried to contrast the present I was living with the rose-colored past of experiencing music for the first time. I got one of my best friends, Eoin, to sing the bridge. We were in Cross Town Train together, and many of my memories of pure love of music are from experiences with him. The song wouldn’t be the same without him.

Track 7: “Little Things” (Summer 2017)

“Little Things” was the first song I had ever written on the piano. At the time, I had a keyboard in my kitchen, and my friends and I would often gather around the table and play songs around it. Through that, I started practicing and learning the chords and transposing songs from guitar to the keyboard. There is an early recording somewhere of myself, Eoin, Fred, and Mike playing “Little Things” around the keyboard, everyone with their own instruments (guitar, maracas, harmonica.) I had just heard a news report that the ice in the Antarctic was melting at a way faster rate than scientists had been predicting. It was pretty big news that summer, and inspired me lyrically. I knew from an early point that I wanted to have a guest vocalist sing the second verse, and was extremely lucky that Avery Mandeville was available to sing it. Her takes were perfect, and I couldn’t believe the harmonies in the second chorus were real. We met at an open mic that she hosted. I would go there to practice playing by myself, which seriously helped me prepare to record a solo album. In that way, she helped out more with the album than just lending her voice.

Track 8: “I Wish That We Were In Love” (Summer 2017)

“I Wish That We Were In Love” challenged me as a songwriter more than maybe any other song I had written in my life at that point. Several of the riffs I had been playing around with for years, but when I finally sat down that summer to write a song using them, it was extremely difficult. I knew that the song was going to be long, but for a few weeks, I constantly edited the song, added new parts, removed others, wrote new lyrics. It is the only song on the record in Drop D tuning, which was awesome. The song is in D Major, and downtuning the low E to D made the D chords sound more substantial than they would have sounded in standard tuning. At the time, Alex, Fred, and I had a garage where we would practice. Every night, I would work on this song in the garage, trying out new additions and subtractions. I wrestled with this song for so long until I finally got it to a place where I felt comfortable with it. And then I got to the studio, and Adam made some seriously incredible suggestions on further changes which gave the song much needed brevity and action. Lyrically, this song was an attempt to tell the story of a complex relationship, and I think the transitions the song moves through accentuate those complexities. Out of everything on the record, I think this song is in its own little category for me, as the experimental one.

Track 9: “Yosemite” (Summer 2017)

I wrote “Yosemite” overlooking Yosemite Valley in California. A few days earlier in San Francisco, I bought a miniature acoustic guitar with nylon strings, which I tuned to A instead of E. On my final day in San Francisco, I started playing around with the guitar by the Bay, jamming riffs, looking towards the Golden Gate Bridge. A few days later, I turned those riffs into the song Yosemite during my final full day in Northern California. I knew as I was writing it that I had just completed something significant. And when I stood up after writing the song to take a picture of the Valley, I knew I had just taken the album cover of my first full-length album. Up until that point, I had never conceptualized any of the other songs as belonging to a whole. Following that experience, the entire previous year had become reframed in my mind, and all of the songs connected as a record. I will never forget it.

#jake newcomb #yosemite #full frequency collective #ffc002

0 notes

joneswilliam72 · 6 years ago

Text

Review: Miss Universe is a powerful, diverse and deeply impressive debut album from Nilüfer Yanya

Nilüfer Yanya has slowly been building a name for herself as a young songwriter with an alluringly affecting voice, yet her output prior to this first album has seemed somewhat erratic. She has been described as a post-R’n’B singer by some, a jazz-pop songstress by others, while early demos for ‘Cheap Flights’ and ‘Waves’ on Soundcloud were given the tags of #indie and #alternative. These deviations between genres can often create confusion for a mass audience who, more often than not, seem to pander to the monolithic approach of an artist’s ‘star persona’ which the marketing departments of record labels adhere to, i.e. a simplistic and restrictively defined appeal confined within established generic parameters for a clearly identified demographic. Nilüfer Yanya takes the approach of ignoring the expectations of others to produce a set of songs which skip happily from one style to the next as she sees fit, and it pays off brilliantly. This is a bold move and one which the listener gets carried away with so long as they are not some weird genre-partisan apologist. Miss Universe is, at its core, a postmodern album which wears a multitude of influences unashamedly on its self-stitched sleeves.

‘In Your Head’ is a startling way to start the album (ignoring the introductory ‘WWAY HEALTH’ spoken-word skit), and it sounds like no other track in the collection. It is a vivacious, fuzzy-guitared indie stomper which centres on issues of paranoia and thoughts which are “white noise.” It is catchier than a really contagious thing during a particularly virulent spell. The song is triumphant, emotionally unsure and downright vulnerable all at once. During the sections where Yanya is opining about her paranoia, there is a perfectly delivered double-tracked vocal which highlights the dual nature of the conversation in her head, the two vocal performances intertwining at parts whilst the next second repelling each other, highlighting the nature of monomaniacal self-talk. The pain of her need for validation is clear as she looks to get inside the head of her lover, but also more importantly to analyse her own responses and thought processes. This sense of self-reflection is a consistent theme on Miss Universe, as Nilüfer Yanya’s ability to write not just a catchy hook but to douse these moments of musical brilliance around ideas of pain, weakness, yearning and openness is at the forefront of the album.

The indie-buzz of ‘In Your Head’ makes way for ‘Paralysed’ which has a more R’n’B feel to it despite guitars being at the forefront of the song’s arrangement. Yanya’s vocal performance on this track soars above the music and when the focus is on her voice you soon realise just how unique it is. It would be difficult to pick out her specific influences with confidence just by listening to her sing, and it is this fact that means she already stands out in the field of the emerging post-R’n’B acts such as Tirzah or FKA Twigs. Traces of Sade can be heard across the album, whilst Martina Topley-Bird and Laura Mvula are also reference points for those who seem obsessed with finding echoes of others in the work of new artists. Yet it is entirely to Yanya’s credit that there are inflections in her voice that from time to time remind the listener of these other artists but these are fleeting and only serve to highlight the distinctive quality of her voice.

The fact that Miss Universe consists of 17 tracks (which includes some superfluous skits parodying well-being products) is undeniably brave for a debut album, particularly in light of the two singles from last year’s Do You Like Pain? EP being omitted. (Do I like pain, Nilüfer? Yes, I bloody well revel in it, thanks for asking.) There are some tracks here which could have been shed from the album without too much damage being done, notably ‘Safety Net’ and ‘Monsters Under the Bed’, both of which are perfectly serviceable tracks in their own right with masterful vocal performances, yet when they turn up on the album it feels as though this ground has already been covered already. This is perhaps a harsh criticism, yet one that is intrinsically justified as Miss Universe as a whole feels fresh as it skips from one genre to the next without paying heed to the supposed rules of the debut album. It is only by the album’s previously high standards that these later tracks suffer a little, and it is only by a little.

‘Paradise’ and ‘Melt’ both share a cool, almost aloof sensibility which suggests that both tracks would not feel out of place on the work of an alluring 1960s French chanteuse, whilst the brilliantly tense and sparse last track ‘Heavyweight Champion of the World’ sounds like a more vocally trained PJ Harvey. Although most of the lyrical themes explored on the album focus on heartbreak and pessimism, there remains a degree of positivity on a number of the tracks which allows the work as a whole to transcend the subject matter. Both ‘Baby Blu’ and the sumptuous ‘Tears’ deal with failed relationships but are set to uplifting music which offer a hint of hope and relief, whilst ‘Heat Rises’ has a sense of euphoria to it. This latter track evokes ideas of Kelis and Andre 3000’s ‘Millionaire’ being remixed by The xx, but also shows that Yanya can pull off exquisite pop in the same manner she can produce brash indie or contemplative R’n’B.

Nilüfer Yanya has managed to produce an album which flits from one template to the next, yet at no time is there a tendency to feel that this is contrived and neither does it suggest an artist scrabbling around for an identity and an audience which then comes with it. These shifts in style always feel controlled, as though the song demands them rather than existing at the behest of the cold and ruthless focus group approach of a foolhardy A&R department. With Miss Universe, Nilüfer Yanya has demonstrated the tenacity and courage to firmly make her mark as a musician playing by her rules and her rules alone.

from The 405 https://ift.tt/2FxQFLL

0 notes

spjcomicart · 6 years ago

Text

On The Futility of Longing

Stefano Junior

On The Futility of Longing

A handsome stuttering sailor with a mysterious past impressed aboard a warship, a fourteen year old girl suffering an unfortunate onset of blindness desperate for fatherly affection, a gaunt and haunted mother hindered by secrets, a thirteen year old insightful girl impeded by circumstance, and an aristocratic businessman who through devoted obsession curates a private museum of memories, are among a cast of lovelorn, lustful, and longing characters within the pages of Billy Budd by Herman Melville, the Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen, Winesberg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, the Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, and The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk-all disparate pieces of literature occupying different eras, yet unified in their homogeneous tragedy.

One of the many unique aspects of the human animal is its’ capacity, not just for self awareness and conversely the awareness of others as uniquely individual, but with its breadth of empathy and emotional intelligence; the latter forever remaining the focus of artists and writers across all genre, since humans have had the ability to write, to explore, exorcise, and condemn. What are we seeking and yearning for when our basic needs are met? After we are fed, after we have found shelter and slept, after we have found labor or a function in our contemporary society, are we ever sated? It is this human longing that is the bedrock of religion and faith-a means by which people can describe their universe and singular purpose amidst a terrible uncertainty in an ephemeral and fickle physical world that is most assuredly brief and final for all living beings.

It is this longing, coupled with the inability and/or afflictions obstructing the characters aforementioned, to assuage their inherent longing that despite their greatest wishes and self admonishments result in a seemingly fated doom for all of them. What purpose did their silent prayer or intangible human longing serve? As humans, we are born alone and perish the same--yet in order to thrive we must commingle and develop relationships, both professional and interpersonal to further our survival and propagate the species. Yet even when these tasks are met, as is the case with Elizabeth Willard in Winesberg, Ohio, the loneliness and longing for which she suffers is almost magnified by her inability to communicate with her son and those around her. Is human internal suffering the price for evolution? And if there is no assurance of peace and fulfillment from an intangible yet perceivably real experience as human longing, especially given the ultimate misfortune of these characters despite their deepest urgencies, than what is the point of longing?

“I never took the smile away from anybody's face And that's a desperate way to look

For someone who is still a child”, lyrics by Big Country via their eponymous self titled track from 1983 perhaps best personify Melvilles’ charmingly innocent stuttering protagonist. Longing for acceptance and the power over language ultimately prove to be his undoing when, unbeknownst to him, he inadvertently creates a foe in the guise of lieutenant Claggart who both admires, envies, and perhaps lusts for the handsome buck whom has usurped him in popularity through naive charm and guile on the British Warship Bellipotent in the maritime exploration of the 18th century.

Despite Billy’s best intentions and even after discovering the accusations laid forth against him, Billy’s inability to overcome his handicap and control his, up to that point unseen, fury betray him and ultimately doom him to an unjust adjudication and death. How often are we, as humans, at the mercy of circumstances and forces unknown to us when we embark on a new venture or employment? Regardless of our best intentions, private observations, rumination, and wishes, are just as helpless as Billy, if a colleague, a manager, an educator, an administrator, etc of malicious intent-or perhaps arriving at a misconception even, acts against our interest, and we are just as powerless as Billy to stop it. Billy, of course, is ever the more tragic, because we observe omnipotently as the reader, that he is without recrimination and halted by his own inability to speak, seems a pawn in a greater metaphor of our lives as actors converging and collapsing upon corridor upon corridor on wooden ship rocked precariously by a violent and treacherous sea--a veritable chutes and ladders game-board of existence where the player has no concept of what may befall him/her next and no inner or outward pleading can circumvent arriving at following destination.

In the Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen, N’er do well photographer and friend to the inquisitive and moralizing upper class-man Gregers Werle, (for who's father both he and his father Ekdal are both capable of survival, yet for reasons that become apparent later, are also beset by his betrayal) struggles to both assert his dominance in his marriage and supply the attention his ill stricken daughter Hedvig so desperately vies for. But it is in Hedvig herself, a cheerful and hopeful innocent amidst a storm of an envy, hardship, and the product of infidelity and betrayal herself that proves the most tragic of this group of characters. The wounded wild duck saved and cared for by the senilic grandfather in the attic is a metaphor for her failing body, an affliction the (that) will eventually serve reveal her origin and dismantle her life. Though she lauds for the affection of her presumed father, ever facet of her life conspires to prevent her that validation: her withering eyesight, the seeds of discord planted by Gregers, a foreboding image on a book of her grandfathers she often revisit in his collection,:

“But then I look at the pictures. — There is one great big book called Harrison's History of London. It must be a hundred years old; and there are such heaps of pictures in it. At the beginning there is Death with an hour-glass and a woman. I think that is horrid. “

And ultimately the revelation fo her illegitimacy which leads her to commit suicide, a vain attempt to entreat her “father” even as a final solution of devotion. Hedvig seems to have been born to die before living life by circumstances beyond her scope of understanding and ultimately succumbed to it by her own design-alleviating her longing for the love and adoration she craved from a father who, though ironically was not biologically her own, but was arguably the only father she had known.

Elizabeth Willard in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesberg Ohio, the ill stricken wife of a failed politician who eventually abandons her and inheritor of the depreciating and dilapidated hotel in Winesberg, mother to would be journalist and central figure George, becomes a cartoonish ghoul like figure amidst the hotel walls, an actualization of inhibited longing and unrealized potential.

"When I have killed him," she tells herself, "something will snap within myself and I will die also. It will be a release for all of us."

We learn that in her more vibrant and philandering youth, Elizabeth meant to extricate herself from her unhappy marriage, revealing an inner turmoil and perhaps a penchant for violence, becomes unable to do so, and thus leads a silently tortured existence despite her son, for whom she is equally unable to communicate with--even so far as not being able to reveal to him the whereabouts of money she had hid away for herself in the event of her escape, on her death bed. Elizabeth’s inability to vocalize her yearning becomes the central aspect of her characterization-maybe even the crux of her recurring illness that will ultimately take her life. What good did any of her internal pining possible provide if she was unable to will action and leave?--solely an entire lifetime haunted by youth and circumstance, rage and desperation, the alienation of a son, and finally oblivion. What value did her feelings hold if they could not furnish her the tools of her emancipation?

Trapped in our psyche or trapped in a secret annexe. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank provides historical and biographical evidence of how the real world is no kinder or forgiving those individuals that are victim to bad timing and circumstance. Armed with an enthusiasm for learning, self examination, inherent insightfulness, and youthful optimism, Anne accounts the trials and travails she, her family, the Van Dann family, and Mr. Dussel, coupled with office employees of the 263 Prinsengracht office building in Holland who assisted in hiding the Jewish group from Gestapo police during the second world war in a secret attic two floor annex accessed behind a trick bookshelf, over the course of two and a half years. Ultimately the group are captured just before the allies liberated Holland and Anne perishes in a concentration camp. Though confined to shared cramped quarters and rationed food, Anne struggles and registers the plights of every teenager, the want of a brighter future, the validation of her parents, and the affection of a love interest.

“I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.”

Though Anne was wise enough to recognize the severity of her situation and of those being persecuted by the Nazis, she never lost her sense of longing and optimism for a better life and the satisfaction fo having her lust requited by Peter Van Dana, or the respect of her parents. She would never realize the freedom of the former, but ironically would the latter after her death and the remainder of her diary was collected by her father and published. But Annes’ own life was also, as in the characters in The Wild Duck, or Winesberg Ohio subject to circumstance and malevolent forces like in Billy Budd that would ultimately doom her. No amount of self analysis, hopeful prayers, or adolescent fantasizing could possibly be assured to save her.

Anne differs, in that, through her entries, we as readers have evidence of her innermost longings and perspective--a collection of memories forever frozen in time, by one who’s imprisonment was imposed on her. In Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence, Kemal Bey self imposes himself amidst a collection of trinkets, personal effects, and ephemera in his mother’s abandoned apartment that subsequently becomes an art museum in the real world imitating art in Orhan’s own creation in Istanbul, where which the story takes place in the 1970s, much as Anne’s Secret Annexe has become a museum of dark history.

In the case of the Kemal Bey, who we as the readers are deceived into believing is the true narrator of this robust tale of class, lust, love, addiction, and ultimate tragedy it is his desperate yearning for someone else, his shopgirl and much younger cousin Fusun with whom he engages in an affair that leads both the the separation of he and his fiancé, Fusun’s marrying another and the many years that ultimately reunite them, that unravels in the ruin and destruction of Fusun. Kemal believes his love for Fusun can overcome the convention of his time and class, Fusun’s marriage and time itself--his obsession and fixation on collecting mementos of their initial affair, ritualistic engagement with them, and insistence on breaking the barriers between them, seemingly cement their destiny together in his mind. Early on we are reminded in a tale about a distant relative relayed by Kemal’s mother ,by the true author, Orhan, whom we learn plays a fictional version of himself as confidante and biographer to Kemal, that a woman like Fusun, who is aspirational and libertine will quite literally crash and burn. The very conception of Kemal and Fusun’s relationship harkens back to a childhood witness to another car crash overlooking a ritual blood sacrifice of lamb. How could Fusun escape these heraldic omens that the author and has spun for her?

Of course, she does not and is violently penetrated beside her beloved Kemal in a booze generated car crash that ends her short life and fulfills the metaphoric prophesies strewn throughout the story.

The central feature of all these characters is their inability to circumvent the very circumstances lain before them that result in their demise, regardless of their deep desires and cravings for validation, extrication, absolution, and love. So what purpose does longing actually serve once our basest needs for survival are met, if not only to perpetuate an ever expiring existence of suffering, if not to be definitely met by a cruel fate of destruction, but not necessarily alleviated in a lifetime--especially if we are most often not given prescience or the tools needed to circumvent our circumstances and ascertain and attain whatever metaphysical “grail” we need to quench that uniquely human thirst.

SPJ

December 2018

#longing literature

0 notes

cantbrooklyn · 6 years ago

Text

Album of the Year #25: Kali Uchis - Isolation

Artist: Kali Uchis

Album: Isolation

Label: Universal Music

Release Date: April 6th, 2018

Listen

Apple Music

Spotify

Background

Kali Uchis is a 24-year-old Colombian-American singer. Her parents fled to America a couple of years before she was born in order to avoid conflict in Colombia. Born In Virginia, she bounded around between America and Colombia during her childhood. During her adolescence, she learned how to play several instruments and was always writing poetry and songs. At first, she was more interested in directing and writing and had no interest in singing herself. This changed when she decided to release her first mixtape in 2012, Drunken Babble. The project was met with positive reception as people lauded her ability to switch between genres and create her own lane and sound.

As she continued to release more music, her popularity grew and she began collaborating with more well-known artists and producers, particularly Diplo, Tyler the Creator, BadBadNotGood, Kaytranada, Snoop Dogg and The Gorillaz. The first three singles to Isolation, Tyrant, Nuestro Planeta and After the Storm, helped cement her fanbase even further. She performed several festivals in 2017 and at the beginning of 2018 was brought on as the opening act to Lana Del Ray's "LA to the Moon" tour at the beginning of 2018. Several features, including those with Daniel Caesar and Miguel, helped bring her name more into the mainstream as well. At the time of the release, Kali's fanbase was ready for the new album as her last full-length project was released in 2015.

Review

In a world where there are only two options for fans of rap and RnB music, drip or drown, it is refreshing to listen to a project as meaningful and palatable as Isolation. As our genre of music becomes more mainstream, the lyrics and impact of songs become diluted. This has been the case for quite some time and is by no means a new phenomenon, but for me, in 2018, I was actively searching for fresh perspectives and new voices to listen to in hopes of breaking the uniformity and staleness of modern rap. Enter Kali Uchis, a 24-year-old female singer from Colombia. Prior to listening to this album, my knowledge of her music was limited, but I had seen that the project received praise here on HHH, so the day after the release I decided to listen. I will dissect the album more thoroughly later in the piece, but just from a holistic perspective, this project was amazing. The airy, up-beat instrumentals coupled with Kali’s incredible vocals make for such a great combination. For me, a project is good if I can feel transported to the world that the artist is in and describing. With Isolation, I felt exactly that – sitting on the beach drinking something out of a coconut with the WhoDatMiami American flag bathing suit on.

The album begins with “Body Language”, an invitation to the listener to explore the life of Kali Uchis. Featuring production and writing from Om’mas Keith, frequent Frank Ocean collaborator, the spacious and flute-heavy beat set the table for a deeper dive into the album and the whimsical and capricious lifestyle of our narrator. “Just come closer” she urges the listener, and how can you not with how perfect her vocals sound? The track transitions into “Miami”, which is an ode to the empowerment of women and how today, immigrants like Kali and featured artist Bia do not have to conform to previously-established gender roles and they can pursue success in any medium they choose to. The line, “He said he'd want me in his video like Bound 1. But why would I be Kim? I could be Kanye. In the land of opportunity and palm trees” encapsulates her desire to break free from traditional paths to fame for women. Quoted about this line, Kali said, “I’m not the Kim on your motorcycle, btch. I’m the one riding the sht.” Kali is in control of her own fate and will not be marginalized by the system that has set her up to fail.

With “Just a Stranger”, Kali flips another trope within rap music completely on its head. Ever since Kanye dropped Late Registration, rap fans have held disdain for gold diggers who simply use artists like Kanye for their wealth and notoriety without actually caring for them. But have those same listeners ever asked themselves why gold diggers exist? Kali seeks to provide an answer – the Colombian-American singer bashes the stereotype completely and lauds woman going after what they need. “When bellies are hungry, but there ain't no money you get it and don't care how.” As an immigrant woman, Kali faces obstacles on a daily basis that male rappers do not. She feels no remorse taking advantage of someone for money because the odds are against her and she has to get it how she can.

Kali continues to address the hardships that immigrants face in “Your Teeth in my Neck”. Within the track, over a bouncy instrumental which I think is my favorite on the album, she discusses how no matter how hard she works, her material keeps getting ripped off and people are appropriating her art. This is a common theme within music, particularly with Americans hopping on trends started and popularized by immigrants. After all, who would have ever thought that Beyoncé would be on “Mi Gente” and Drake would be saying “tings”? This also seems to be a dig at the music industry as a whole, saying that artists are taken advantage of by large record labels, only to be worked and churned out when their popularity diminishes. It is an unfortunate reality, but Kali knows that with persistence and hard work, she will be able to overcome these obstacles.

Within the larger context of the album, Kali also addresses her love life and the relationships the she has been in. In “Flight 22” she floats over the beat, singing about her unrequited love and that no matter where she is going on this trip, she wants to be with this lover. This track truly highlights how incredible her voice is. As someone who was in a new relationship when this album dropped (and still is!), this song resonated with me a lot. I knew that wherever I was going, I wanted my girlfriend with me. On the contrary, Kali addresses some of the hardships she has dealt with in relationships. In “Tyrant” featuring Jorja Smith (you should also check her album out as well!), they discuss the idea of staying closed off in a relationship in order to avoid being overly-exposed and in-turn, manipulated. Kali has addressed previous relationships in which she was taken advantage of, so it is no surprise that she is approaching this new love with some restraint. Even though she is madly in love, she is afraid to show it because she does not want to get hurt again. Whoever you are, I think we can all relate to that feeling in some capacity.

On “Dead to Me”, Kali dismisses a past fling, asking the previous lover to simply leave her alone. Even though this person is still obsessed with her, she just wants things to end. I think this track is very relevant, especially with what is going on with Cardi B and Offset right now. Whether their breakup is legitimate or not, the way that the rap community has reacted to it is disgusting in my opinion. Constantly urging Cardi to take back Offset and forgive him for whatever he did wrong is exactly the ways of thinking that propagates the type of behavior discussed in the song. Many men believe they are entitled to whichever women they want and in turn, cannot handle rejection in an appropriate way. Kali is sticking up for herself, and declaring that in her eyes, this person is dead. On a musical note, this beat features one of my favorite instrumentals of the album with airy synths and drums backing her.

Nuestro Planet is a song completely in Spanish featuring Reykon, a Colombian reggaeton rapper. From a production standpoint, this song differs from the album a bit with a more latin-influenced beat. In this it is a great change of pace on the album and even though the listener may not understand what she is saying, it is still sonically pleasing and easy to follow along with. Admittedly, the message of this song of Kali yearning to have things return to how they were with her lover falls a bit flat relative to the depth and importance of some of the other tracks on the album.

Next, enters my favorite sequence of songs on the album – “In My Dreams” into “Gotta Get Up”. “In My Dreams” is an absolute banger in every sense of the word. The use of guitar and light percussion make for such a minimalist yet profound beat. This is a song that when it comes on, you just can’t help but nod your head along to it. This is the most positive song on the track, discussing this utopian dream world for Kali in which all her problems are erased and everything is perfect, but only in her dreams. Her bills are paid, her mom isn’t on coke, boys treat her properly – its great! “Why isn’t everyone here?” she wonders aloud. Well, her question is quickly answered when her alarm goes off and she is awoken and slammed with the hardships of her everyday life yet again. This song is another great display of her vocals, showcasing her range as she belts out that she has to get out of bed and look for something in real life that can match what she yearned for in her dreams.

The next track, “Tomorrow”, talks about Kali’s desire to break-free from her everyday life and follow her dreams. Even though things seem dim in this small town, she urges her lover to follow with her on a path to freedom. All she wants to do is day-dream and pursue her dreams, pushing reality to be addressed tomorrow. The song is produced by Kevin Parker of Tame Impala. The beat compliments the message of the sing so well as the spacey synths give a bounce to the track. Kali rides the instrumental beautifully.

“Coming Home” talks about how no matter what Kali does, there will always be people who disapprove of her, but she is fine with that. Featuring one of the best beat switches of 2018 (no cap), she talks about she intends to stay true to her roots and remain confident despite all the negativity she is surrounded with. When you are a female artist in a community largely dominated by males, appearance is something that is unfortunately brought-up a lot. Regardless of what people say though, she simply intends to “keep It moving.”

“After the Storm” is truly a masterpiece. Odds are, if you have listened to one song on this project, it was presumably this one because of the Tyler feature. The message of this song is so overwhelmingly positive and encouraging. For 12 songs, Kali has talked about countless issues and obstacles she has faced as a result of her gender and ethnicity and despite all of that, she urges the listener to remain positive and that even though things may be hard now, they will get better. As someone who tends to overreact and snowball from small issues in my life, this song truly helps to put things in perspective for me. The calming and transient ambiance of the song helps reassure the listener that even when it rains, the sun will shine once again.

The final two songs return to relationship issues, the first in which she discusses how no one likes to be taken advantage of in a relationship. Even though she was cheated on, Kali cannot cope and is acting as if everything is the same in her life. This song shows that even though Kali is working towards independence, there are still moments of weakness that we all face. These moments are underscored on “Killer”, the concluding song of the album. This song was recorded when Kali was 17, which is truly a testament to how talented she really is. I think this track shows just how much progress she has made as a woman over the years. Instead of being upset and yearning for her past lover as she did when she was younger, she now has grown and is able to see how she can learn and move forward from this time. Kali wrote this song while she was living out of her car and shows just how low things were for her at the time. It is a reminder to the listener that even though things are looking better now, experiences like these are what guided her to where she is today.

To me, this project just feels so important in the context of the current political landscape. In a world where a GoFundMe to build a wall has $16mm donated to it, we need to throw our support behind strong, immigrant women who show that no matter what race or country you are from, you can be a positive contribution to the community. I strongly urge you to listen to this project, especially if you live in warm weather as this album just screams summer to me. Furthermore, if you are already a fan, see Kali in concert. She was absolutely incredible and was one of my favorite shows of the year. Her bravado on stage compliments her music so well and her vocals sound even better in person.

Thank you for reading and for those celebrating, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Favorite Lyrics

The sun'll come out

Nothing good ever comes easy

I know times are rough

But winners don't quit

So don't you give up

After The Storm (Featuring Tyler The Creator and Bootsy Collins)

I'm feeling happy inside

I've got no reason to hide

I'm a dream girl

I'm never stressing my bills

Nobody ever gets killed

It's the dream world

In My Dreams

Today is the day I'll learn that I believe in miracles

I can feel the world opening up, I think I broke the curse

Tomorrow

Discussion Questions

What were your thoughts on the album?

How important to you is finding music from new perspectives?

Is it important to listen to music that spreads a positive message and helps to eradicate stereotypes and limitations placed on marginalized groups (in this case immigrants and women)? Is this something you consider when consuming music?

Do you think Kali will transition into the "pop lane"?

From a musical perspective, any other albums that you would recommend that have a similar sound?

submitted by /u/Loubanga [link] [comments] from /r/HipHopHeads on Reddit http://bit.ly/2T5dbiY via http://bit.ly/2BG3T63

#Reddit #hiphopheads #cantbrooklyn #cbk #blog

0 notes

imnewtoethnomusicology · 7 years ago

Text

Creativity and Mental Illness

“If people could see into my heart, I would almost be ashamed - everything is cold to me - ice cold,” (Gay 91).

Many psychologists, looking back at Mozart’s life, believe that Mozart suffered from depression or bipolar disorder. Mozart, although his music was succeeding, would often talk in his letters to his father and others about feeling sad and guilty, that his interest in composing was decreasing, he was having a loss of energy, and was unable to concentrate. Mozart was recorded as having an abnormal sleep schedule, not being able to handle money, and having troubles with alcohol. According to today’s diagnostic standards, Mozart had depression, and perhaps mild bipolar disorder.

Vincent Van Gogh

While there are countless examples of artists who struggled with mental illness, perhaps one of the most well-known examples is Vincent Van Gogh. The extraordinary artist is known for cutting off his own ear, without any real explanation besides his words to the young woman he gifted it to, telling her to keep it safe like some valuable object. Van Gogh is thought to have suffered from manic depressive disorder, if not severe depression. Most of this is inferred from his letters to his brother- similar to our knowledge of W.A. Mozart’s life. A quote from Van Gogh in one of his letters shows a typical description of a depressive episode: “I am so angry with myself because I cannot do what I should like to do, and at such a moment one feels as if one were lying bound hand and foot at the bottom of a deep dark well, utterly helpless.”

History shows time and time again that geniuses and artists have always had a relationship with mental illness. This video explores some of that relationship and examines the possibilities of brain activity influencing creativity: https://youtu.be/VWzhVauFbSU

This article talks specifically about Van Gogh’s life and talks about how while he was severely depressed, he also had moments of happiness where he loved his life. “…Van Gogh ultimately sees his psychological struggles not as something to negate but as his artistic truth, as a vital part of his honest experience, which is the necessary foundation of great art”

(www.brainpickings.org/2014/06/05/van-gogh-and-mental-illness/ )

David Bowie

Born January 8, 1947, Brixton, London, United Kingdom as David Robert Jones, David Bowie slowly became an idol in many genres in his 69 years here. David Bowie experienced much success in his life, and he was many things to many different people. He practiced a form of writing, known as character writing, where he invented a character and wrote music for them rather than himself. Some of his most famous characters are Ziggy Stardust of 1972- most popular for his alternative glam rock, and the Thin White Duke of 1975, who is known for his neo-romance. Though what many people don’t know is that this style of writing was adopted by Bowie in an effort to help him overcome his severe anxiety. David was known for retreating into lonely solitude for several weeks, disappearing, and waiting for inspiration. He did so famously in 1976 upon retiring his Thin White Duke character, suddenly uprooting and moving to West Berlin in an attempt to finally ditch his cocaine addiction. During this time, Bowie is said to have made many bold and dangerous cries for help as well as expressing thoughts of suicide. He ultimately emerged having written what is now known as the Berlin trilogy, part of which can be heard below.

It is often said of David Bowie that he did not have fans in his early years but instead an army of young acolytes, buying every album and seeing every movie where Bowie had influence. Over his time, David Bowie’s beautiful, unique, and ever changing art inspired many to overcome their own struggles. David himself was seen as many things: a musician, actor, poet, writer, LGBTQ+ icon, and some even considered him an alien. Though in the end, as with all artists, it is impossible to describe all the many things he was to so many people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBuwC4VJi50

Demi Lovato

Singer and former Disney actress, Demi Lovato recently released a documentary on Youtube, where she talks about her experiences with anorexia, bipolar disorder, and drug addiction, as well as being bullied in school. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpDylTwwunc Throughout her career she has produced music that is more upbeat, and also music about serious topics. In 2008 she released a song called Believe In Me, which was inspired by many of her personal struggles. Trigger warning: the first of the following two links are the official music video, which contains images of self-harm, suicide, and eating disorders. The second link is just the lyrics on the screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz12ctve2sc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zcr3kJ8l0k

In the past few years as she has been working on her own recovery she has become an advocate for mental health, and participates in anti-bullying campaigns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsy01iN1Bcc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu9Z5naWaEw

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a man of many talents, including mathematics and photography, is most well known as Lewis Carroll, the writer of the acclaimed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

In his book “Autism and Creativity”, Michael Fitzgerald says that “from the many accounts of his life he clearly displayed significant features of [high functioning autism/Asperger's]” (Fitzgerald 194). One aspect of Carroll’s personality that points towards autism was that he was more comfortable around children rather than adults; “he was obsessed with ‘child nature’, in which he saw ‘the primitive and pure, the noble and divine…he yearned for their favor and friendship’” (Fitzgerald 198). Carroll could easily enlighten and humor children, by inventing puzzles, games, and stories, and the children immensely enjoyed his company. This trait most likely came from entertaining his eight younger siblings. Those that knew Carroll growing up commented that he was very close to them as a child, playful and spirited, but as he aged he detached himself from them. “People testified over and over again that ‘when they were children, he was as completely at ease with them, that they found him fluent, kind, open-minded, and open-hearted” (Fitzgerald, 198).

Contrary to his playful personality he showed around children, many adults had the view that Carroll, in person, proved serious and austere; he was never one to make a joke or witty comment. Carroll’s teachings as a lecturer were also seen as rigid; “his students routinely found him clear and knowledgeable but dry if not boring” (Harris-Fain 47). This might have been because of his distaste for lecturing, proven in 1880 when he requested that the church lower his salary because he was working fewer hours and he did not enjoy it. Fitzgerald mentions, that Carroll was noted for having a “singular and perfunctory manner in which he imparted instruction…never betraying the slightest personal interest in matters that were of deep concern to students” (197).

Carroll has been referred to as having “a compulsive orderliness.” Everything in his life was in order, and this way of life often affected those around him as well. Fitzgerald notes that “according to Cohen, his ‘devotion to the rigid laws of logic led to a rigid, uncompromising set of rules that governed his life and spilled over into the lives of others’” (199). One example of Carroll’s orderliness was his reading habits. He was a remarkable reader and had a methodical way that he set about reading, as he believed that paying close attention to detail is the most important rule of reading. Other eccentricities of Carroll’s were his fixation on the number forty-two, which made many appearances in his letters and works, and his “belief that ‘Tuesdays were his lucky days” (Fitzgerald 199). A quite peculiar practice of Carroll’s was his tea making method. Fitzgerald explains that Isa Bowman, a childhood friend of Carroll’s, “recalls him ‘walking up and down his sitting room swaying the teapot to and fro for precisely 10 minutes in order to achieve the desired brew” (199).

Not only did Carroll have a fixation with certain activities and beliefs, but he also was exact in his sense of being the same. Not as in staying the same as others around him, but staying true to his own consistency. For example, Fitzgerald notes that “at Oxford [Carroll] always wore black clergyman’s clothes except when boating on the river, when he would swap them for white flannel trousers and a white straw hat” (200). Carroll was also known for maintaining and obsessing about his interests, specifically photography, writing, and mathematics. He was so fixated on these that he would often skip meals and work into most of the night in order to finish what he had set his mind to. Routines such as these add to Carroll’s orderly lifestyle.

It seems peculiar that a man with such a strict life would be the author of works like “The Hunting of the Snark” that are described as having an “anti-meaning”, “more about being than meaning, listening that seeing, feeling than thinking” (Fitzgerald 200). When Carroll was asked to give an explanation about what this poem was about, Carroll confessed that he himself didn’t know, and he also seemed quite displeased that others were looking for meanings that weren’t there. This is the same man who was described by his headmaster at school as someone who was “so jealous of error, that he [would] not rest satisfied without the most exact solution of whatever [appeared] to him obscure” (Fitzgerald 196). This diversity is exactly what makes Carroll’s writing complex and enjoyed by many. https://www.biography.com/video/lewis-carroll-wonderland-writer-19665987921

It is noted that Carroll’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland contains no moral, which, odd for the time when it was written, causes the text to be incomprehensible. Some believe that the reason for the lack of a moral was that Carroll was upset at the overuse of “moral baggage” and decided not to prove it. Will Self, an English novelist among many things, described that

“all significant texts are distinguished by the preponderance of a single word. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland the word is ‘curious’. The word ‘curious’ appears so frequently in Lewis Carroll’s text that it becomes a kind of toxin awakening us from our reverie. But it isn’t the strangeness of Alice’s Wonderland that reminds us of–it’s the bizarre incomprehensibility of our own.”

While the novel appears to have gone without a moral, Carroll made sure to create a book that would allow the reader to think heavily on topics that they might not normally consider. This is not even mentioning the numerous mathematical puzzles, allusions, and linguistic playfulness.

Carroll’s ability to take the concept of structure and routine with the concept of fantasy and imaginativeness to create “nonsense” literary works are what truly make him a well-recognized and prized author. Psychologists believe that this skill no-doubt came from him having High Functioning Autism.

Credit

Vincent Van Gogh - Serena Stieglitz-Bishop

David Bowie - Rosemary Bennett

Demi Lovato - Sammie Carper

Intro & Lewis Carroll - Janelle Purser

1 note · View note

i-am-very-very-tired · 8 years ago

Link

Interview Magazine tapped Solange Knowles’ big sis Beyoncé to conduct their interview for the latest issue of the mag. The two siblings chopped it up about the makings of Solo’s critically acclaimed A Seat At The Table, the meanings and importance of cuts like Cranes In The Sky and other treasurable tidbits about Solo’s voice then and now, family life and growing up in Houston. BEYONCÉ: Are you exhausted? I know you had a parent-teacher conference … SOLANGE: Yeah, I actually had to fly to Philly because there were no flights left to New York. And now I’m driving from Philly to New York. Well, I’m not driving, but … BEYONCÉ: You have to drive? From Philly? SOLANGE: Yeah. But it’s not bad. It’s only an hour and 40 minutes. BEYONCÉ: Oh my God! Rock star. Well, it is a bit strange, because we’re sisters and we talk all the time, to be interviewing you. But I’m so happy to interview you because, clearly, I’m your biggest fan and I’m super proud of you. So we’ll start from the beginning. Growing up, you were always attracted to the most interesting fashion, music, and art. You were obsessed with Alanis Morissette and Minnie Riperton and mixing prints with your clothes … when you were only 10 years old. You would lock yourself in a room with your drum set and a record player and write songs. Do you remember that? Of course you do. SOLANGE: I do. [both laugh] BEYONCÉ: What else attracted you growing up? SOLANGE: I remember having so much perspective about my voice, and how to use my voice, at such a young age—whether it was through dance, poetry, or coming up with different projects. I guess I always felt a yearning to communicate—I had a lot of things to say. And I appreciated y’all’s patience in the house during all of these different phases. They were not ever very introverted, quiet phases. BEYONCÉ: No, not at all. [both laugh] I remember thinking, “My little sister is going to be something super special,” because you always seemed to know what you wanted. And I’m just curious, where did that come from? SOLANGE: I have no idea, to be honest! I always knew what I wanted. We damn sure know that I wasn’t always right. [both laugh] But I’d sit firm, whether I was right or wrong. I guess a part of that was being the baby of the family and being adamant that, in a house of five, my voice was being heard. Another part is that I remember being really young and having this voice inside that told me to trust my gut. And my gut has been really, really strong in my life. It’s pretty vocal and it leads me. Sometimes I haven’t listened, and those times didn’t end up very well for me. I think all of our family—you and mom—we’re all very intuitive people. A lot of that comes through our mother, her always following her gut, and I think that spoke to me really loudly at a young age and encouraged me to do the same. BEYONCÉ: You write your own lyrics, you co-produce your own tracks, you write your own treatments for your videos, you stage all of your performances, all of the choreography … Where does the inspiration come from? SOLANGE: It varies. For one, I got to have a lot of practice. Growing up in a household with a master class such as yourself definitely didn’t hurt. And, as far back as I can remember, our mother always taught us to be in control of our voice and our bodies and our work, and she showed us that through her example. If she conjured up an idea, there was not one element of that idea that she was not going to have her hand in. She was not going to hand that over to someone. And I think it’s been an interesting thing to navigate, especially watching you do the same in all aspects of your work: Society labels that a control freak, an obsessive woman, or someone who has an inability to trust her team or to empower other people to do the work, which is completely untrue. There’s no way to succeed without having a team and all of the moving parts that help bring it into life. But I do have—and I’m unafraid to say it—a very distinctive, clear vision of how I want to present myself and my body and my voice and my perspective. And who better to really tell that story than yourself? For this record specifically, it really started with wanting to unravel some truths and some untruths. There were things that had been weighing heavy on me for quite some time. And I went into this hole, trying to work through some of these things so that I could be a better me and be a better mom to Julez and be a better wife and a better friend and a better sister. Which is a huge part of why I wanted you to interview me for this piece. Because the album really feels like storytelling for us all and our family and our lineage. And having mom and dad speak on the album, it felt right that, as a family, this closed the chapter of our stories. And my friends’ stories—every day, we’re texting about some of the micro-aggressions we experience, and that voice can be heard on the record, too. The inspiration for this record came from all of our voices as a collective, and wanting to look at it and explore it. I’m so happy I got to take my time in that process. And the end result feels really rewarding. BEYONCÉ: Well, it brought tears to my eyes to hear both of our parents speak openly about some of their experiences. And what made you choose Master P to speak on the album? SOLANGE: Well, I find a lot of similarities in Master P and our dad. BEYONCÉ: Me, too. [laughs] SOLANGE: One of the things that was really, really deep for me in talking to Dad is his experience of having the community choose you [as one of the first students to integrate his Southern elementary and junior high school]—to do that, to go out and be the warrior and the face of that is just such an incredible amount of pressure. And to evolve from that and still have your sense of independence and still have your stride and your strength, and to dream big enough that you can create something from the ground up bigger than any community, neighborhood, or those four corners … I remember reading or hearing things about Master P that reminded me so much of Dad growing up. And they also have an incredible amount of love and respect for one another. And I wanted a voice throughout the record that represented empowerment and independence, the voice of someone who never gave in, even when it was easy to lose sight of everything that he built, someone invested in black people, invested in our community and our storytelling, in empowering his people. You and I were raised being told not to take the first thing that came our way, to build our own platforms, our own spaces, if they weren’t available to us. And I think that he is such a powerful example of that. BEYONCÉ: What does the song title “Cranes in the Sky” mean? SOLANGE: “Cranes in the Sky” is actually a song that I wrote eight years ago. It’s the only song on the album that I wrote independently of the record, and it was a really rough time. I know you remember that time. I was just coming out of my relationship with Julez’s father. We were junior high school sweethearts, and so much of your identity in junior high is built on who you’re with. You see the world through the lens of how you identify and have been identified at that time. So I really had to take a look at myself, outside of being a mother and a wife, and internalize all of these emotions that I had been feeling through that transition. I was working through a lot of challenges at every angle of my life, and a lot of self-doubt, a lot of pity-partying. And I think every woman in her twenties has been there—where it feels like no matter what you are doing to fight through the thing that is holding you back, nothing can fill that void. I used to write and record a lot in Miami during that time, when there was a real estate boom in America, and developers were developing all of this new property. There was a new condo going up every ten feet. You recorded a lot there as well, and I think we experienced Miami as a place of refuge and peace. We weren’t out there wilin’ out and partying. I remember looking up and seeing all of these cranes in the sky. They were so heavy and such an eyesore, and not what I identified with peace and refuge. I remember thinking of it as an analogy for my transition—this idea of building up, up, up that was going on in our country at the time, all of this excessive building, and not really dealing with what was in front of us. And we all know how that ended. That crashed and burned. It was a catastrophe. And that line came to me because it felt so indicative of what was going on in my life as well. And, eight years later, it’s really interesting that now, here we are again, not seeing what’s happening in our country, not wanting to put into perspective all of these ugly things that are staring us in the face. You can read the interview in its entirety over on Interview’s site.

0 notes

aion-rsa · 8 years ago

Text

DC’s Young Animal: Perfect Comics for the Smiths Fan

Sometimes, comics and music go together like peanut butter and jelly. That is the case for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint and the music of the Smiths. The imprint, curated by Gerard Way, sets out to reinvigorate old concepts and introduce new ones through a bold, strange lens. In fact, it comes with a weirdness that can be appreciated by the Smiths fan. The Young Animal comics are all unified by an underlying sadness — something consistent with all Smiths music — while laced with a fun beat that can be enjoyed by the masses.

RELATED: How Does Gerard Way’s Young Animal Stack Up to Early Vertigo?

As much as they ponder painful existence, there is a real joy to these comics that embrace the medium in a new exciting form, while bringing a real melancholy to them. They’re the kinds of comics you can’t plow through in two minutes — they take time to digest, re-read, even re-listen to, in a way. Each title can even be associated with a specific Smiths song from the group’s titular album, if you will. Below, we draw attention to these alignments, outlining why exactly they tick, and what makes them the perfect comics for the Smiths fan.

Doom Patrol: Still Ill

“I decreed today that life is simply taking and not giving…Does the body rule the mind, or does the mind rule the body? I don’t know…”

When pondering the latest run on “Doom Patrol” by Gerard Way and Nick Derington, I can’t help but think of the harrowing track “Still Ill.” It’s perhaps the most upbeat and catchy tune on the Smiths’ first album, and yet has the most haunting lyrics, kind of like “Doom Patrol” itself. Just as the song contemplates the nature of being mentally ill, and its often mysterious and indistinguishable connection to the body and the mind, “Doom Patrol” offers a similar contemplation of being ill — but relates that to being a super-powered freak.

RELATED: 13 Vertigo Series That Need the Young Animal Treatment

Each character in the new series is strange in an obvious way, struggling to grasp their place in an inter-dimensional reality. While the concepts are huge and weird, there’s a basic melancholy and out-of-place sense we get from these characters. If you’re listening to “Still Ill” while reading a “Doom Patrol” comic, the lyrics “We cannot cling to the old dreams anymore” should really echo.

youtube

Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye: What Difference Does It Make?

“All men have secrets and here is mine, so let it be known. For we have been through hell and high tide, I think I can rely on you…”

The track “What Difference Does It Make?” accurately captures the sadness found in of “Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye,” and the broken family connections at the core of the series. While the song goes on about an unrequited love, “Cave Carson” shares a similar theme, albeit unromantic, as our protagonist struggles to reconnect with his daughter in the wake of his wife’s death.

RELATED:Gerard Way on “Doom Patrol’s” Legacy, Young Animal’s Hive-Mind Approach

The rockin’ guitar riff reflects Cave’s unending desire for exploration, even as he deals with being a widower. But there’s also a haunting backdrop to the song, as we’re reminded throughout: “What difference does it make?” in a very bitter way. While there’s a resilience, there’s a sense of anger and longing — much like “Cave Carson.”

youtube

Shade, The Changing Girl: You’ve Got Everything Now

“Back at the old grey school, I would win and you would lose…”

There’s a real ego-centrism to Smiths tracks that a lot of fans kind of hate to admit. As much as they’re laced with self-pity, they’re narcissistic in a way with their obsession with the self. This can perhaps be exemplified best on their first album by the track “You’ve Got Everything Now,” which explores the sadness that lingers even after you’ve been given everything you could ever want.

That really rings true for “Shade, the Changing Girl” — a tale about a truly bratty teenage girl who falls into a coma after an accident, only to awake with the mystical powers (and possibly the mind) of Rac Shade. But another connection that binds the song and the comic is they way they demonstrate how different you can see the world from everyone else. Where Morrissey yearns for solace from day-to-day life in the track, “Shade, the Changing Girl” explores a new lens on everyday life with its psychedelic imagery — illustrating that there’s something magical to life that some people just can’t see.

youtube

Mother Panic: I Don’t Owe You Anything

“Bought on stolen wine, and was the first step, you knew very well, what was coming next…”

Like “I Don’t Owe You Anything,” “Mother Panic” is a story about someone being very, very selfish. Part-time vigilante Violet Paige is, at her core, a booze-guzzling, cigarette-smoking, ignorant asshole — she wants nothing to do with everyday life, and she doesn’t care what anyone thinks. To a certain extent, Morrissey echoes that sentiment in his track, as he explains over and over that someone he “walked all this way” for simply “does not want to go out tonight.”

RELATED: Doomed From the Start: A Look Back at DC’s Doom Patrol

Reading “Mother Panic,” I can’t help but hear the monotonous elevator music-sounding bass riff and think of the monotony that Violet must feel engaging with other human beings. In the track you really get a sense of the frustration and boredom that comes with trying to woo someone uninterested — and there’s certainly no one less interested in you, or what you have to say, than Violet Paige.

youtube

Does the Young Animal imprint evoke another kind of music for you personally? Are there other Smiths songs that you feel better associate with the Young Animal titles? Sound off with your thoughts and more in CBR’s DC Comics forum — and be sure to leave a note in the comments!

The post DC’s Young Animal: Perfect Comics for the Smiths Fan appeared first on CBR.com.

http://ift.tt/2i4mOz5

#Aion_Rsa

0 notes