#there's precious few albums of which more than like 3 songs appeal to me so this is special

[foxstens]

icarus falls... still one of my favourite albums

[popliar]

Ateez in Seoul, 8 and 9 February 2020

Olympic Hall at Olympic Park

No one will believe this but I actually had my holiday with @flywithturtles planned before I knew the dates coincided with Ateez's Seoul concert dates. But it's true! I have the WhatsApp conversations to prove it!! Anyway I secured the tickets and all was well.

This is the first concert I've been to where they were handing out masks, making sure everyone had hand sanitizer and checking temperatures as you entered. Haha. Well they also checked our temperature going into the Line Friends store that day so, that's corona virus life. I was actually really worried the concerts would be cancelled, given so many other events have been, so it was a relief that it went ahead.

Structurally this is the same as the show I saw in August last year, after Wave/Illusion: starting hard with pirates, a lighter middle section, and a mythology-heavy last third. And then the encore which went for ages.

What's great to see is that the gaps and pacing downsides of the previous year have been corrected and improved. The pacing has been tightened up, the banter and ments flow much more smoothly and the show just feels very professional and well run.

Here's my post about last year's show: https://popliar.tumblr.com/post/187095347758/ateez-in-sydney-11-aug-2019

It's a shock to realise they've only been around one year four months but they were able to fill out a full 2.5 hour set, every song solid. And KQ spent proper money on this, the production was good - it's not like LAVISH but there were good stages and fancy screens and new VCRs and plenty of back up dancers, and it all worked well. There were maybe too many fireworks on the first night (I hate it when it obstructs the choreo) but they'd adjusted well on the second night.

Surprising but welcome - they had English subs for some of the ments. I don't think they were "live" subs because sometimes they'd get ahead of what the members were saying. But it was helpful. Even without them, body language and tone says a lot. Though I'm regretful that I don't understand Seonghwa's acrostic poems or all of their stupid jokes lol.

The show is called Fellowship and they leaned into it hard, asking Atiny to be part of their shared journey and to stick with them forever. It's a familiar refrain from other shows, but each time I find it both surprising and effective - this very overt, explicitly stated entreaty to be a fan, to enter into this imagined relationship, the appeal to reciprocity. "We've made you happy, make us happy too, be with us and we'll be with you."

But you can know a thing and it can still be effective. I did love the shows. I want them to be happy too!

A list of observations and random things:

Spoilers follow, I'd put it behind a cut but I can't figure out how on mobile haha

OK REALLY SPOILERS NOW

-first VCR to open the show expanded on the Treasure theme.

-Desire opens with blindfold choreo. Was this a gift for me? THANK U.

-for Lights, they had cute moments where they held up little speech bubbles over each others heads. They paired up with Hongjoong and Mingi, San and Wooyoung, Seonghwa and Yunho, and Yeosang and Jongho. Both nights, Woosan held hands. On the second night Yunho held Seonghwa's hand and Seonghwa was like a shy maiden. Mingi and Hongjoong had very strong flirty energy. Yeosang and Jongho are cute.

-the VCR in between part 1 pirates and part 2 fun boys showed what felt like a series of different dimensions? An ocean, a mountain, fields of flowers, cosmic surrealism, etc. As though each of them was alone somewhere in time and space.

-During If without you, they threw out balls to the crowd as gifts (mini riots ensued). Mingi put the empty basket on his head both nights, what a beautiful fool.

-Night 1 was the first time with the light stick! Hongjoong announced its official name: Lightiny (light of destiny) but also Tinybong lololol. The light stick is super pretty. I was tempted but didn't have time the first night. The second night it was sold out when I arrived!!!

-The VCR in between parts 2 and 3 is the really intriguing one. It paired them up into the Lights pairs again. Yeosang and Jongho searched for each other in a hall of billowing drapes. Mingi and Hongjoong were rockstars (with great lipstick). San and Wooyoung were mirrorverse versions of each other. Yunho and Seonghwa put together the pieces of a puzzle in a set that reminded me of both Treasure and Wonderland.

-In the intro to Say My Name on the first night, Hongjoong went halfway down the stairs then turned around, went back and grabbed his mic, then went down again lol. The second night he very firmly took his mic before descending the stairs lol.

-The final VCR before the encore showed them uncovering items on pedestals as though in a museum: a camera, a gramophone, a painting, a book of poetry by Yeats... Then they all created a painting together. When viewed through a red screen (like the puzzles in their albums) the pattern revealed a compass. They then all showed their wrists to reveal each had a compass tattoo.... WHAT IS THIS OT8 SOULMARK FIC!!!!!

-They said they had planned for every audience member to have this compass stamp (the Fellowship again) but it was cancelled due to health concerns. But we could see it with our true eyes, right???? On the second night, the 99s swarmed Seonghwa at this point to try to look down his shirt. I see. I see. (Later on Hongjoong also tried to peek into Mingi's shirt also fine just fine.)

-Early in the show Hongjoong said there would be clues through the show about the next steps in their concept/narrative. The hourglass and compass were very recurrent but these are not new. Hmm. I wonder.

-In one ment on night 1, Jongho spoke to all his hyungs informally and it was HILARIOUS. He did something similar on the second night, patting Yunho on the head and pinching Wooyoung's chin etc.

-During Star 1117 on the first night, Hongjoong and San started crying. Then in the following ment, they and Yunho and Wooyoung were crying, and Seonghwa and Jongho were teary. Yunho cried so hard (missing his grandfather!) that during Hongjoong's ment, Mingi quietly went over and gave him a towel. There were like five members in between that he passed to give him the towel, it was so sweet I'll cry. Night 2 felt more joyful and upbeat.

-Some ppl really left way too early like before the encore. The encore is half an hour long omg! You missed out on so many songs!!!!!

-On night 1 between main set and encore the crowd didn't quite know what to do. Huge kudos to the fans who led some cheers otherwise it would have been so quiet. Second night was better and also they kept the light sticks on while we were waiting which added to the atmosphere.

-They didn't sell a couple of sections in the hall at all, they were curtained off. It's interesting to think BTS had their first Muster here at around the same point in their careers. Like BTS, Ateez too are more popular globally than at home. They were beaten quite handily in voting on music shows by SF9 this comeback, who are more popular at home than internationally.

-It is great being in a huge fandom like BTS but also you know this is actually a great time to stan a group like Ateez. They're big enough to be exciting and have good shows, they are interesting and still developing, they're still playing intimate venues... They're good!!!!!

-A few of them had fake neck tattoos. San helpfully labeled himself "San" on the second night lol.

-Hongjoong briefly went off stage during sunrise On night 2. Hopefully just a technical issue.

-Treasure and Precious choreo start and end in the same place, echoing their musical connection.

-They had different encore outfits for Answer each night, before changing into hoodies. On night 2, Yeosang saw some of the others had scarves/banners tucked into their back pockets and was like "where's mine????" Instead of a banner, Yunho had a baseball cap. Seonghwa took his off and Hongjoong tied it around Seonghwa's wrist.

-For Star 1117, everyone held up their mobile phone lights. On night 2, San repeated the request in English too. Very pretty to see all the lights.

-On second night, Seonghwa and San got their mics and necklace tangled up during a ment lol.

Setlist:

(Intro)

Win

Horizon

Pirate King

(Introduction ment)

Medley: Twilight, Stay, My Way

Light

Mist

Desire

(VCR)

Illusion

Crescent

Wave

Sunrise

(Ment, lightstick announcement)

If without you

Aurora

Utopia

(VCR)

Say My Name

Dazzling Light

Hala Hala

Treasure

Precious

Wonderland

--

Encore:

(VCR)

Answer

(Ment)

Thank u

Star 1117

(Ment)

Promise

Dancing like butterfly wings

Setlist from: https://twitter.com/updateez/status/1226112679728812032?s=19

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2006

17 to 18 years old. First to second university year, studying History. Another slightly chaotic year, to be honest.

It’s yet another great year for hits, even if 2005 and 2007 are both even better.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

At this point it was beginning to be clear that my mother wanted me out of the appartment as quickly as possible so staying at home was becoming more and more unpleasant. I basically spent most of my day outside or at the library when I wasn’t in class, then ate dinner and slept at home. I had a few friends at university but was very unpopular (by the start of the second year, my nickname was “the hobo”, mostly because I was always wearing the same old black coat and bad jeans, but also because I liked to fish for coins under vending machines cause I had next to no money). I also had a brief but extremely bad relationship that year, which ended with me punching the dude back after he punched me between two classes near the end of the year.

While making these lists I found a tape labelled “spring 2006″ and nothing else. I think it’s one of the last tapes I ever made.

After listening to it, it contained:

Mr Brightside (The Killers) (who’s surprised?)

Crazy, by Seal, but sung by a woman. No idea who that is. (Edit: Alanis Morissette! thank you purplecyborgnewt)

Alice & June (Indochine)

You And Me (Lifehouse)

A couple of seconds of Precious, Depeche Mode

Oui (Zazie)

Precious (Depeche Mode) again. A radio host states it’s the n°15 favorite song on Europe 2 that week, whichever week that was.

City of Blinding Lights (U2)

Nolwenn Ohwo (Nolwenn Leroy)

Fragment of Song to Say Goodbye (Placebo), then the entire song.

The ending of Talk (Coldplay), followed by another fragment of Talk

Juste Après (Fredericks, Goldman & Jones)

Talk (Coldplay), this time in its entirety (I can still smell the frustration more than 13 years away)

Broken (Seether)

Enjoy the Silence 2004 (Depeche Mode)

Fragment of Missing (Evanescence), followed by nearly the entire song

Jeune et Con (Saez)

A bit of a radio show I found funny

An obscure remix of Sans Contrefaçon (Mylène Farmer).

So yeah, I stopped making tapes around that time. I also only bought two cd singles that year.

Just like the previous year, some of my favorite albums from that year have exactly zero singles elligible for this list. They are Alice & June by Indochine, and Meds by Placebo. The worst part? One of the best songs on Indochine’s album is a goddamn duet with Brian Molko from Placebo. It’s called Pink Water and it’s great. Please listen to it if you don’t know it yet. What can I say, I’m a weak and simple person, I hear a duet between two singers I adore, and I die instantly.

Anyway. Meds is kind of underrated as far as Placebo’s discography goes and I’m especially fond of Infrared, which was one of the songs of the year for me. Indochine’s Alice & June, meanwhile, is a concept double album about two girls making a suicide pact. It’s a bit of a mess and it’s not as tight as Paradize was but it’s still really, really good for the most part. The first eponymous single should have been elligible. But it isn’t. I’m sad.

On to the honorable mentions!

So Sick (Ne-Yo) - Usually this kind of music just sounds bland to me, but that one was really pleasant.

Miracle (Cascada) - Not as good as Everytime we touch. Still a lot of fun.

Smack That (Akon) - This shouldn’t be this catchy.

Pump It (Black Eyed Peas) - Same here.

Living On Video (Pakito) - I only just now realised this was a cover. What the hell.

SOS (Rihanna) - Not her best song. Still good.

L’Amour N’est Rien (Mylène Farmer) - Really funny lyrics, meh song.

World Hold On (Bob Sinclar) - Stay tuned for more.

Hips Don’t Lie (Shakira) - Song of the summer, whether you liked it or not. Fortunately, I liked it a lot.

Chasing Cars (Snow Patrol) - Very pleasant.

SexyBack (Justin Timberlake) - That beat is just incredible.

Call Me When You’re Sober (Evanescence) - I remember Rock Mag finishing their KarmaCode (Lacuna Coil) review with “We hope Evanescence’s next album will be fantastic, because this is their most serious rival yet.” And nope, Evanescence’s album wasn’t nearly as good as KarmaCode. But this song still made the year-end list, while nothing from Lacuna Coil ever crossed over. Our Truth SHOULD have been a huge hit. It had a ton of crossover appeal. One of the biggest musical tragedies of the year right there. Oh well, the Evanescence single is still good though.

Say It Right (Nelly Furtado & Timbaland) - The last cut from the list, and when you’ll see what replaced it, you are going to hate me.

And now, the top ten.

10 - Everytime We Touch (Cascada)

US: #31 / FR: #5

This kicked Nelly Furtado off the list.

I am not sorry, just so you know.

9 - Ridin’ (Chamillionaire)

US: #8 / FR: Not on the list

This is a song about respecting the law and driving at a reasonable speed and cops being mad because they can’t do anything against you. He’s a gangster, just... not doing anything illegal at the moment. I absolutely adore that concept. This is the best.

8 - Crazy (Gnarls Barkley)

US: #7 / FR: #29

I’ve never met someone who disliked this song, and for that reason I have nothing to say about it. It’s just one of these tunes, like Hey Ya, which are too perfect to argue or say anything constructive about them.

7 - Temperature (Sean Paul)

US: #2 / FR: #48

Half of this top ten 10 is made of absolute bangers with untouchable beats and you know what, I really miss that time, mostly because the current charts are morose and depressed (for good reasons, but still). This is no Get Busy, but come on, who can say we need less Sean Paul in our lives? Not me that’s for sure.

By the way, one of the very first videos I saw on (the very new at the time) youtube was a misheard lyrics version of this song. I think you all know which one it is, the original has been deleted but it was reuploaded several times since then.

6 - Rock This Party (Bob Sinclar & Cutee B)

US: Not on the list / FR: #19

You really can’t go wrong with this “Everybody dance now” sample, and this is one seriously kickass song, and yet another banger on a list already full of them. Also, this was possibly the best music video of the entire year, featuring three kids trying to imitate music videos from just about every popular genre. Check it out if you’ve never seen it, it will make your day.

5 - Marly-Gomont (Kamini)

US: Not on the list / FR: #1

Possibly the most unexpected hit song of the decade in my country. Basically, this guy made a rap song about the tiny rural village he was living in, and a funny music video shot on a 100€ budget to show to his friends and family. And it was well written. And it was hilarious, while still being insightful. And it became a viral sensation. And it charted! And suddenly it became the biggest hit of the year.

If you’ve never heard it, here it is. There was no translation available for it on lyricstranslate, so I made an account just to translate it myself. You’re welcome. Please give it a try. It’s great. It was a hit for a good reason, and I promise you the music video is funny even if you don’t speak the language.

4 - Slipping Away/Crier la Vie (Mylène Farmer & Moby)

US: Not on the list / FR: #15

So, uh, earlier in this post I said “What can I say, I’m a weak and simple person, I hear a duet between two singers I adore, and I die instantly.”

This is a duet between Mylène Farmer and Moby, based on a song from Hotel, which, if you recall, I listened to on a loop the previous year.

My poor heart didn’t need this. What did I do to deserve this. What a blessing.

3 - Over My Head (Cablecar) (The Fray)

US: #13 / FR: Not on the list

This was my #1 at some point. Then I realised the version I kept listening to was a punk rock version by A Day To Remember from Punk Goes Pop, and that I had nearly forgotten what the original sounded like. So I listened to it, and it’s still very, very nice, but it’s not quite the same.

I still bought the album, though.

2 - Nolwenn Ohwo (Nolwenn Leroy)

US: Not on the list / FR: #43

I had completely (and I do mean completely) forgotten about this song until I started to check the French year-end top 100 to make this list. Erased from my mind entirely by some sort of MiB neuralyser. And I was like “hang on, wasn’t this a good song? This rings a bell. I used to love it, didn’t I?” (and sure enough, it’s on that 2006 tape I found). So I wrote it down for the honorable mentions, just in case.

Before making the definitive list, I put the song on, and I felt like the critic in Ratatouille having a flashback.

Holy. Shit.

I remembered ALL the lyrics. While listening to it, in under three minutes I successively put it in the 6th spot, then the 4th, and when it ended, it was #2 on the list. I downloaded it and put it back on my mp3 player and on my playlists. I’ve listened to it about 30 times in the past week. It’s so great. How did I ever forget this song existed. I feel so alive.

I never cared about this singer, but this is written by Laurent Voulzy, who’s music I actually love, and he’s firing on all cylinders here. Just listen to it. Please.

It could have easily topped the list if it wasn’t for the most useful and helpful song in the entire year.

1 - Pas le Temps (Faf Larage)

US: Not on the list / FR: #2

I never watched a single episode of Prison Break. This was the French version of the opening song. I don’t even know what happens in the series. I don’t really care.

I. Adore. This song. It’s yet another #1 that helped me a lot.

The beat is untouchable and this rap is actual poetry. Not even remotely kidding. Here’s a part of one of the verses.

Aussi loin que la lumière semble s'éteindre (As far as the light seems to flicker) Seule une étincelle au fond de moi peut l'atteindre (Only the spark hidden inside of me can reach it) (...) Les dés sont jetés, rien n'est joué (the dice is tossed, the game is set) Même le sort retient son souffle piégé dans ce sablier (even fate holds its breath, trapped in this hourglass) J'ai décidé de ne pas être prisonnier (I decided I wouldn’t be a prisoner) J'n'ai que ma vie à offrir si jamais j'échouais (I only have my life to offer if I ever fail) Pas le choix faut y'aller (No choice, let’s go)

The line “pas le choix, faut y aller” (no choice, let’s go) keeps being repeated in the entire song and it’s so, SO motivational. As I said before, 2006 was not as bad as 2003 but it was still a difficult year - at the end of it, I was an adult with no money, very little hope for the future, no diploma yet apart from the highschool one, still trying to NOT become a ball of anger because of a couple of assholes in class, all of this with dysphoria and a mother who wanted to kick me out as soon as possible. And I wanted to win, and punch the world, and say here I come, I’m alive, I survived, better watch out.

Si je dois exceller, tout donner, prendre c'que j'peux (If I need to be the best, give everything, take whatever I can) Si le monde m'appartient restez pas au milieu (If the world is mine, don’t stay in my way) Et si le sort est contre moi c'est tant pis (And if fate is against me, too bad) On fait des plans pour s'en sortir, écoute (We’re making plans to survive, listen) Pas le choix faut y'aller (No choice, let’s go)

This song defined the entire year for me. This was my fight song. Everytime I wanted to give up, it was there to give me a very simple reminder.

No choice. Let’s go.

Next up: here it is, at last, the absolute best hit song of the decade

[thesinglesjukebox]

AMERICAN FOOTBALL FT. HAYLEY WILLIAMS - UNCOMFORTABLY NUMB

[6.17]

thesingl esjukebox

Vikram Joseph: On American Football's 1999 debut album (and, for some 17 years thereafter, their only album), laconic, meandering guitar lines intertwined and diverged, set against a pillowy backdrop of woozy horns and jazz-tinged percussion; Mike Kinsella's vocals drifted in and out like conversation through patches of broken sleep, feeling more like another instrument than a driving force for the song. The songs were rarely streamlined, but in their soft drift they captured, with heart-stopping precision, something ephemeral and intangible -- sunlit fields and slow dusks, an essence of youth and summer. "Uncomfortably Numb" is the Before Midnight to the Before Sunrise of their early songs: older, harder, burdened with regrets and worn down by disappointment. It's more conventionally structured than any other American Football song, borne on a crisp, clean, cyclical Plans-era Death Cab guitar line, and some of Kinsella's lyrics (not always his strongest suit, and better as hazy evocation rather than narrative) are a little on-the-nose ("I blamed my father in my youth/now as a father, I blame the booze"). But it builds a melancholy beauty all the same, Kinsella's voice interweaving with that of Hayley Williams in the flickering chorus; "The lessons are so much less obvious the further you get from home," rings awfully true. The solutions don't present themselves so easily when the issues get this hard to unravel. [7]

Iris Xie: How does one capture the sadness and tenderness at inevitable breakdowns, and the connected hope and sorrow that ties together such tragedy? Through a production that imitates the warmth of moving amongst muted pastel clouds, for muddled psyches and safe spaces. The creation of the space, which facilitates and echoes the depth of the relationship and their connected interiorities, is conveyed through the glowing guitars, patient drums, soft harmonizing, and evocative but hazy lyrics, and sets the environment for a simultaneous warmth and distancing, with endless compassion. There is this beautiful sound in the background where I can't tell whether it's one of the singers slowly humming in the back, or it is a gently played horn, but it is chilling in conveying their not telepathic, but almost as connected, thoughts, even from a distance. When their voices overlap, they glimmer. As Williams sings over his monologue, it results in an incredibly succinct expression of their struggles: "Now I'm used to struggling (tied to a contortionist)/for two"; his last two words are swallowed, giving an impression that he may only be starting to come to terms with how he is hurting for both him and his inner child, while she understands too well what is occurring as an outsider. This conveys clarity in what level of disaster is occurring, as he continues to turn away from home. Unfortunately, there lies the familiar tale to many womxn-identified folks, because Williams's POV remains at home, frustrated and exhausted after her sacrifice. They echo as they distance: "I just want you home/I'll make new friends/In the ambulance." The instrumentals empty out to a lingering, uncertain optimism, and complete this quiet hush of family tragedy. There are no harsh disasters here -- just the slow, ebbing progression towards the rock bottom, from which up is the only way to go. [10]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: As I get older, I find myself far more attuned to the melancholic music of singer-songwriters written in adulthood than in youth. That's partially because so many of these earlier albums -- from Down Colorful Hill to Songs About Leaving to American Football's debut -- defined my teenage years, but also because they featured incredibly overt depictions of angst and malaise. American Football's music post-reunion is far less insular, and with their aging band members comes a more precise portrait of my current life: one characterized by the ability to function in the real world despite persistent, unceasing depression. In other words, the emotions here are palpable because they're less flashy -- after all, histrionic melodrama will only draw attention to one's own childishness, and we're all trying to avoid that, right? With "Uncomfortably Numb," Mike Kinsella finally makes the song I've always wanted him to make. On "Bad News" and "Ugly on the Inside," he delivered harrowing diatribes against friends that I personally read as songs written for himself (this line of thinking being an obvious projection of my own self-hatred). But here, he enlists Paramore's Hayley Williams to take on the role of a wife who's hurt by his decisions. Her topline is unmistakably Kinsella's (the "clear"/"see-through" line being a dead ringer for his lyrical style), so this track does give the semblance of Kinsella addressing himself, but I'm mostly reminded of conversations I've had with my sister; my parents never quite understood or acknowledged my depression, so my sister was the only family member who was evidently concerned about my mental health. But after years of my sister dealing with me, I understand that if she ever caught me in the worst of states again, there would be this mix of pain and compassion and tiredness that Hayley so effortlessly captures here. Her feature is doubly affecting because she represents a generation of emo bands that came after American Football's, highlighting how Kinsella is still succumbing to these habits and mindsets perpetuated by depression. The twinkling guitars and winding drums act to remind listeners of why it can be so hard to break free; the instrumentation is as pretty as anything on the 1999 debut, but it's also incredibly familiar, incredibly safe. When depressive thoughts and actions feel like the warp and weft of your being -- the typical non-solution to dealing with hardship or success or anything at all -- it's easy to default to such a mode of living, even when the numbness is uncomfortable. [9]

Iain Mew: As a dad who just lost my dad, I'm doing the mental equivalent of holding my hand in front of my face to avoid looking at this directly. Except it's all so gentle, nothing but chiming charm, that it's more like the recent time that the sunlight through my office window was perfectly lined up with the corner of my eye but I couldn't even see it there, just notice that my eyes kept watering. [6]

Thomas Inskeep: Never have heard them before, this is American Football, the supposedly legendary emo band? Because "Uncomfortably Numb" sounds uncomfortably like a soft Jason Mraz song. Emo as Adult Contemporary in 2019: who knew? [3]

Jonathan Bradley: The first time I heard the word "emo" was from the tracklist of Blink-182's Dude Ranch; they had named one of their songs this because it sounded a bit like Jimmy Eat World. I didn't know that then, so I got on to a search engine through my high school's computer lab -- school had internet, unlike home -- and AltaVista or Ask Jeeves wondered if I might be looking for Emo Philips. Or maybe an emu? Blink's intentions remained occluded for a few more years until I caught a chance airing of a Get Up Kids song on the radio, which led me to SongMeanings' deconstructions of Sunny Day Real Estate and early Pitchfork pans of The Promise Ring. Then the girl in my drama class with the cool hair who changed her name told me I had to listen to Death Cab because "Photo Booth" was "the most emo song ever." At a time when music gleamed with such bright intention -- even the "alternative" acts of the time, like Korn or Green Day, performed in spit-polished block capitals -- these foreign bands I glimpsed through newly connected dial-up sounded like nothing else: they could be muted, they could be unhewn, they could be obtuse. They were American, but a model of Americanness that was unknowable in Australia then. They were always, in a way mass culture seemed to discourage, unfailingly and embarrassingly earnest. I never heard American Football in 1999; we had the internet at home, but my precious download quota was spent, by chance, on Braid and Texas is the Reason. Hearing the shivering guitar tendrils of "Uncomfortably Numb" now, with its calm and studied drum figures, drops me vividly back into those days. Mike Kinsella's plain voice arcs modestly over the fussiness, melding at times indistinguishably with that of his stylistic successor Hayley Williams, and maybe its only beautiful in the context of the late 20th century. But no; it is beautiful now, too. [8]

Will Rivitz: "I'll never forget the first time I heard American Football because, like, you don't forget the halcyon summer before you depart your home city and go to university," begins a review of the band's reunion LP three years ago, and I think that's pretty on the mark for how people about my age consume and relate to this kind of emo. So much of its appeal is a nostalgia for times we were too young to know when they were happening and, a few years after that, a nostalgia for that nostalgia, the age at which this was the music punching our collective gut. It's weird and a little difficult to articulate: there's something comforting about looking back at other young adults when you yourself were one, understanding that, despite differences in musical diets and environments and technology and what have you, a college-aged guitar virtuoso is probably going to have the same sorts of fears you do. That, I think, is what makes emo's particular nostalgia so powerful; as late-teenaged walking and talking existential crises, we found solace in looking back. We learned that the late-teenaged walking and talking existential crises of a few decades back both captured how we felt with stunning accuracy and, often, made it through alive, helping us feel both less alone and less desolate. Even nostalgia has its limits, though, and though there's no obvious line to demarcate absolutely everything that can be contained in emo's resonant power, it seems reasonable to conclude that Hoobastank is not one of those things. [3]

Will Adams: Wisely restrained, dreamy but devastating, and generally pleasant to hear. At least during the moments it doesn't remind me of "The Reason." [6]

Tim de Reuse: The only good things about American Football's post-reunion material have been the parts that kinda sound like they could've been written back in the nineties, when their crisp, angst-driven debut wormed its way into the hearts of many a disaffected suburbanite. Judging by this single, it looks like their 2019 album is gonna be gaudy, covered in sparkly reverb and dramatic electric guitar tremolos -- and I'm not thrilled about that -- but while I sharply disagree with their sound engineer, I can't fault the composition itself, or the gorgeous (as always) showing by drummer Steve Lamos, or the choice of subject matter. Teenage stress gives way to directionless middle-aged depression: "How will I exist," he says, and there's a weird pang in my chest I didn't expect to get from a band that spent 14 years broken up. [6]

Alfred Soto: I hope these guys gave their engineer a bonus: boy, do those arpeggios sparkle. "Uncomfortably Numb" sparkles to muddled effect, for what they recorded is a valentine to anomie disguised as a depiction. [5]

Ian Mathers: I'm not sure what I expected (having not paid much attention back in the day) when I finally got around to hearing all these reunited or still going post-emo acts, but it sure wasn't for it all to be so determinedly, shapelessly... pleasant. I feel like I enjoyed it, but 10 seconds after it stops it's already vanished from memory. [6]

Alex Clifton: There are a lot of lovely quiet moments in this song with the rolling guitar in the background and some gorgeous harmonies between Hayley Williams and Mike Kinsella; this is more of the music I always wanted to hear Williams do. But something about it doesn't punch me the way it should. A song called "Uncomfortably Numb" should at minimum wedge itself under my skin with some hard truths about life I'd rather not acknowledge; if it wants to go harder, it should leave me devastated. But there's a lot to be said for the numbness here; try as I might to feel for these people, I can't conjure the feeling. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[jonathantaylorthomas]

[excerpt] 15. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

Does anyone apart from Pusha T relish a good diss track as much as Swift? 2017’s Reputation might have its patchy moments of just-out-of-date beats but it’s also full of deliciously vicious moments. I Did Something Bad was a beautiful middle finger to an ex (Calvin Harris, apparently), Look What You Made Me Do cut down her critics and this track, which is effectively a more bitter Bad Blood, battered Kim and Kanye. “Friends don’t try to trick you/Get you on the phone and mind-twist you” she sings in an apparent swipe at the ‘I made that b**** famous’ controversy, while underneath stuttering electro-pop clashes with tinkling piano. The chorus is Swift at her most bitingly patronising, smiling as she twists the knife in.

14. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

Swift managed her first US number one with We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. The singer’s knack for an earworm is obvious here, with the song one of the simplest but strongest of her career. The rest of Red dabbles with pop but Swift’s country roots are still very visible here. A foot-stomping acoustic guitar riff is right at the heart of the track, which is a much lighter take on the relationship at the heart of All Too Well. The old Taylor might not be able to come the phone right now, but she was on top form here.

13. Our Song

Jaunty violins, talk about God, a Nashville accent that twangs like a banjo string: Our Song is Taylor in full country mode. It’s got all the hallmarks of her early verse-chorus-bridge songwriting, and Swift reportedly put it together in 20 minutes for her ninth grade talent show before the record company nabbed it for her debut album. Built around a colossal chorus, where her delivery cracks like a drum beat, Our Song is a vivid picture of her teenage years and a testament to Swift’s natural songwriting nous – a reminder that, despite the headlines, she’s built a career on talent, not merely hype and controversy. Tim McGraw, which starts the album, has much the same effect.

12. I Knew You Were Trouble

2012 album Red took Swift’s popularity to new levels and the universal appeal of I Knew You Were Trouble was a key part of that success. The song became one of the most parodied tracks of the year but even adding screaming goats into the mix couldn’t the hamper its impact. It’s perhaps surprising that despite the song’s success, the chorus marked one of the singer’s most experimental to date, flirting with dubstep, pop and dance influences. It’s the perfect example of Swift’s early musical experimentations – as was the U2-esque album opener State of Grace – which would eventually pave the way for the reinvention on 1989 two years later.

11. Shake It Off

Shake It Off is perhaps the perfect song to explain Taylor Swift and seems to encapsulate the contradictions which have made her a star. For everything that’s toe-curling and cringeworthy (see: “this sick beat”, the whole “my ex man” riff), it’s also infectious, irresistible and triumphantly confident; Swift knows it’s geeky and doesn’t care. It’s a song to shimmy to – and then to kiss your crush to, when she asks the fella with the hella good hair to shake, shake, shake. Grab the white wine and go be basic – sometimes it’s fun.

10. 22

While Swift can occasionally lean-in on her wry way of seeing the world, she’s also gloriously unafraid of big, dumb pop. 22 is almost comically simplistic: the opening guitar riff is just a watered down Wild Thing, the drum beat is mindlessly insistent – a bass kick on every single beat – and the main hook (“I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22”) has all the intelligence of a failed GCSE. None of it matters; the song is a joyous riot, set in a world where there are no pressures, no bills and the sun only goes down so everyone can go to bed together. It is fun, it is silly, it’s happiness is infectiously single-minded and the best lines come right at the end: “You look like bad news, I gotta have you”. There’s even Nile Rodgers-style guitar thrown in on the chorus. Splendid stuff. No wonder it’s said to be Harry Styles’ favourite Swift song.

9. Fifteen

Much has been made of Swift’s big transformation from country singer to pop behemoth but even before she was out of her teens she was flirting with stadium friendly rock. Still, Fifteen had plenty of banjo all over it, while her voice charmingly twangs as she talks boys and cars and heartbreak. Of which, it’s the lyrics that make this one: the song itself is so polished and clean it could have been assembled on a Tennessee production line, but Swift manages to infuse it with a sense of failed teenage romance that feels real – unsurprising, perhaps, given it’s based on her and her best friend Abigail Anderson’s years at Hendersonville High School.

“In your life you’ll do things greater than/Dating the boy on the football team/But I didn’t know it at fifteen” she sings, “Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now”. Ain’t that the truth.

8. Love Story

Ten years ago, pre-Kanye-at-the-VMAs, Swift was, in Britain at least, still that country girl with that one catchy song. This was that song; a hopelessly romantic tale of teenage love, Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet over pop-punk guitars and key changes and, of course, a happy ending replacing the tragedy. Eight million copies sold, making it the best selling country single of all time and paving the way for the decade of massive success that followed.

7. Blank Space

Blank Space is a minimalist masterpiece that paradoxically is crammed with hooks (something she manages again, like a magic trick, on Clean). The song in itself is actually surprisingly slow-moving; chords are long, drawn-out and the drums snap but are unhurried. The genius here in is Swift’s vocals, which are catchy enough that the whole thing seems to be one long chorus. Blank Space also marks the beginning of Swift sending herself up; in it, she satirises her media image as a man-obsessed, relationship addicted nightmare who serially dates for songwriting material. Hilariously, the key line (“Got a long list of ex-lovers/They’ll tell you I’m insane”) has often been misheard – including by her own mother – as “all the lonely Starbucks lovers”, which rather changes the point somewhat. The video is a work of art too, introducing the world to the ‘new Taylor’ – before the new Taylor became the old, dead Taylor. Oh, and look out for her slip up at 3.40, it’s hilarious.

6. New Year’s Day

The beautiful, reverb soaked piano that flutters through New Year’s Day is a sign of what could be to come for Swift – not now, perhaps, but maybe in 20 years. It could be played then and just as good. If All Too Well is her great grown-up heartbreak track, this is her great grown-up love song. Whereas 1989’s You Are In Love used a similar sound for a rip of Bruce Springsteen’s Street’s of Philadelphia, here it’s more of a James Blake vibe. The beauty is in the simplicity; this is a love as rational as it is passionate. The metaphor is about being there for the good times (the party at midnight) and the bad (cleaning up bottles on New Year’s Day). There is a stroke of brilliance, too: “Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognise anywhere” she sings as a reprise, realising what too few of us do until it’s too late: love is as fragile as it precious.

5. You Belong With Me

Taylor has a long-standing love affair with power chords and pop-punk goodness. On Red, there’s Holy Ground, before that was Speak Now’s girl-breaking-free-to-rule-the-world Long Live and before that was You Belong With Me on Fearless. It’s sometimes criticised for being too similar to her other early hits but in truth, it’s just the best example of them. It’s also wonderfully full Taylor: she plays the self-deprecating dork in love with her best friend, and the video is completely, brilliantly hysterical. There are all the elements needed: crashing guitars, unrequited love, a little teenage angst. It’s far from perfect: the lyrics are her corniest, the premise is cliched and the country embellishments have been tactlessly tacked on as if purely to placate the country audience. But, in the end, it’s catchy, sweetly endearing and you’ll be singing along merrily. If you want another fill of the good stuff, put on Fearless, which is just a little less catchy but with a better guitar solo.

4. Ronan

Little known, not on any albums and barely performed live – to date it’s only been aired twice, with the first version live on a Stand Up to Cancer telethon the one to listen to – Ronan perhaps seems a unlikely entry on the list, but it stands the Swift song that aches the most, and is unlike anything else she’s written. Over the chime of trembling guitar chords, she sings as the voice of Maya Thompson, a mother who lost her four-year-old Ronan to cancer. Written after reading Thompson’s blog, Swift articulates the unsteady, insistent rhythm of grief with painful clarity. In the end, like in life, the loss stings the sharpest in the little things. “And it’s about to be Halloween, you could be anything you wanted” she sings, her voice shaking and her eyes glassy with tears, “If you were still here.”

3. Out Of The Woods

Like the heartbroken logic in All You Had To Do Was Stay (the song Ryan Adams’ did best on his mixed 1989 cover album), it’s the naivety in this one that makes it so damned sad. Jack Antonoff produced a piece of driving rock dressed up as radio-pop, the stuttering drums and Blade Runner synths casting shadows over everything, the choir on the chorus giving it enough size to fill stadiums. It’s one for anyone who’s been wrapped up in a love that’s left them shaky with the uncertainty of it all, who’s gone to sleep and woken up with the same thought, of praying they’re getting as much love as they’re giving.

2. Style

Like a designer parading a new collection down the runway, Swift showcased her new direction perfectly on this aptly titled track. Pulsating synths drive the verses along before a huge sing-along chorus kicks in, marking a dramatic change from her guitar-led earlier compositions. It’s a formula that Swift would return to time and time again in her later work, not least on the similar Getaway Car from 2017 album reputation. The song remains a highlight at Swift’s live shows — after all, pop hooks as good as this will never go out of style.

1. All Too Well

Everyone jokes about the lost scarf, but this is Swift’s most sincere tale of heartbreak and is heartbreaking itself. Though it takes a handful of listens at least to ‘get’ this track, it’s worn out and weary and the hurt goes deep. Swift says it was one of the hardest to write, and it’s one of the hardest to listen to; she sounds like she’s singing right from the bones and it’s searingly, uncomfortably intimate. Having it on doesn’t feel so much like listening as eavesdropping: other ruminations in her back catalogue are broader, relatable, but here we’re hearing her specific turmoil. Nowhere else on record does she sound as cut up the way she does halfway through this one – Jake Gyllenhaal, you realise, really broke her heart.

Plenty of Swift songs are overwrought, but the drama here is sincere: her voice trembles with pain, and the song, which starts sparse, swells and hardens up like a lump in the throat. It’s little surprise the original cut was 10 minutes long; the song is cinematic, with a touch of Raymond Carver in the sparse, classically American lyrics: “'Cause there we are again in the middle of the night/We’re dancing round the kitchen in the refrigerator light”.

When she gets to end of it, there are lines that induce a wince: “You call me up again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel in the name of being honest” she says. Then you hear her lost to her heartbreak: “Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it/I’d like to be my old self again/But I’m still trying to find it”. Love – especially when it cools – changes everything.

[5-star-songs]

Weekend Rant: My FIOO X5II

I post a blurb a day here, Monday through Friday, but from time to time I might post something music-related but not song-specific on a Saturday or Sunday. The occasion for this one: my love for my new mp3 player.

Maybe it’s odd that a guy who spent ten years helping build and evolve Rhapsody, and then the next four doing the same for Google Play, even has an mp3 player. My Android + the music streaming subscription service of my choice should serve all my needs, especially since Google Play lets me store 50,000 of my own songs on their servers, and mix and match them with everything else in their catalog.

But my phone’s battery is a precious resource I must conserve, and I spend too much time flying or driving long distances with no internet connection. And I prefer having access to my entire music collection at those times, rather than whatever subset of it I remembered to save for offline listening before the trip began.

For years, that meant carrying a 160GB iPod classic with me wherever I went. But Apple discontinued that a while back, and even before they did my collection had exceeded its capacity (roughly 31,000 songs), which meant that every new record I added to it required deleting an old one. And that caused me physical and emotional distress, every time.

So when my iPod started showing signs it was on the verge of failing for good, I began hunting around for a replacement. Which led me to my new favorite possession, the Fiio X5 2nd gen pictured above.

Fiio’s a Chinese company that makes, among other things, surprisingly affordable, audiophile-quality digital audio players. That means all the elements inside the player have been selected and engineered to appeal to people with picky tastes and expensive headphones and lossless audio files who like to fiddle endlessly with EQ settings.

While I own and appreciate well-designed amplifiers and speakers, I’m not really an audiophile. I can reliably tell the difference between a WAV file and a 192kbps mp3 of the same song, but bump that mp3 up to 320kbps and I can’t tell you which one’s which anymore. I believe there are people who can notice the difference (Neil Young is most definitely one of them), but I’m also pretty sure they’re less than 5% of the population, and I am not among them.

So the X5ii’s real appeal to me is its storage capacity: rather than the outdated hard drive of my old iPod, this Fiio holds two micro sd cards of whatever capacity you choose -- both of mine are 200GB at the moment, meaning this thing already holds more than twice what that iPod did, but as technology advances and 512GB cards become more affordable, I can expand it further, if and when I need to. So, while I don’t personally need my entire collection in any of the lossless formats Fiio supports, I do plan on upgrading all of those 120 and 192kbps mp3s I ripped or acquired in the aughts.

The X5ii has a similar form factor to an iPod, including a scroll wheel, but because Fiio is a small company the bulk of their resources are apparently focused on the hardware, not the software, leaving a few trade-offs for iPod users to get accustomed to. Most significantly, since the X5ii doesn’t come with any media management software, you have to update the device manually -- that means dragging and dropping any new songs directly onto the device via your computer, and that means taking some time, if you haven’t already, to organize your collection in a logical folder structure so what’s on your device can be compared at a glance to what’s on your computer, and swapped back and forth most easily.

Once you’ve got the music you want on the device, you’ll find that navigating within your collection takes longer compared to an iPod, and the UI feels like it was designed by nerds for other nerds, rather than by nerds for their parents. If, like me, you have thousands of artists in your collection, and feel like playing a specific album by someone in the middle of the alphabet (as pictured above), it’s going to take you a minute or more of spinning that wheel before the music’s playing. I do the bulk of my listening by putting my entire collection, or some large subset of it, on shuffle play, so I don’t really mind the lag.

(Addendum, 3/12/17: I started minding the lag, a lot. My breaking point came last month, on a flight, while trying to write up “Waterloo Sunset.” It took me so goddamn long to navigate to the track I wound up timing it: one minute and thirty-four seconds. That felt unacceptable, so I came up with a better solution: I re-arranged my filing system so that there’s a separate folder for each letter of the alphabet on simcard #1, and artists are filed in the appropriate folder like they might be in a record store (except, since it’s a digital age, Bruce Springsteen goes in B, not S, etc.). This change improved the navigation experience dramatically: I can now have “Waterloo Sunset” playing twenty-three seconds after wishing it, or more than four times faster than before.)

There’s only one thing I consider a serious degradation of my old iPod experience: my X5ii hates external playlists. Just getting one onto the device is probably too daunting for the average consumer: you have to export the playlist from your media manager, open it in Notepad, and do a universal find-and-replace operation so that all the paths to your tracks on your computer (ie: C:/Users/Tim/Music/Magnetic Fields/Love at the Bottom of the Sea) get switched over to the paths on your device (ie: TF1:/Magnetic Fields/Love at the Bottom of the Sea). (Or, as of 3/21: TF1:/M/Magnetic Fields/Love at the Bottom of the Sea.)

That I could handle easily enough. Unfortunately, it turns out that even though the X5ii can hold tens of thousands of songs, it can’t handle a playlist with more than ~3,000 tracks at a time. Attempting to play one uses up too much RAM, and the device freezes. That was a major bummer, since the playlists I rely on most are anywhere from ~5,000 songs (“4 and 5 Star Soul”) to ~24,000 songs (“4 and 5 Star Everything”).

I tried to deal with this by splitting up my massive playlists into smaller ones, and rotating through them. But that was unsatisfying, because it meant one of the eight “4 and 5 Star Everything” playlists was all songs that started with H, so I wound up hearing a bunch of songs about hearts in a row. Note to all musicians (including myself): you can stop writing songs about hearts, and how they break, and how to heal them. It’s been done.

There was one other solution, which I was hesitant to try, and even more hesitant to admit to actually going through with, because it’s kind of insane. But it’s also why I’m posting about this on 5 Star Songs, as will become clear in a moment.

For reasons I don’t quite understand, my X5ii can easily handle a playlist with tens of thousands of tracks if it’s made directly on the device. So, I could replicate my “4 and 5 Star Everything” playlist by clicking the device’s “favorite” icon 24,760 times (doing so actually required 74,280 clicks, because you have to click once to reveal the icon, click a second time to select it, and then click a third time to move on to the next song you want to flag).

This seemed nuts. But, if it’s not already obvious, I really like my music, and I’m really particular about how I listen to it. And I loved everything else about my X5ii. If I could just favorite those 24,760 songs I already knew I liked best, keeping that Favorites playlist updated as I added new music would be much simpler than constantly exporting, editing and saving Notepad files.

So, um, I did it. Took me a week -- turns out it’s something you can do each evening while binge watching Horace and Pete. And though I’m a little embarrassed about it (and my wife is completely bewildered by my compulsion), I’m quite glad I did. For one thing, I now have the perfect portable device, capable of powering the highest quality headphones while carrying the sum total of all music I’ve collected over the past forty-odd years.

For another, it made me commune with that collection in a manner that turns out to be much more immersive and satisfying than scanning the spines of LPs or CDs stored on shelves. Over the course of a week, I stared at every album cover briefly, and made note of each song title, learning things I’d never realized along the way (for instance: Mavis Staples covered one of my favorite George Soule songs; also: the list of things bands have written odes to waiting for or on (A Friend, The Guns, Superman) is pretty funny when considered in a row).

So, that’s why the header at the top of this Tumblr recently switched from saying, “My iPod has 31,302 songs…” to “My mp3 player has 36,374 songs...” The number, which had stalled for years as I had to banish songs that had commited no crime beyond earning a mere 3 stars, can now start growing again. And that makes me so happy, I don’t mind it took me clicking buttons almost 75,000 times. I will always be an obsessive idiot when it comes to music.

There are far worse ways to muddle through life.