#the reason why there's so many wilbur songs is because his album your city gave me asthma helped me sleep for like the first two weeks

[4-25-am]

nami’s most listened to songs of the month! ~january edition part one~

1) heat waves - glass animals 

other than the obvious which would be the dream smp brain rot, this song is a vibe! there’s this one drum part right before the chorus starts and it feels so satisfying. the heavy bass sets the scene of melancholy and dilemma. but when the chorus starts the song feels lighter because the lyrics scream yearning and bittersweet hope.

this whole song to me is the definition of loving someone but also knowing you're not good for them. this can be summarised with the second verse : now i gotta let you go, you’ll be better off with someone new, i don’t wanna be alone, you know it hurts me too, you look so broken when you cry, one more and then I say goodbye (the drums stop in the last two lines mentioned and the sudden emptiness feels like a punch to the gut)

2) hayloft - mother mother

my friends call it anxiety inducing music. i call it my badass villain entrance music. i really like repetition in music so the whole bit with “my daddy’s got a gun. you better run.” it fuels me with the confidence of an anime villain. the guitar is immaculate it scratches my brain just right.

the bridge!!!! I love it. all the instruments are dropped so its only vocals for the first line and then there’s a single strum of the guitar that cuts through which I imagine to represent the father entering the hayloft. and then the instruments just go boom at “loft!”. sexy. the drums. following that is so underrated but it gives so much flavour

3) saline solution - wilbur (tw// substance abuse, depression, mentions of death)

strumming. pattern. is so pretty. there’s a somewhat soothing melody and calmness to the song which is ironic because the song is about depression, substance abuse and many more not so soothing topics. the song picks up speed after the bridge. in a way i see it as crossing the line from misery and sadness to straight up unhinged and self-awareness. 

the fact that the song is called saline solution is so smart because saline solution is an all in one product which essentially fixes all your problems. and boy does he have a lot of problems. i think i've made my choice. i'm a deceased playing victim. slip the fate slip the victory. i think i've made my choice. sink secluded in hatred. void the plans friends are making. I think I've found my voice. i'm a leech sucking blood bags. taste defeat, it's a sandbag. : just about sums up how he no matter how hard he tries he’s just not himself anymore. he’s not the person his friends know. but at the end of the day, he’s still crushed by his problems.

4) your sister was right - wilbur 

what can i say about this song hm... it’s a bittersweet realisation that you were the problem all along. the lyrics speaks for itself. its half a reflection of himself and half a letter/apology to his ex. it’s coming to terms that you fucked up : i hate to say it but your sister was right. don't trust english boys with far too much free time. i hate to say it but your sister was right. i'm nothing but a problem, leave you crying overnight. and i hate to say it but your sister was right. i can't focus on the future, only my short sight. i hate to say it but your sister was right. i'm a wanker, complete wanker. a fucking waste of time

the song itself has a pretty simple strumming pattern nothing too out of the ordinary. it carries just the right amount of weight for a song that’s pretty emotional. it's a good middle ground of weight in a pretty heavy album.

5) jubilee line - wilbur (tw//implied suicide)

oh my god, where do i begin? this song is so sad. the lines are really short so it feels almost like a poem than a prose. the lyrics are not very forthcoming and you have to read between the lines a bit more. when you do read between the lines is when you realise how heavy the song actually is : there’s a reason, london put barriers on the tube line. there’s a reason, london put barriers on the rails. there’s a reason, london put barriers on the tube line. there’s a reason, london put barriers on the rails. there’s a reason, they failed.

[purgeturbia]

GOING TO TALK ABOUT STYLISTIC VOCAL CHOICES REAL QUICKLY PLEASE EXCUSE ME WHILE I NERD OUT

k So. this is something i’m a huge fan of because it totally changes the tone of a song when it’s used and it just so happens that many of my favorite artists are very skilled at it, which probably explains why i like them so much. 

what i’ve noticed is that there’s a difference between singing quietly because that’s what the dynamic markings in the sheet music call for and singing quietly because you’re restraining yourself. like something bigger is going to happen and you need to save your strength for it. or like something bigger could happen but it shouldn’t.

(this is hella long. like, almost 2k words long. so the rest is under the cut)

first place i noticed this was actually with wilbur soot’s vocals on the fall, from lovejoy’s ep pebble brain. in his first (solo) album, your city gave me asthma, wilbur was pretty consistent with singing quietly just for the sake of singing quietly. which is why it was quite surprising when in the fall he busted out this new technique. the fall is an angry song, generally. anger at british politicians, anger at the world. but the first verse is sung piano/mezzo piano, so upon first listen it just sounds kind of contemplative. however. it is very much so not contemplative. you can actively hear in wilbur’s voice how he’s holding himself back. how he has more to give but he’s not giving it, which really drives home the contrast when at the end of the song he’s literally just screaming into the microphone. 

he had feelings! he had so many feelings the whole song but they meant so much more because he didn’t let them all out in the open until the end. (and moving away from vocals for a second because this Also deserves recognition -- the instrumentals for a lot of the song are really minimal and tend toward being staccato, which just adds to the feeling of holding back because every chord sounds like it’s being cut off). the contrast is also so much more beautiful because while wilbur’s vocals aren’t often incredibly loud, on lovejoy’s music so far they’ve never been this quiet. there’s a reason for them being as reserved as they are and damn does it pay off. there’s a reason why the fall is so many people’s favorite song off the ep (it is for me only second to it’s all futile! it’s all pointless! for reasons of iafiap is really good).

second place is actually with dodie. she is so much more a quiet singer than she is a loud one, so this one is definitely not as obvious, but. it’s there and it Works. we’re gonna go ahead and disregard her more upbeat pop-style stuff for this because it’s not as quiet and doesn’t really have any effect on the Vibe Difference i want to talk about, but i do want to note that every song they’ve ever released is a banger go listen to it right now this is the law thank you. anyway. there’s a difference between her vocals in songs like arms unfolding, soft and cozy and mildly depressing, and songs like i kissed someone (it wasn’t you) and human. the latter two songs are definitely more on the restrained end of the spectrum. it’s the difference between talking to your best friend on the couch at 1 am, just having fun, and telling them your biggest secret. 

it’s the difference between sharing the parts of you that are sad and lonely and yearning but overall nice and digestible, vs. sharing the parts of you that people usually don’t want to hear about. the parts that aren’t so nice. the parts that hurt to say and hurt to look at. the difference in tone is what makes you understand that human isn’t just a normal love song -- it’s about being fucked up and codependent. their choice to use restraint here is part of what makes their music have actual Variety instead of all just sounding the same (which is so frustratingly common in the World of Modern Music TM). because of her general style this is a way more subtle difference and i also could be making it up BUT assuming it was on purpose and i just got lucky enough to notice that she is a Genius (which, like. she is anyway BUT U GET WHAT IM SAYING) i feel like it fits the discussion here.

and for the grand finale let us talk about my favorite incredibly talented music wizards or whichever sufficiently mystical way you would like to refer to them: the amazing devil. i’m gonna focus my discussion on ruin (the album, but also later the song) for this one, simply because i don’t even need to talk about any of the rest of their discography to get my point across, but know that this does happen in other places and it does emotionally destroy me every other time it happens as well. so! 

something i adore about this particular example is that joey motherfucking batey is so goddamn talented that he uses different levels of restraint within the same fucking song (is that song nine minutes long? yes. doesn’t matter. still unfair of him). i am of course talking about the old witch sleep and the good man grace. holy Shit what a song. anyway. in The Beginning, joey’s doing his thing, singing about how he’s way cooler than the weird shadow people, and he’s quiet, which is, like dodie, pretty normal for him. yeah he goes feral, but also fair exists. so. 

but the part that gets me! is that you can tell something’s coming. you know he’s about to go apeshit. you can just feel it in the way his every note is so measured and the tempo is so carefully controlled. the restraint is so potent -- that kind of calm can’t and won’t last forever. and then the explosion comes so suddenly and you’ve known it was coming and the first few times you listen to the song it still scares you because the first verse was so careful. so quiet. so joey’s got his couple minutes of being feral as all get-out, and then. oh, and Then -- let’s bury this. 

this is restrained on a whole different level. before this, joey and wilbur had been playing the same game. restrain your voice now, keep things measured and short and even, so that when you let go later it’s felt a thousand times more. now, though, now shit’s gotten real. it’s like graduating from playing tic-tac-toe and going straight to fucking five-grid sudoku. joey batey is not here to mess around. he’s here to make you his bitch, actually, and you’re gonna fucking know it, literally just because of his technique. what the fuck. this is restrained because he’s scaring the shit out of you and he doesn’t need to be loud and angry to do it. this is restrained because he wants you to know that when he lets go you’re gonna regret everything you ever did to get in this situation. can you tell i think he’s a musical genius? anyway. mans wants blood. and he’s far more loose with the tempo, with the dynamics, even with the notes -- they’re sliding all over the place now, and the jumps are more random too. but his tone is still restrained. he’s still holding back and you know it and then you know it even more because he goes feral again at the end and it’s oh such a beautiful payoff i could LIVE in those few measures! i could live in any of their music but that’s beside the point.

so i’m kind of getting off my own track here with this one but i want to also draw attention to how IMMEDIATELY after the old witch sleep and the good man grace we have ruin, which is just. the Most emotionally devastating song i have possibly ever listened to (aside from actually dodie’s when -- the studio version, which destroys me every time i listen to it). but we aren’t here to talk about how good ruin is because i already did that and nobody wants to hear it a second time. we are here, however, to talk about how the emotional fucking whiplash of this album comes not only from the order of the songs but Also from the tone change. madeleine (she’s here now! hell yeah!) starts singing and you get none of the restraint that joey had literally a minute and a half ago. yeah it’s quiet and also depressing as fuck, but her voice just kind of floats. she’s making the sound soft and close-feeling without necessarily holding anything back, if that makes sense. the dynamics and the vocal tone aren’t what cause the build-up in this song; it’s the accompaniment and the chord progression and the harmonies and the LYRICS, the Fucking lyrics. 

also, if we back up a couple steps -- immediately preceding the old witch sleep and the good man grace is chords, which also is just So painful. chords is kind of a balance between towsatgmg and ruin, which i think is so valuable because to go from that balance to the extreme ends of the spectrum with absolutely zero buffer really emphasizes the contrast. you hear what a normal fucking song sounds like and then you hear Absolutely Feral Joey Batey and then immediately the We Are Going to Make You Cry (A Lot) duo. and chords is the same as ruin where there’s not any particular restraint, but it does have a lot more tonal contrast in general and that’s what makes it the middle ground.

(one note really quickly lol -- i am so aware that it sounds like i’m just taking dynamic contrast and blowing it out of proportion but i Promise it’s not just that i just somehow don’t know enough of the actual technical words for what i’m talking about to explain it properly so pls excuse me for that)

IN CONCLUSION (or, a terrible TL;DR): my favorite musical artists are all so talented that i was forced (yes, forced) to write 1.7k words about one specific talent that they all share and use way too many parentheses and irregular capitalizations to get my point across. wilbur soot is the only one of these artists who will use tonal differences expertly but not to make you cry. yet. the bitches at the academy better nominate build a problem for a grammy. and it better win. and also joey batey is an evil, evil man but i hope he and madeleine are both having the best day always (but also i’m mad at them. but also i love them). i do not have enough free time to have written this. i wrote 1.5k words of this in one sitting. i need more people who will listen to me talk about music. please listen to all of these artists. MUSICIANS U GOTTA THINK ABOUT THE EMOTIONS AND THE INTENT AND THE IMAGERY BEFORE U JUST START SINGING WORDS BECAUSE UR SONG IS GONNA SUCK IF YOU DON’T SOUND LIKE YOU MEAN IT. that is all. thank u.

[tofuimmortales]

I think out of all the songs in the Your City Gave Me Asthma album, “Your Sister Was Right” and “Saline Solution” have got to be my favorites. I’ve found myself listening to them quite often, especially late at night. In my opinion, the songs are just plain addicting. The first time I listened to them though, I paid more attention to the background music than the lyrics. The instrumentals were very heartfelt on their own and the lyrics that accompany it tell a pretty vivid picture of Wilbur’s mental state and his inner feelings. I think people forget that when artists release music you are able to see a part of their world. It’s kind of like that saying on how you can understand someone by looking at their eyes. Songs just have an excellent way of expression and sometimes it is so easy to lose yourself to them. I believe this is part of the reason why music playlists can help people understand others better. Music can cover so many personalities and emotions which is insane to think about.

I’m not saying that I hate Wilbur’s new music, I enjoy Lovejoy’s songs. It’s just Your City Gave Me Asthma will always have a special place in my heart. I know to some people it’s not their cup of tea or they don’t want to give the album a chance because of Wilbur being a Twitch streamer. To the people who haven’t listened to it yet, well you’re missing out. I have so many favorite lyrics, but here are a few:

“Sit secluded in hatred. Void the plans friends are making.” - “Saline Solution”

“And I don't deserve you, you  deserve the world. Though it feels like we were built from the same dirt.” - “Your Sister Was Right”

On a deeper level, I can see myself in these lyrics. Wilbur has stated that “Saline Solution” is about hypochondria and how it impacts his life. I’m the same way, sometimes whenever I feel randomly ill or have sudden muscle aches I tend to stress myself out which in turn triggers my anxiety. “Your Sister Was Right”, on the other hand, is about a toxic relationship. Again, another very relatable topic that I can see myself in. It’s uncanny how these two songs can perfectly depict certain parts of my life that I’ve had to deal with. Honestly, this album has made me reconcile with parts of myself that I have forcefully tried to forget.