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meibemeibelline · 4 years

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part 3 (FINAL) of highlights from that 32k word doc i wrote when i marathoned gazette songs (2012-2018)

PART 1 | PART 2

once again:

This is a combo of thoughts on music, lyrics and other random things I wrote while listening. Not every song will be featured, sorry.

I sometimes directly quote translations and when I do, I’ll specify whose it was. Here are the masterposts of lyrics by Heresiarchy , Defective Tragedy and Trauma Radio

I will write song titles for which there are warnings in bold and all caps

So this part will be a bit different because mental health and The Band became really prominent themes in their music in a way it wasn’t really before, so rather than simply writing about songs as they come, I do (attempt to) connect some dots between songs and albums

Also this is REALLY LONG (~5k words)

If you read any of these posts, thank you <3

CONTENT WARNINGS: murder (In Blossom), reference to abuse (In Blossom), suicide/suicidal thoughts (Kagefumi, Deux/Blemish), reference to PTSD (Incubus). Overall LOTS of discussions about mental health.

buckle up folks it’s gonna be a long one

So I listened to Division according to the limited edition version where the songs got split into the ‘story-like songs’ and the ‘hype songs’. Just while we’re on that, I like to think that Vein is the story part because these songs (the blood) are meant to go TO our hearts, while Artery, which is the ‘raw emotion’, is the heart doing the talking and supplying the oxygen that will do its thing. LIKE HEADBANGING.

“Ibitsu is not the first song they’ve written about changes in the music industry, but it’s quite different from others like 13Stairs[-]1 and Dim Scene. They were quite angry about the state of things, lamenting it. But here, Ruki is writing his and the band’s place in all of that. It’s like in the other two songs he’s like, “wow look at all this rubble. This sucks.” But in Ibitsu he’s writing about how he’s also in that rubble and thinks about what HE feels about it in relation to himself and the GazettE. And I find that quite interesting. Also hell YES imagery – skies as ideals, the world around them collapsing into ruin, the band as a flower amidst the rubble that can’t reach the sky. It sounds like he’s trying to navigate how he’s supposed to move forward when his ideals and what’s happening in the industry oppose each other quite a lot. He doesn’t reach an answer in this song and ends by asking whether it is actually in ruins or whether he’s just afraid of change, I think.” - interestingly, he uses this same imagery in Kuroku Sunda Sora to Zangai to Katahane to write about anxiety and not feeling good enough.

Quick disclaimer on KAGEFUMI: I do want to say first that I’m talking about this purely as a piece of art. Not as in, like, “this is peak romance”, but just as an artwork I can have Opinions™ about, even if they’re possibly in disagreement with that of the creator. “The shadow tag metaphor for a couple committing double suicide meaning that they’re ‘becoming one’ and being together in death is A Lot. There’s an incredibly strong belief in an afterlife where they can be together makes (what Ruki describes) this stronger bond between them that literally lasts or even transcends the boundaries between life and death, rather than a tragic end (unlike Tokyo Shinjuu). Musically, I love this song and think it’s gorgeous, the way it’s sad yet hopeful. We over here with that bittersweet stuff again but lyrically it’s a WILDLY different route than others before it.”

“Yoin is such a heavy end to disc 1. The ending lines, “The sea of loss / Understanding of helplessness / That day we grieved” about the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami and the nuclear disaster is just so ……. And not only that, but how even though people still struggle to survive, people are moving on like it’s a thing of the past. It’s SO heavy.” (Cr: Defective Tragedy)

“I think [Derangement] is about a massive internal struggle between wanting longing for the past, knowing it won’t come back, but also wanting to destroy the past out of self-hatred. There are aspects of the past, perhaps ambition and drive for example, that are good, but other parts that are not. It’s almost like a continuation of Remember the Urge but like…angrier and with more hatred towards his own past rather than only the longing of it. Which is also really interesting.” – this is definitely one of the themes that comes up A LOT from now, ESPECIALLY in Ninth. We’ll get to that.

“IS KAI GOOD??? That man is NOT human. I swear to god his drums in Required Malfunction are INSANE. ANYWAY, this song is about how people cannot be perfect and we all have flaws, especially in the context of relationships. I like that even though people argue and butt heads sometimes, there’s that Japanese verse where he sings “Let’s send a song without stains / to that innocence without lies / so you can swallow those wounds” and the last lines “Because you are always here, I can advance” to mean like…them being together can ultimately make them better and it can be a good relationship (if they work on it, imo). Also, I love the language he uses here – viruses and malfunctions and inputs – a very non-human way to write about human relationships.” (Cr: Trauma Radio)

(Dripping Insanity) “Solitude drenched in red laughs / in the insanity dripping in silence” is SUCH a good line yes hello I appreciate this. (Cr: Heresiarchy)

“EYYY HAVEN’T HEARD FORBIDDEN BEAVER IN FOREVER. At first I was wondering if this might be judgmental but honestly? I think this is satirical, especially from the line “May the truth you spew on taboos going frantically around / Shred the rhythm of high society”. Like the fact they’re gossiping about a famous woman who has a lot of sex and just TARNISHING her name bc of it, to Ruki, is a load of bullshit. Also, some of the lyrics in the chorus are funny coming from Ruki – “She has a sex addiction / Bang! Bang! / Cute luv machine” – like he does NOT ever write like this and this song is just a huge satirical joke I’m YELLING.” (Cr: Heresiarchy)

“The transition from Malformed Box to Inside Beast >>>>”

“[Inside Beast] is definitely about having a ‘beast’ inside you that’s like all your demons and ugly feelings and to let them all out. He wrote about demons in Derangement, but the way he writes about acceptance is like…empowering and freeing. Not necessarily through words but through the music and just how hard this song slaps.”

“I really love the lyrics of [Until it Burns Out] and its whole thing about valuing the time they have as a band and to be together making music precisely because it’s going to end someday, and it’s going to be their last shot at living their dreams, which is to make music and perform TOGETHER as the GazettE. Like that’s so meaningful, and powerful in the way they just…grab it by the fucking throat. Breaking down the walls that hold them back, TOGETHER, towards the future in which they see their dreams. Like they’re not letting this be the end. They won’t allow it. UGH. UGHHH. The middle eight is so beautiful and I love the lines “The light that colours this irreplaceable scenery / burns the significance of standing here into me / Until the last” like they just love performing SO MUCH UGGGHHH FEELINGS”. (Cr: Trauma Radio)

“[REDO] IS SO GODDAMN SENTIMENTAL I’M IN MY FEELINGSSSSS. Kai being the composer, I can’t help but feel this is him paying homage to jazz, which is the music his mother plays and he loves her so so much. I’m probably reaching but THAT’S JUST HOW I FEEL.”

“EVERBODY SHUT UPPPP IT’S LAST HEAVEN TIMEEEE. It’s so gd gorgeous and sweet. I’M GETTING REALLY EMO WHAT THE FUCKKKK. BRUH. BRUUUUHHH. THIS IS SO BEAUTIFUL //THROWS. SHUT UPPPP. TOO MANY SKY, STAR AND FOREVER REFERENCES FOR THIS TO BE OKAY BITCH. This is Ruki’s love song to the cosmos, wishing to be eternal like the stars but acknowledging that all he can do is chase it knowing his life will end, BUT THAT THEY DON’T HAVE TO GRIEVE BECAUSE THEY WILL MEET AGAIN IN THE AFTERLIFE BECAUSE IN SOME WAY WE /ARE/ ETERNAL. IT’S LOVING AND INNOCENT AND WISTFUL. This song is the goddess to all the GazettE love songs. THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK. “The distant sky, this infinite moment / I now wish from the visible stars / in this youthful merry-go-round / that continues to turn endlessly / I want to be eternal like you” – is just…such a beautiful image. “Let’s stay like this, having dreams we cannot reach / Long road which leads to the calm hill / I go, leaving my sadness behind / Good night…my beloved / Last heaven of mine” – it’s yearning but it’s the yearning for LIFE. And to leave behind sadness…Ruki very rarely writes about pain like this. And to call the ‘beloved’ his last heaven, the last thing in his life that’s just THE BEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO HIM AND THE THING HE WANTS TO BE ETERNAL WITH goodbye………GOODBYE. “Love without shape changing day by day / Close together / we become / one shooting star” – AAAHHH AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH. Also, for him to say ‘memento mori’ which means “Remember, you must die” in the middle eight of a song about wanting to be eternal just gives the entire sentiment a new meaning ;-;” (Cr: Trauma Radio)

“There’s a particular sound to Division and Beautiful Deformity (but more in BD). It sounds like rushing water. Loss in particular sounds like this. Like, the sound isn’t just ‘dark’ and ‘heavy’, it moves A LOT and there is sooo much emotionality in the songs on this album. It’s really dynamic.”

“The Stupid Tiny Insect revisits the theme of inner demons. Specifically, in this song it sounds like negative internal self-talk. It’s interesting though, the way that Ruki writes it as an entirely separate being to how he writes inner demons and whatnot in other songs, where it’s either another entity within a person that is part of them OR just…themselves. Here, they are VERY separate, and that probably allows him to feel and express rage instead of helplessness or confusion. I also love the reference to pretending to be okay – “I get high on delusion / And act as if I made them die out / ‘Just like a summer moth to a flame”.” (Cr: Heresiarchy)

“IN BLOSSOM is pretty fucking brilliant lyrically imo. It reminds me a lot of 32 Koukei no Pistol in that a protagonist who was abused/neglected by the parents kills them, and in the latter’s case only, also themselves. Some other differences: In Blossom is WAY angrier (and a lot more loaded) and the protagonist is trying to ‘make their own life’ (even if the way they choose to do that DOESN’T WORK), whereas the narrator in 32 Calibre Pistol was mostly lamenting that they’ve ‘lost their way’ and deep-down were wishing for their family to be happy together. I can’t say WHY that is. But it’s interesting that in In Blossom, the abuse just…DESTROYED their concept of family that they used to believe in entirely, and the fact they cannot separate themselves from their abusers neither by dying nor killing them is A Lot. So, they try to free themselves and ‘get hope’ by killing their abusers as revenge (“Die away, along with these wounds I’d counted”), but it doesn’t bring them happiness or heal them (“Even if I slash so much it’s unparalleled by the wounds I’d counted, it still starts to ache / It doesn’t even fight off the decay, much less heal me”). It’s very much saying that despite pain, revenge is not the answer. I also love the line “They adorn vividly – have blossomed beautifully / The sun that has started to set makes sure of it” to describe the wounds as the narrator kills their abusers and their loss of sanity as they do so.” (Cr: Heresiarchy)

“To Dazzling Darkness is about that moment when a concert is over and the lights start to come on. It’s so gorgeous. This is sort of like, the other side of Until it Burns Out. If UIBO is about the band then TDD is about the fans, and the band’s place in the world. I love the imagery in the first verse – darkness is usually associated with bad things, but here darkness is peace, escapism and unity that are part of the happiness of a concert, while the light symbolises the continuation of life. The scenery here is the same scenery in UIBO, which is the scenery of a concert that this band cherishes. There’s also the acknowledgement that time is fleeting and nothing is forever. Like, this is really the other side of the coin and I love it.”

“Dogma defines their new (2015) sound so well, which is HEAVY AND DIRTY AS FUCK. Like, it is SO conceptual and experimental and the painting is just GORGEOUS. I love the harpsichord in this song – as the predecessor of the piano, it was used in a lot of churches and religious music in the Baroque period (1600-1750ish), so using it here in a song where the band is likened to idols (the religious type) is super cool. And to combine it with these really low and heavy guitars just gives the DARKEST image.

And there’s so much going on in the lyrics – MANY MOTIFS, MANY MEANINGS. They bring back the concept of darkness as a symbol for escape from harsh life and of unity during concerts. As for death, Reita has an iconic quote where he said something along the lines of: “we often say in lives ‘to die’, but what we actually mean is to live. Live and be free”. I see death for GazettE as a kind of transformation – and end, yet also a beginning to become something or someone new.

Ruki hasn’t really mentioned god since Ogre in Dim, in which he basically wrote “idk if God exists but I don’t really care – all I need is me”. But here he likens the band to an idol of worship. We as the fans worship the GazettE, and they are also gods to us, their followers, in the sense that they provide us with life and unity (referred to here as death and darkness, respectively). The GazettE as a band brings darkness and death to the world (with their own meanings, of course).

This is also a song about the band breaking away from current gods and dogmas of the music industry, and from its greed. I also love the line, “The rite I must face is cloaked in darkness and isolation” – this process of their journey to finding their truth is lonely, and no one but them can do it for themselves. To do so also isolates them from everything they once knew. It’s them navigating what is expected of them by the masses and those they work with vs doing what they want without getting shunned for it.” (Cr: Defective Tragedy)

“DAWN IS ABOUT REDISCOVERING THEMSELVES. I love the number of metaphors he brings back in this song – 13 stairs, death, merry-go-rounds and again dogma. Death here is about the transformation of them as a band, which occurs at the top of the 13 stairs to the gallows. And I find that so interesting because he uses the image of gallows (eg: 13 Stairs[-]1 and Forbidden Beaver) as like…an actual Death that means the end of a genre or a person’s reputation, but here it’s a place of transformation. In Last Heaven, the merry-go-round is a symbol of life – it comes back here but this time it’s red instead of blue (youthful) and is paired with the image of a mad banquet with emotions running wild (ie concerts). Basically, this is about the band’s life and, like, their life being about concerts. My favourite part is “Overcoming a period of confusion, I took those stirring emotions / And hung them up high on the 13 stairs” because there’s also the line “I’ve already had a lethal dose of misfortune / The ruined gallows towers above me” -> WE WENT THROUGH SOME SHIT BUT WE FOUND OURSELVES AND SURPRISE BITCH, BET YOU THOUGHT YOU’D SEEN THE LAST OF ME.” (Cr1: Heresiarchy, Cr2: Defective Tragedy)

Not from my notes directly but I feel like the difference between Bizarre to Juuyonsai no Knife (ie the only two songs about Real juvenile criminals) is a REALLY good representation of how Ruki’s lyrics have changed over the years. He went from taking perspectives of people who perpetrators of violence (to write horror stories, imo, but also to generally Explore their minds through art) to making comments about society and how systems affect people in real life. Not to say he doesn’t write about killers anymore or that social commentary is NEW for him, but just…a big change in what’s PROMINENT.

“Interesting that Wasteland is next, which is about Justice on the Internet. I know Ruki has always been really critical of the internet and the kind of social processes that occur online (see: Nakigahara) and here it’s about morality and justice, but more importantly the way it’s about crowd mindsets and CONTROL. And he just summarises it SO WELL in the first verse: “The thousand eyes that can kill even God / Transform into rebels that lust for control / If the time comes when right and wrong disappear / It will all end with a blood-red moon”. There’s also the line “Innocence gives way to sinful judgment” ie the innocent go along with their ways or it’s the innocent (the weak, as he says later) that are scrutinised. And I think about this a lot considering…some other fandoms I’m in >.>” (Cr: Defective Tragedy)

(INCUBUS) “The song is a lot of wondering what they did to deserve their trauma and how they want the dreams/nightmares to go away. I do like that at the end of the song they come to the conclusion that they cannot change what happened and decide “fuck the why”, accepting they didn’t deserve it. Even though the narrator is still stuck in the maze (of trauma), the letting go of asking why it happened is like, a really important step in healing. Because it’s the end of self-blame. So, I hope narrator can heal :( “

(DEUX) “My dumbass never realised this but the music of Deux itself has DUALITY. Metal with solo piano. IT REALLY TOOK ME FIVE YEARS TO REALISE THAT HUH. It’s about two conflicting selves (which to me sound more like intrusive thoughts, considering Blemish’s VERY LOUD “These days I’m better dead”) and the effect that has on like, your emotionality and how it leads to loneliness. His use of nightmares in this song is fascinating – the Japanese word he uses (sakayume) is like…a reverse dream, like if a child has a nightmare you tell them it’s a sakayume so it means what happened in their dream definitely won’t happen AND something good will happen instead. And this is something Ruki prays for.”

(Ominous) “The imagery is really dark in this – “A prayer crushed under wreckage / Reflects in your eyes as you start to fly / I see you in the sky thick with shadows / Spinning around with nightmares” – there’s a desperate attempt to fly and get better and do Well but still they’re surrounded by darkness and nightmares, unable to escape. “Don’t forget that a heart cannot die / Don’t forget that dreams aren’t predictions of the future” –There’s hopefulness in a heart not dying yet a very strong despair when he says dreams don’t predict the future, not even reverse dreams. “It steals away my still-unformed future, and whenever I step forth / I can’t see a thing in that shadowed sky / My screaming can’t save anything / when I’m killing myself with sadness” – oh that hurts, that hurts A LOT. He wants to fly but he can’t. This is just SO MUCH. And they didn’t even have an instrumental outro, IT JUST ENDS WITH ACCEPTANCE OF HOPELESSNESS AND DEPRESSION.” (Cr: Heresiarchy)

“The drums in Goddess uggghhh UGGGHHH. AND THE GUITAR TOOOOOO. Lyrically, this is really a mid-point between depression and healing. It’s A Lot. He writes about his suffering, wanting to make something of his mistakes and his sins and actually WANTING TO LIVE. But it’s so sad that in the end he still feels really helpless – the subtle changes between “I want to become the stars that fill the silence” vs “I can’t become the stars that fill the silence”. But I think that on some level he knows what the next step is. He wishes in the last two lines, “If only I could share my grief that can’t be put to words / If only I could face reality and live accepting my crippling despair”. THAT’S THE FIRST STEP!!!! THAT’S A STEP!!!! TO HEALING!!!! “These bleak thoughts are my sacrifice that will one day begin to thaw into a selfless, smiling heart” – this line is fucking LOADED. Like, he sacrifices his bleak thoughts by expressing them and by making art out of his pain in hopes that he will be able to acknowledge and accept his suffering and his pain as a means to heal, as a way of allowing him to have a selfless and smiling heart. Like, this is SO much of what his art is about and what it has been for SUCH a long time it makes me so emotional that this is what he’s saying about his own lyrics.” I realise too that the goddess is likely the same goddess from Blemish. I’m still unsure what to make of it because Blemish ends in Ruki writing he doesn’t wants to be reborn, and not abandoned. But here he ends with wanting to heal. Wanting to move on and live.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO UNDYING.

“WHEN HE BROUGHT BACK “SLEEP, COUNT ME DOWN AGAIN” >>> God, this song is so powerful. THERE ARE SO MANY CALL-BACKS TO DOGMA. I SHOULD’VE KNOWN THIS BUT STILL. BITCH WHAT THE FUCK. It’s a direct continuation of Ominous (“I won’t arise from this”). I think in this song he’s becoming that figure that is flying in Ominous, and the one that is surrounded by nightmares and shadows – the first verses are about how the future is drenched in misfortune yet we must continue to live (and suffer, but WE CAN AT LEAST BE A BIT HOPEFUL). Ruki says this YET HE IS STILL DREAMING, EVEN AS THE END COMES (“My heart starts to disappear along with the spirit of my words / And though it knew the end was near / It dreamt of things it shouldn’t want / And even now I am still—“). There’s also his mentions of sins again that he continues to drown in :( But overall, this song is really about living despite all the pain, which is really meaningful after Dogma ended on such a note of hopelessness. There’s so much power in this song.” (Cr: Heresiarchy)

“Vacant doesn’t necessarily sound like a romantic relationship breaking down as much as it is about making a mistake and being unable to fix it between you and someone else (or other people), even if Ruki said he wrote it with a band’s image in mind. But the gist is is that there is yet again a struggle within the self (“Self-condemnation distorts the answer / And I lose sight of what I should be / Because of those unconscious actions / I can’t even dream”). The line “In the pain of not being able to tie back the undone thread / The traces left by stopping time keep piling up” really got to me – being stuck in time and constantly wishing for something that was and being hurt by the fact it’s gone is something I personally relate to. But even as the narrator is stuck in time, their grip on the past is loosening – they are forgetting, memories fade, and they lose their strength (“Vacant, you are withering”).” (Cr: Heresiarchy)

(Faling) ““Together, embracing the same pain: it’s only temporary / Don’t forget that this is not the end / So come on, let’s open our eyes and fall / We just believe in ourselves to die / Sometimes it’s okay to be broken” THIS MEANS SO FUCKING MUCH AFTER THE AMOUNT OF TIMES RUKI ENDED DOGMA SONGS WITH HOPELESSNESS AND AT BEST “WE HAVE TO KEEP LIVING AND SUFFERING AND BEING IN PAIN” BUT IN FALLING, PAIN IS TEMPORARY. PAIN IS TEMPORARY. WE WILL HEAL, BITCH. WE WILL GET BETTER, BITCH.” (Cr: Defective Tragedy)

Can’t find my notes bc it’s somewhere else in my Tumblr drafts but basically: I consider Mortal, Utsusemi and Sono Kore wa Moroku like a Depression Trilogy™ in Ninth. Mortal is about depression, loneliness and loss but like, tying it to a singular person or event in which the narrator felt grief. Utsusemi is about loneliness and depression as well, AND RUKI USES THE CICADA SHELL METAPHOR, WHICH IS THE SAME AS CRUCIFY SORROW (ALSO ABOUT DEPRESSION, BUT SOMEONE ELSE’S). But then, Sono Koe wa Moroku is THE turning point and where he first mentions (in this album) and actual DESIRE to heal and like, ON HIS OWN. IT’S ABOUT BEING STRONG FOR HIMSELF AND THAT MAKES ME SO EMOTIONAL. And as I mentioned before, Falling also ends on a hopeful note about sadness not lasting forever – it’s like he’s prefacing the album with the fact sadness IS temporary and that there IS a turning point.

“Babylon’s Taboo is interesting…so apparently Babylon is a figure of western imperialism and capitalism in the Rastafari movement (an afro-centric anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement from Jamaica). The narrator is COMPLETELY aware of the oppression and injustice that goes on around him but confesses to doing nothing. I interpreted this as complacency to violence, which Ruki has written about before. Also, he describes a starry sky (which I presume represents wealth and happiness) as a lie, and that they are actually black eyes that watch and look down upon you. In the context of anti-capitalism, my interpretation is that the ‘guaranteed fate’ he writes about is the life-long struggle to attain wealth and happiness – we are doomed to dedicate our lives to this, futilely, to no end. and there’s nothing we can do about it. Another line that stood out to me most is “all I need is sanity but uncertainty will do”. this, along with the rest of the song, implies that the narrator is PRETTY DAMN SURE that we’re all fucked so like....HAHA COOL.” (Cr: Defective Tragedy)

(Two of a Kind) Okay so…another motif I noticed in this album is an I and a You. And I know this sounds weird considering almost EVERY SINGLE GAZETTE SONG uses first and second pronouns, but mental health is SUCH a prominent, overarching theme in a way no album concept has been before, hence why I’m saying this. Two of a Kind is really solidifying this for me, but they appear in almost every song (but the You is known as ‘she’ in The Mortal). This pair are connected in an extremely emotionally intimate way. For one, they share pain and understand each other’s pain. Secondly, the narrator falls into depression after they’re gone. A part of me thinks it could be a past self and a current self, considering Ruki’s said this album involved the Most introspection from him and Falling writes about sins and past mistakes again. So, it could be a way of separating a past and current self – a past self that was perhaps lost, and made mistakes, but ultimately creates his current self.

But it could also be another person, as this You figure is also a source of light – someone Ruki shares his wounds with, in Two of a Kind. If it’s another person, it may also make sense that the depression and loneliness written about in The Mortal and Utsusemi is triggered by someone extremely close leaving him. Either way, it is this understanding and connection between the I and the You that also bring hope for the future and I REALLY love the way that hope is conveyed in the chorus of Two of a Kind. There’s so much light in it compared to the parts of the song where ruki calls himself filthy and ugly, and when he writes about negative feelings that never go away and bleed into this other person. but i think this other person understands it, and that’s why he can move on.

“Abhor God is a REALLY dark and heavy take on MOVING FORWARD. Like there’s so much rage in the way he writes about killing his lust, pride and anxiety and stringing up his nightmares in a noose, yet so much power in how he moves forward and sings victory with his music and his art. This is likely connected to Ninth Odd Smell and Uragiru Bero - where he writes about the band’s history and his imposter syndrome as an artist despite the band never going to die just because of that. He contrasts ‘too fast to live’ and ‘too young to die’ like, he’s really in a sort of purgatory where he’s constantly making too many mistakes to be happy but has too much to do for him to give up. So it’s here that he chooses to keep going no matter how weak the beat is. Imagery-wise this feels like.....continuing to live not because you have happiness to look forward to but just out of sheer willpower. Like it’s just so angry. Angry at the world, at yourself, but carrying that anger to try to be better and move forward.”

“And Unfinished is about the fans being his reasons to live and IT MAKES ME VERY EMOTIONAL THAT THIS IS HOW THE ALBUM ENDS!!!!!!! WITH HOPE!!!!! AND MOVING FORWARD!!!!! THEY LITERALLY ENDED THEIR ALBUM THAT’S ABOUT THEM ‘MAKING THEIR MARK ON THEIR WORLD’ WITH LIGHT AND HOPE AFTER LIKE TWO STRAIGHT ALBUMS OF /DEPRESSION/. EVERYBODY GO HOME WE LOVE HEALING IN THIS HOUSE.”

AND THAT’S THE END FOLKS!!!! if you made it here thank you so much for reading my ramblings and i appreciate u so so much <3 i hope you learned something new about the gazette’s music (i sure did - it’s why i went on this marathon in the first place!!) and again i have a list of posts i might write (which will definitely be shorter than these) so! yeah! anyway!! it’s past 11pm and i have no more brain cells. thanks again love ya have a good day/night <3 <3

#the gazette #gazetto #ruki #uruha #aoi #reita #the gazette kai #kai #the gazette ruki #the gazette uruha #the gazette aoi #the gazette reita #why am i tagging this #anyway i just want to say #i tried to stream bts' new song while putting this together #but i physically COULD NOT #the dissonance was too much #anw i love dynamite it's such a great serotonin boost haha <3

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metalshea · 5 years

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Let's Talk About Alcest... and Agalloch... and Behemoth… and Racism

A couple months ago, I wrote an article about Alcest and their second single, "Sapphire", ahead of the release of their latest album, "Spiritual Instinct". It was building off a previous post I had written about the use of space in metal music.

I never published it.

Nor did I publish my year end list because—spoiler—I list “Spiritual Instinct” on it.

I've been struggling with how to square the circle that is my love of the Alcest's music with the thorny problem that is Niege's history performing in the racist band, Peste Noire, and the ties he appears to maintain to racist black metal and national socialist black metal (NSBM). It didn't feel right publishing that article when I knew the history of the band but hadn't yet addressed it.

To that same end, it doesn't feel right discussing black metal on a public platform without addressing some of the ethics of consuming the genre.

This is my attempt to do that.

For the uninitiated, Niege (née Stéphane Paut), is the musical mastermind of Alcest, one of the premier blackgaze bands in metal music today. They are the genre's quieter, more contemplative yin to Deafheaven's cacophonous yang. Alcest frequently use spacy and atmospheric effects, midrange tempos, and ephemeral vocals in their music, and contrast these with more typical black metal musical tropes like blast beats and shrieked vocals to create dynamic, haunting, intense, and beautiful songs. Lyrically, Alcest is a vehicle for Niege to transcribe and memorialize visions that he had as a child of a distant, far off fairy realm. As an act, Alcest are distinctly focused on bringing this artistic vision to fruition, and from what I've seen, I have to say they are pretty much laser focused on that task. Niege has also been hugely influential to the development of the blackgaze genre as a whole and has participated in other successful backgaze acts, such as Les Discrets, as well as collaborated with Lantlos and Deafheaven.

However, Niege and the other members of Alcest have very troublesome histories and connections to Europe's white supremacist music scene. Niege was previously a member of the French anarcho-racist band, Peste Noire, for 8 years before being fired. During that time he performed on an album titled "Aryan Supremacy" and even holds writing credits on one of the band's songs off of their album, "Folkfuck Folie". More troubling, the band members that make up Alcest's studio and live bands have similar resumes, and a number of them did time in Peste Noire.

As the black metal music scene has rightfully come under increased scrutiny for its racist associations, Niege's time in Peste Noire has similarly found itself under the microscope. In a 2011 statement, Niege specifically addressed criticisms around his past in Peste Noire:

"I never was involved in any way with any political, racist or xenophobic ideologies. I was just a musician in Peste Noire, most of the time session musician, I never took part of the lyrics or philisophy [sic] of the band. At the "Aryan Supremacy" period I was 15 years old and I didn't think about the consequence of recording some music with that band, it always was just musical participation for me. Alcest has NOTHING to do with any hate-based philosophy like racism and as a person I am absolutely NOT into nazism, racism and such ideologies." [emphasis Niege's]

In an interview with Avantgarde Metal in 2011, Neige said about his time in Peste Noire:

"Oh, that was a long time ago now… Don’t even ask me about the concept behind it, it is very complex. It was basically the exact opposite of Alcest: love for evil, but in a real way. In any case, I was only a guest on his project as I played drums for him, but I did/do not share his views at all."

Finally, an article on stereoboard.com dated October 2019 quotes Niege as saying:

With hindsight, Neige dubs this tenure as one of his biggest regrets. Peste Noire are less well-known for their music than for their far-right views and racist imagery, which Alcest have since publicly disowned. “I was never into the ideas of the band,” Neige clarifies. “I was naive enough to think that just being a musician in a band like that didn’t mean anything. But, that really does mean something, and that was my mistake. I was a teenager when I joined, but it’s still a big regret that I have.”

Alcest is at the absolute pinnacle of their career. They recently signed to Nuclear Blast, have a new album that has earned a number of year-end honors, and have honed a distinctive sound that is very much genre-defining; but in the face of all the accolades, Niege's explanations of his time in Peste Noire are still problematic.

Why does he still associate with other musicians from Peste Noire?

Why doesn't he specifically denounce Peste Noire or it's broader racist project?

If he was just a session or "guest" musician, how does he account for his writing credit?

If the timeline that Niege paints holds up, he was 23 when he was fired, certainly old enough to know better about Peste Noire's project and intentions. Why did he spend 8 years in the band if he didn't ascribe to its philosophies? Why didn't he leave Peste Noire voluntarily? Why did he have to be fired?

Neige may indeed have very rational answers to any and all of these questions, and, to give Niege some credit, his statements are far more direct than similar statements from other artists that have found themselves in the crosshairs of concerned fans. It's also probably worth noting that in comparing this statement to those from unabashedly racist artists, who fully make use of the opportunity to spout their atrocious beliefs on a public platform, Niege does the exact opposite by distancing himself from hate-driven ideology and publicly declaring his regrets. But even still, it's hard to simply dismiss Neige's time in Peste Noir, and his participation in spreading that band's racist philosophies will forever be a stain on Alcest.

After the release of The Faceless', "In Becoming A Ghost", I had a conversation with my wife around whether it would be moral to stream or buy the album. Shorlty after the album's release, Michael Keene's drug addiction struggles came to light and were pasted all over the metal music press. While I firmly believe that artists should receive financial benefits when others enjoy their creative output, I also believe that educated consumers should absolutely question how that material support is going to be used by the artist. I don't want to fuel Michael Keene's addictions. I didn't buy the album. I streamed it once. I haven't listened to it since. I probably won't see The Faceless perform again until I'm sure that Keene has cleaned up. Maybe he has, I haven't followed him that closely to know for sure.

I'm in similar straights with Alcest. And Behemoth. And Agalloch. And black metal more generally.

In the case of Behemoth, Nergal's disgusting position on an apparent sexual assault, his murky ties to the NSBM scene, and his continued defiance in the face of such disgusting behavior and views makes my decision about supporting Behemoth a no-brainer: I'm not going to spend my money on their albums anymore, I won't see them live, I won't buy their merch, and I'm not going to promote the band's output on any of my platforms. I was wrong to do so in the past. I know better now. I'm not doing it any more.

But Agalloch was trickier: John Haughm stuck his foot in it when he made disgusting anti-Semitic comments in a facebook post. However, the former members of the band quickly denounced him for it (as did his bandmates in Pilloran). I'll certainly listen to the now defunct Khorada and whatever projects the non-racist members of the band move on to. And, hey, Haughm apologized, so there's that.

But there are still some serious questions about Alcest that need to be wrestled with, especially because of Neige's ongoing relationships with musicians also "previously" connected to white supremacy. Which begs the question: is it ethical to support or promote the artistic output of a band that on the face of it appears non-controversial, but when the views of the actual artists are themselves questionable?

Roland Barthes, in "The Death of the Author", once wrote:

“The modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing, he is in no way the subject of which his book is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now.”

I have some issues with Barthes. As I see it, a text is inherently subject to the influences and views of the author. The creative force that is ultimately responsible for the artwork itself is inherently subject to the whims of the artist, and it is forever tied to the creator. However, artistic output can be siloed such that the created art can simultaneously stand separate from the completed whole that makes up the artist. That is to say that while the artist as a person can be complicated or even problematic, the work that is created is an offshoot that is not necessarily subject to the full scope of experiences or biases of its creator. This siloing of the art from the artist means that a project can exist as an entity that can be examined on its own merits, when appropriate, rather than only within the framework of the creator.

Agalloch as a project was concerned with nature, death, the seasons, and nihilism. While John Haughm has been proven to have some despicable views, his collaboration with the other members of the band resulted in an output that seems fully divorced from his views on race. It feels wrong to punish the other members of Agalloch for Haughm's views, especially after they so thoroughly denounced him for it.

In the case of Alcest, I have found zero evidence that the band represents a racist project. Its lyrics are decidedly apolitical, ephemeral, and esoteric. They are an exercise in poetic worldbuilding and a sort of musical sleep diary for Niege's childhood dreams and visions. In contrast, Peste Noire is an unabashedly political and racist project that is a direct extension of its creator's views and philosophies. Peste Noire's vision and project is to enable a world underpinned by racial supremacy, structural deconstruction, and personal elitism. There's a damned big difference between Alcest and Peste Noire and how their respective creators utilize the bands as thought vehicles, even though personnel have been shared between the two bands.

So, what to do about Alcest? I'm certainly not going to be person that goes out and says: absolutely you should go out and buy their records. The past associations of Niege and his compatriots means that Alcest will forever have an asterisk next to its name, and every consumer of their music should certainly take time to consider the ethical ramifications of supporting the band.

Niege asserts that Alcest is not rooted in hate-based ideologies. Over the course of numerous albums, this has proven true over and over again. At a certain point, you have to judge someone for their current actions while informed by their past. Niege will have to continue to reckon with his time in Peste Noire and his current choice of musicians. But Alcest as a vision has fully matched his assertion: there is no evidence that I can find that Alcest is itself a racist project. I remain open to being swayed to the contrary, but at this point in time, the evidence simply does not exist.

I also believe we need to reward to people when they perform actions that are themselves moral and correct. I reject that we should condemn a person in perpetuity while they still retain the ability to seek forgiveness. I enjoy Alcest's music; I appreciate that it's apolitical; I want Niege to continue to make music that fits the vision he has laid out for Alcest; and I want to tie Niege's successes and the success of his compatriots to a benign project like Alcest.

As a consumer, the only real way that I can have an impact on someone like Niege is through my wallet. Capital becomes a vehicle for my opinions and my voice. Boycott is one way to do it; providing material support is another. Had I not known about Niege's history in Peste Noire, I would have had no idea that Alcest had this adjacency to hate. And that's kind of the point: because that connection is so opaque and so irrelevant to Alcest's music output, it actually makes some ethical sense to materially support Alcest as a project. It is the equivalent of rewarding my dog with a treat when he sits on command even though he used to gnaw on my socks as a puppy.

Above all else, though, we also have to have room to allow people the space to regret, feel contrition, and atone for their past actions. Niege's statements seem clear: he regrets his time in Peste Noire, and he's worked hard to keep Alcest as distant as possible from Peste Noire's agenda. If Alcest continues on as it is--a veritable sleep diary--and Niege and crew continue to distance themselves from their previous associations with white supremacy, then I think that it is moral to continue to buy Alcest's music, as it is to listen to Agalloch, and for similar reasons.

There are still numerous bands in the black metal genre that have instead doubled down on their racism when confronted by fans, instead blaming PC culture and Antifa when really they are the ones that need to look in the mirror. It is unfortunate that as consumers we need to research the bands we listen to so thoroughly. But in our world of extreme information sharing, we do have to tools to do so, and indeed we should. After all, it is the fans that truly hold the power to encourage and denounce such despicable bands, if through no other means than our wallets.

\m/

#alcest #agalloch #Behemoth #racisim #black metal

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kalluun-patangaroa · 5 years

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Brett Anderson: ‘I was trying to look at myself as a specimen’

by Helen Cullen

The Irish Times, 28 September 2019

Suede singer discusses his second memoir and how it swings from candour to euphoria

Brett Anderson’s book avoids exploitation of those that travelled within his orbit, with no trace of gossip, blame or exposé. Photograph: Paul Khera

Here he comes: the beautiful one, with the book in his hand he vowed never to write. It was inevitable. Those who read his first memoir, 2018’s Coal Black Mornings, the bildungsroman which so elegantly deconstructed the childhood, adolescence and ultimate creation of the artist, will understand why it was so irresistible for him; Brett Anderson is a poet who discovered songwriting first.

Renowned for lyrics that elevate the banal, bleak ephemera of ordinary life to something extraordinary, Anderson says he finds “the iconography of mundanity inspiring. I look at a chain link fence and see romance there.” On this occasion, he has taken something extraordinary – cultural superstardom – and made it uniquely ordinary with its grounded presentation.

Once he had embraced the opportunities that writing his own memoir gave him; reclaiming truth from the tabloids, re-evaluating perceived successes and failures, creating the official record of Suede’s history, and all with the precision prose and eclectic turns of phrase that were synonymous with his lyrics, he was destined to keep going.

The first book was written for his son so that he would know his father in a way that is profoundly difficult for most of us. This time around, the book exists because Anderson loved writing Coal Black Mornings so much. “I thought it was really interesting what I did with it,” he explains, “so I couldn’t resist picking at the scab, although I know the experience of publishing this book will be different because of the period of my life that it deals with.”

Charting the ascent of Suede in the 1990s through the halcyon moments of appearing on the cover of Melody Maker before ever releasing a single, to the gut-wrenching ultimate implosion of the band, Anderson doesn’t shy away from either the glorious or the gory. The book ends backstage at the Graham Norton show with the band splitting up; the perfect moment to close as Anderson is unafraid to hold failure up to the light. As he says, “Sometimes it’s not the sparkling moments that define us but the darker ones leading up to them.”

Absence of exploitation

And yet he manages to achieve something unique for the realm of rock biography; the book exhibits a total absence of exploitation of those that travelled within his orbit, avoiding any trace of gossip, blame or exposé. All the revelations are his own; the secrets just his to tell. As such he is dispirited in anticipation of the inevitable trawling through by some for salacious quotes to satisfy a greediness for controversy.

“I know that a gossipiness is going to be projected on to it and that every review will focus on Britpop even though the whole point of the book was to try to talk about something other than that,” he says. “It was slightly naive of me to think that I could write about these things in a more interesting way without it being dragged back to that agenda, but I hope when people read it they will understand what I was trying to do.”

“I was interested in understanding what the industry did to me . . . out of fascination with how it all worked.”

In chapter one, Anderson explains his ambition was “to use elements of my own story as a way to reach out and reveal the broader picture, to look at my journey from struggle to success and to self-destruction and back again and use that narrative to talk about some of the forces that acted on me and to maybe uncover some sort of truth about the machinery that whirrs away, often unseen, especially by those on whom it is working, to create the bands that people hear on the radio.”

The result becomes a masterclass in understanding the emotional and practical infrastructure of the 1990s music industry. The micro level of Anderson’s unique personal experience is positioned within the macro in an illuminating and thought-provoking manner that contextualises their trajectory.

Amoral industry

“I was trying to look at myself as almost like a specimen,” he says. “The industry is completely amoral. It’s not deliberately trying to romanticise drugs or damage anyone but these things grow out of it. I was interested in understanding what the industry did to me, not by way of complaint, but more out of fascination with how it all worked.”

Reading Anderson’s account of the darkest days of his addiction is harrowing; it’s difficult to reconcile his past self with the refined, intellectual and incredibly warm gentleman waxing lyrical before me on a sunny September morning in his west London bolthole. More than anything, it is a relief that he survived.

The memoir manages to avoid, however, pandering to the cliches surrounding the drug-fuelled mythology of rock stars that Anderson admits being seduced by. Instead it raises questions about the consequences of mining your own self as the muse. If you become personally invested in the dangerous myths that surround creativity – so you must keep perpetuating behaviours that might destroy you in order to create – how do you ever break that cycle and find a new way to work?

Looking back now, Anderson acknowledges that “justifying indulgences is a function of that myth but you do learn that isn’t the only way to create and that you don’t need an external stimulus to generate ideas – that in fact it can have the opposite effect”.

The importance of tenacity within the creative process is a major, and refreshing, theme of the memoir. It is poignant to hear Anderson recount how a fear of returning to the poverty of his childhood drove him to persevere with the band when others might have surrendered. Although many would disagree, it’s clear that Anderson does not consider himself an artistic visionary but rather someone with a great work ethic.

“I was brought up in a very poor family, aware of the narrow limitations of my parents’ lives. Not wanting that for myself and my own family still drives me,” he explains. “A lot of great art has been created because of that fear and there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t give up and I like how hard I work, that I keep throwing ideas together and in the jumble occasionally good things pop up.”

Press caricature

Anderson’s account of how his persona was curated by the media at the height of their celebrity is compelling. Although his essential self was always driving their creative decisions, the press created a caricature of him that he lost control of and resulted in three decades of a man bridging the gap between his authentic self and a stage persona.

Brett Anderson and Suede: “It doesn’t matter what else I do now or how many great records I make because I was most influential as an artist during a certain time.”

“It wasn’t something I was conscious of doing at the time but I definitely made choices that fuelled it and the press exaggerated it further and ran with it,” he explains. For all music fans, and the Suede tribe in particular, the book offers these delicious insights into all aspects of the band; their image, songwriting craft, business decisions and relationships with the press. Did he feel any anxiety about stripping away that protective veneer now and allowing the fans and beyond to visit Oz and meet the wizard?

“There was definitely a fear that I might be undermining my own mystique to its detriment but I’m at the phase in my career where it doesn’t matter anymore. If I’d done this 15 or 20 years ago I think it would’ve affected how people see me but by now my image is too set. It doesn’t matter what else I do now or how many great records I make because I was most influential as an artist during a certain time and I can’t ever get away from the perception formed then. It’s galling, irritating, frustrating but I just have to accept that.”

In this, Anderson may not be right. This memoir has a profound capacity to alter the way music fans perceive the industry, their idols and the creative process – and to challenge any fixed ideas they may have about the man himself. In the wake of their eighth studio album, 2018’s The Blue Hour, and the incredible documentary, The Insatiable Ones, produced by Mike Christie that charts 25 years of the band, Anderson is experiencing a cultural renaissance that signifies him as an artist still in his prime. In the memoir he describes Suede as being like “a pram that’s been pushed down a hill” but his legions of fans will be relieved to hear it is finally parked up safely. For now, at least.

Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn is published by Little, Brown on October 3rd

#suede #brett anderson #press #the irish times #2019 #afternoons with the blinds drawn

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what-if-rpg · 5 years

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Welcome to the family, B! Your application to COOPER ANDERSON was accepted, as well as the changes. I am really happy to have you around! Make sure to read the beginners checklist, and remember, have fun! I can’t wait to roleplay with you! Have fun!

IN CHARACTER

CHARACTER NAME: Cooper James Anderson. CHARACTER AGE & DATE OF BIRTH: 27 / 18th January 1992. OCCUPATION: Actor and Musician. (Broadway) FACE CLAIM: Brendon Urie. HOMETOWN & CITY WHERE LIVES NOW: Boston MA, New York City. SEXUAL ORIENTATION & GENDER: Bisexual and Male. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: In a Relationship. POSITIVE TRAITS: Loyal, Caring, Passionate. NEGATIVE TRAITS: Hot-tempered, Impulsive, Arrogant. CHARACTER QUOTE/LYRIC: Now I’m gonna fuck up a hotel lobby. ANYTHING ELSE?: FC change please!

HEADCANONS

Cooper has always dreamed of the arts after growing up with his passions fuelled by his mother. He is a multi-instrumentalist who writes music as a hobby. The man has a band named Saint!California who regularly releases music. Cooper makes appearances as a singer but is torn on where his loyalties lie in his career. He feels tied to Broadway by more than one thing but often thinks he should move away from it and pursue music full time. The band seem to be in demand and he is proud of the work he has created, leaving him with guilt over the lack of attention he gives it. Cooper has become rather fond of the stage, escaping as someone else for a few hours each night can help with the confusion he finds himself clouded by, it’s a good compromise…. for now.

As a child, Cooper shined in a local stage school he attended on weekends. The boy was picked up for multiple commercials and his acting resume grew more and more. When he reached High School, he had an arrogance and ego around him though being turned down for a role in the school’s production of Grease had him swear off musical theatre. Cooper went in a mood with all things musical, including Broadway. After graduating, he left Boston for Hollywood and spent six long months scrapping around for work. His agent then turned his attention to New York with an audition as a swing in Newsies. The nineteen year old turned his nose up at the offer immediately, though after long conversations with his mother and agent, they suggested he bite the bullet and try it out. It would give him a step into the industry as his mother said, he was “only nineteen, he had time to be in line for the next Oscar.” Now, Cooper feels like he’d gotten lost in Broadway. He does enjoy it though he also wonders What if? What if something else had happened instead?

Cooper has a few different ticks about him. He’s a bit of a mess when you look close enough. His biggest fear is not being able to escape situations. When in the middle of an argument, Cooper will often storm out of a room and leave for a few hours. He needs to feel as though he can remove himself from a situation otherwise it sends him into a flurry of a panic. Paparazzi is one thing that Cooper internally struggles with. On the outside, he’s all smiles and cheery tones though he’s battling a fight inside him. Cooper is very open with his fans and they usually hold great respect for him. The paparazzi are ones who care less about his personal space and more about capturing the right photo. It’s a part of his life that he tries to avoid as much as possible, if and when he can.

You’ll be pushed to find someone who loves their fans more than Cooper does. With an addiction to Instagram, his fans are never shy of content and the latest smiling selfie. The man also takes a great fondness to Instagram Live where he will sit and talk to fans while cooking or waiting in his dressing room. Cooper is one to hold free signing events and concerts when possible, which he funds himself. Though raised in a middle class, it’s his mother’s roots that bring him back down to that humble level. The eldest Anderson holds great appreciation to those around him and does his best to give back as often as he can, whatever the cost.

CONNECTIONS

PARENTS: Pamela and Richard Anderson. Born to middle-class parents, Pam (a children’s book author) and Richard (a renowned lawyer) Cooper is probably the biggest Momma’s boy you’ll ever come across. After the family struggled to conceive, the news of their first child brought them so much joy. Pam always had a soft spot for the eldest who adored her more than anything. Pam is someone Cooper will often turn to for advice or comfort but his father and he hold a tense relationship. Richard has always pushed a lot of high expectations on his eldest and when he grew less and less like the young lawyer his father dreamed of, he became cold towards him. Though his father and he don’t get along, the only joint interest the two share are working lazy Sundays in the garage on old cars. Cooper became a bit of a grease monkey during the summer and when he was fourteen, he fixed up his grandfather’s old 1965 Ford Mustang. Even though he’s moved out of the house, he’s still close to his mother and always go home for the holidays. Christmas isn’t the same without his family. SIBLING: Blaine Anderson. The two Andersons have always held an interesting relationship. Cooper truly does care about Blaine, maybe a little too much that he often pushes his little brother to achieve his potential. Ultimately though, they hold a true brotherly relationship. Cooper loves nothing more than winding up his younger sibling and teasing him. At the end of the day, Cooper will jump into a fight to defend his brother in a heartbeat. Family is important to him. BOYFRIEND: Jesse St. James. Broadway was a daunting place for the new actor and starting a big show such as Les Miserables couldn’t be more than intimidating. Befriending an experienced actor hadn’t been his worst idea. That was until one night at a cast party, six months into their friendship and the show, the two shared a drunken kiss. He can’t really tell you when they started ‘dating’ behind closed doors but he knows he’s conflicted. Giving into Jesse’s advances, he finds feeling like a dirty secret eats away at his conscience, as well as the drama happening in Jesse’s life, he never knows where he stands. After Jesse’s divorce was filed, his cast-mate moved in with and within months they became official. It was a relationship the fans generated and they melted into. Cooper knows he has at least some feelings for his cast mate who have become something of a Broadway Duo, appearing regularly in shows together that only appeals further to the fans. Now eleven months into dating officially, he finds himself bickering with his boyfriend with a few treasured moments in-between. Cooper can’t decide if he wants to get out of this relationship but he finds himself falling back into that man’s life, even if it’s not a completely happy one. BEST FRIEND: Ellie Weeks [NPC]. A friend he grew up with after she moved to Boston from London. He attended school with her and the two are incredibly close. She’s someone who has seen every side to him; giggly; upset; moody; or blackout drunk on the floor. Cooper runs most of his big ideas past her and she’s more often than not, the one to intervene on his impulsive ideas. She knows him inside out and adores his friendship, he’s like her adopted American brother. Ellie is one of the few people who sees through the lines with Jesse and Cooper’s relationship. She is not fond of the other man by any means but holds her tongue for Cooper’s sake. She has warned him enough but trusts when he tells her “I’m fine, El, trust me.” She can’t help but worry about him getting hurt. RIVAL: Wanted Connection [UTP]. Someone Cooper can’t stand. They know how to get his back up and provoke the hot-tempered attitude in him. The mention of their name can draw a scowl to his face and he will easily rise to the bait. The two often find each other by chance and there’s always some sort of tension or altercation when they’re in the same room. As of late, they’ve ended up seeing more and more of each other and Cooper can only grumble about it.

#Cooper Anderson #Accepted #Glee RP #Glee RPG #RP

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simpathysims · 6 years

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Hi! flower crown / 1975 / black nail polish / lace / sunrise and bands :)

Thanks

flower crown: when did you last sing to yourself?: Yesterday 8:16

1975: what is the first happy memory that comes to mind, recent or otherwise?: My mind kinda went blank. I have happy moments but nothing pops straight out of my head... After thinking about it for a while is when i got baptized.

black nail polish: do you have a bucket list? if so, what are the top three things?: In an old post, i stated I want to travel the world to try all the treats, and make friends along the way. First three countries I’d vistit are: Chille, Bolivia, and Brazil.

lace: when was your last 3am conversation with someone, and who were they to you?: I only talk to myself bc no one else is up, so i guess me?

sunrise: pick a quote and describe what it means to you personally:” If you hear a voice within you say, ‘you cannot paint’ by all means, paint and that voice will be silenced. -Vincent Van Gogh. I look at alot of art and sometimes I hear ‘your not that good, and you call yourself an artist’. So when i first heard this quote, I felt: Yeah show ‘em. And now I get inspired when seeing others work, ratherthan become discouraged.

bands: talk about a song/band/lyric that has affected your life in some way.: TOP (Song is addicted with a pen) Well its hard to explain but hearing it always gave me a deep connection with the artist. The words really described my life at the time and relationship with god. I see the song as a way to say: I’ve sinned, and i am unworthy. A surrender. The part that impacted me the most was ‘I try desperately to run through the sandAs I hold the waterIn the palm of my handCause it's all that I haveAnd it's all that I need andThe waves of the waterMean nothing to meBut I try my bestAnd all that I can toHold tightly ontoWhat's left in my handBut no matter howHow tightly I will strainThe sand will slow me downAnd the water will drainI'm just being dramaticIn fact,I'm only at it againAs an addict with a penWho's addicted to the windAs it blows me back and forthMindless, spineless, and pretendOf course I'll be here againSee you tomorrowBut it's the end of todayEnd of my waysAs a walking denialMy trial was filed as a crazySuicidal head caseBut you specialize in dying You hear me screaming, "Father,"And I'm lying here just cryingSo wash me with your water’

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lovemesomesurveys · 6 years

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Name something that you saw within the past week that made you smile:: My pup being cute. Name something within the past week that made you frown:: Hearing that Avicci died. Name somebody who you wish would cut you a break sometimes:: Myself. I’m my own worst enemy. Name somebody you know who deserves a better life than they have:: My mom. Name something you own that has high sentimental value:: All my giraffe stuffed animals.

Name something that you hope is different by this time next year:: I hope health related things improve. Name something that you’re good at but don’t like: : Writing essays. <<<< Name something that you’re bad at but DO like: : Art or singing. Name something that you like about the person you argue most with:: I don’t argue with anyone. I may bicker a bit, but that’s it. Name something that you strongly believe in: : God. Name something was funny to you but not to anybody else:: I’m one to laugh at super corny/cheesy jokes and puns. Name somebody who has tried to help you and ended up hurting you:: I don’t know. Name something that you had to learn the hard way:: Oh boy where to begin. Name something that you think should be illegal:: I don’t know. Name a date that has a lot of significance to you: : November 13, 2005, December 17, 2010, December 26th, 2016. Do you like pudding?: Only banana. <<<< Me, toooo. What was the last thing you complained about?: How hot it is. Do you tend to use a lot of big words?: Not really. Do you fall for guys/girls easily?: :/ Do you have low or high self esteem?: I don’t have self-esteem. <<<<< Are you a heavy sleeper?: No. Have you ever felt like you’ve hit below rock bottom?: Most definitely. When someone copies you, are you more flattered or annoyed?: That doesn’t happen. No one would want to copy me. Are you trustworthy?: Yes. What’s one of your favorite quotes?: I can never think of one on the spot. <<<< Just gonna keep all of Lane’s answers, ha. Favorite song lyrics?: I have many. Which is worse: Stale chips or flat soda?: Stale chips. Have you ever been heartbroken?: Yes. Have you ever carved a pumpkin?: Many times. Are there any CD’s that you enjoy listening to all the way through?: I haven’t listened to a full album in such a long time. Is there a lot of drama in your life right now?: No, just other stressful things. Do you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?: No. Have you ever set off a fire alarm at school?: No. Do you like raviolis?: Yeah. I love raviolis stuffed with ricotta cheese the best. What’s the hardest lesson you’ve had to learn?: I don’t know. Do you have a silly side?: Yes. Were you obsessed with those bead/jewlery making kits when you were younger: Not obsessed, but I had some kits. What’s one show that you wish was still on the air?: True Blood. What’s something you’re looking forward to?: Nothing. Are you optimistic or pessimistic?: Very pessimistic. Did you ever play with side-walk chalk?: Yep. Are there any fast-food restaurants that you hate?: Not hate, but I’m not big on Wendy’s at all. Are you a picky eater?: Oh yes. Do you like the band Rise Against?: I think I know like one song. Who’s the hottest guy and hottest girl out there?: Alexander Skarsgard. Are you stubborn?: Yes, and it caused a lot of issues for me. I get in my own way because of it. What’s your favorite song at the moment?: *shrug* Do you live your life to the fullest?: Haa, no. Have you ever questioned your sexuality?: No. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever been called?: No one has called me anything hurtful besides myself. Have you ever burnt your ear with a straightener/curling iron?: Yeah. Are you any good at the game Rockband?: On easy mode, ha. What’s your favorite board game?: Life. Do you believe that sometimes life is unfair?: Oh yes. Do you have a hard time with making new friends?: I don’t put myself out there to make new friends. What’s your favorite kind of doughnut?: Maple. What’s the most important quality in the opposite or preferred sex?: Kindness. Have you ever used a port-a-potty?: No. What’s your favorite ride at the fair?: The swings. When was the last time someone gave you a piggy-back ride?: I have no idea. Have you ever been onstage in front of a lot of people?: Yeah. For graduations and for choir concerts. What was the last stinky thing you smelled?: I don’t recall. Are you more of a girly girl or a tomboy?: I’m more of a pj/lounge clothes gal these days. What’s something you’re craving right now?: I don’t know, but I feel like I want something. Have you ever been on a boat? Yeah. Have you ever been camping?: Yes, once when I was a kid. What’s your favorite outdoor activity?: Going to the beach. Do you ever shop at Hot Topic?: Yes. Do you ever trip over your pets?: No. Do you have any Christmas lights up on your house?: I still have my Christmas decorations up in my room. :X Do you watch Spongebob Squarepants?: No. Are you currently in a relationship?: No. Is your foot asleep?: No. What did you last look in the fridge for?: The tub of frosting to get a spoonful of and eat. Hahah.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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swimintothesound · 7 years

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Poptimism, Complexity, and Musical Stockholm Syndrome: Why Some Albums Grow On Us Over Time and Others Don’t

One of the biggest musical revelations of my life, like many things, came from a podcast. It wasn’t a cool song or the discovery of a new genre, but a conceptual framework that changed how I viewed the entirety of music.

The statement, born of a drunken video game discussion, found one of the hosts outlining his definition of pop music. His parameters weren’t based on the artist’s popularity or the sound of their music, but rather something that you could “hear once and enjoy.” He went on to elaborate “I didn’t even like most of my favorite albums the first time I heard them.”

I’m paraphrasing massively here (because I don’t remember the exact quote, episode, or even year), but this general notion is something that has stuck with me for almost a decade. It’s a bit of a roundabout way to define the pop genre (which I still love and appreciate), but it’s also a slightly snobby framework that looks down on an entire genre while simultaneously glorifying your own taste. So sure it’s problematic, but I also don’t think it’s entirely wrong. Pop music is scientifically designed to be catchy, appealing, and broad, that’s inherent in its DNA.

Still, the more I thought about this framing device, the more I found it to be true. I especially latched onto the host’s claim that most of his favorite albums were “growers” he found himself enjoying more over time. As I searched through my own music library, I realized that nearly all of my favorite albums were ones I’d listened to dozens of times and seemingly got better with each listen. In fact, most of them were records that I thought nothing of or flat-out dismissed at first but eventually grew to love. Oppositely, there were dozens of other albums (pop or otherwise) that I’d listened to once and forgotten almost instantly.

So this theory seemed to hold water, and it’s a filter that I’ve used to view music through for nearly a decade at this point. Recently the idea of albums being “growers” brought up online and spark quite a bit of debate. There’s one side that subscribes to the “grower versus shower” mentality, and another that views this behavior as simply subjecting yourself to an album over and over again until you like it. As with most everything, there’s truth to both sides and neither is truly “right.” So I’ve spent some time mulling over this framework, asking people about it, and gathering opinions from both sides of the fence. I’ve uncovered ten different inter-connected elements that are at play within the “grower” concept. I’m going to outline each point below along with personal examples in hopes that I arrive at some sort of conclusion or thesis statement in the process.

1) Denseness and Complexity

One of the biggest arguments in favor of returning to albums and the concept of “growers” is the idea that some genres/bands/records are so musically complex that they encourage it. Whether it’s lyrical, instrumental, or contextual, sometimes there is so much going on in a record that it’s impossible to take everything in on first listen. Take something like Pet Sounds or The Seer where at any given moment there are dozens of individual components all fighting for the same sonic landscape. You can listen to Pet Sounds once and “get it,” but repeated listens reward the listener by allowing them to slowly discover everything at play in these carefully-layered songs. It’s like crossing things off a list; once you know the lyrics you can pay less attention to the vocalist and focus on a different element of the arrangement. You can keep revising an album and delve deeper each time until you have the full picture; one that was impossible to see the first time you listened.

Meanwhile, pop music is almost always internationally bare. By remaining surface-level (both lyrically and instrumentally) pop songs are easier to grasp at first pass. This allows pop artists to more easily fulfill their primary purpose by transporting a single supremely-catchy hook or chorus into the listener’s brain. As a result, the pop genre as a whole actively avoids things that could “distract” the listener because those experimentations and imperfections are often things that risk detracting from the core message that’s being delivered. That’s not to say pop songs don’t require skill to make, just that they avoid anything too “out there.”

Take Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”: it’s a song that I adore, but I’ll be the first to admit there’s almost no substance to it. The main elements at play here are Katy Perry’s voice and a warm radiating synth line. There’s a guitar and bass laid underneath these primary elements along with a handful of ad-libs from both Mrs. Perry and Mr. Dogg, but those the closest thing to musical depth that this track offers. Much like the music video, “California Gurls” is a synthetic and sugary-sweet pop song that exists to convey a single straight-forward message. As a result, you have a song that’s catchy due in large part to the fact that it’s presented in a barebones way. By being lyrically or musically complex you risk immediacy, so you must present your song in a pointed way so as to embrace catchiness.

So obviously sheer mass and complexity are major factors in this debate. Some of my favorite records are indeed sprawling epics that I’ve essentially bonded with over the course of several years. Records that have drawn me back in time and time again and improved my impression of them in the process by developing a unique and ever-changing relationship with me. A musically-dense record will always be more rewarding to return to because it rewards repeated listens and allows the listener to pick up on something new each time. Meanwhile, a pop track may keep a listener coming back for the earworm factor, but won’t necessarily be as deeply rewarding the same way that a “complex” album would be.

2) The Unknown Factor

Sometimes there’s a mysterious, unknowable X-factor that keeps you coming back to a record. Even an album you don’t like can draw you back, if only to pin down its ephemeral magnetism. This has happened to me in 2012 with Carly Rae Jepsen’s megahit “Call Me Maybe” and (after dozens of listens) I’ve since pinned it down to her unique delivery of the goosebump-inducing line “and.. all the other boys.” Early on in his excellent 150-page CRJ-based manifesto, Max Landis does an excellent job of breaking down the song’s undercurrent of distress and subversion, but the point is in 2012 we, as a society, were collectively drawn to this song for some reason.

Sometimes it’s as simple as a weird vocal quirk, other times it’s an attention-grabbing instrumental moment, or a riff that gets stuck in your brain like jelly. In any case, these unique moments aren’t limited to one genre and their ear-worminess plays a huge part in why we return to a piece of art.

I’ve done this with countless songs. Sometimes I’ll find myself listening to an entire album just to experience a single moment in full effect. Sure I can listen to Hamilton’s “Take a Break” in isolation, but it’s only when I listen to the entire play from the beginning that I fully tear up at the song’s implication within the larger narrative. Moments in the song like hearing Phillip’s rap, coupled with Alexander’s growing distance from his family, and dark multi-leveled foreshadowing, are all made more impactful when the piece is taken in as a whole. We don’t get to pick the little things that draw us in, but this search is one of the most rewarding aspects of music appreciation and discovery.

In a third case (I’ll fully-delve into deeper this December), up until last year, Sufjan Stevens has been an artist that I wanted get into. Thanks to a serendipitous iTunes DJ Shuffle back in high school, I became infatuated with exactly three of his songs and I spent literal years listening only to these three tracks until I was ready to explore the rest of his discography.

The Carly Rae Jepsen example proves that there’s still room for these moments in a pop song. Experimentation and subverting expectations can reward the artist in unexpected ways, but if there’s not something there to make the listener curious enough, then it’s unlikely that they’re going to go back and try to figure it out on their own.

3) Critical Acclaim, Message Boards, and Peer Pressure

Like it or not, critics play a role in dictating taste within culture. I suppose it’s less like “dictating” and more like influencing, but I think we’ve all been swayed by reviews at one time or another. Whether it was being convinced to stay away from a bad movie, or giving a record a spin based purely on universal acclaim, critics have an undeniable impact on our cultural landscape.

I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. At worst it will make you more hesitant, and at best you might give something a chance that you never would have known about otherwise. I did this with Kanye West in 2010 following the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, after its perfect Pitchfork score and placement as their best album of 2010. Aside from Eminem, I’d never really listened to any hip-hop in earnest, but this level of praise couldn’t be a coincidence, right? I downloaded the album, gave it a reluctant spin, and came away from it mostly underwhelmed.

As a side note (before I get called out) it’s worth noting that I didn’t have any context for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at the time. I had no idea about Kanye’s background, or what the album represented within his career. I also had no real appreciation for the record’s layers upon first listen (circling back to Point #1) but I went on to rediscover and genuinely love it in 2016. The point is I picked up this album solely because of critics.

Continuing the Kanye West anecdotes; I’ve already written about how the internet’s reaction to the release of Yeezus spurred me to give the album a shot. I still didn’t get him. For whatever reason, I gave the album another listen a couple months after its release and suddenly everything clicked. I loved Yeezus and soon found myself venturing back through Kanye’s discography from the beginning. I’d like to think that I came to love Kanye of my own free will, but the reason I gave him a chance in the first place (and the second place) is because of other people. Whether it was a “reputable” journalistic source like Pitchfork, or simply witnessing the unbridled joy of hip-hop heads on an internet message board, I could tell I was missing out on something, and that kept me open.

4) Personal Context, The Language of Genres, and The Passage of Time

After “discovering” Kanye West in 2013, he was the sole hip-hop artist I listened to for some time. I would casually browse forums and keep up on large-scale movements within the genre, but it wasn’t until years later that I would find myself delving deeper into the contemporary rap scene. By the end of 2015, I was listening to everything from leaned-out trap, conceptual double albums, absurdist mixtapes and even Drake. Soon I found myself listening to goofier (then) lesser-known acts like Lil Yachty, Lil Uzi Vert, and Desiigner. I can guarantee you that I never would have latched onto any of those guys if it wasn’t for Kanye breaking down my personal barriers and dismantling my hip-hop-related hangups. It took time for me to go from actively disliking hip-hop to embracing it wholeheartedly, and that’s a journey that can only happen over time.

While your personal journey within individual genres matters, there are also things like general knowledge and maturity at play too. Once I got out of that shitty high school ‘everything that’s popular sucks’ punk mentality I opened myself up to dozens of new artistic directions. I gained a new appreciation for things I’d previously despised, and I began to understand why things like MBDTF were important. It’s a combination of open-mindedness and cultural awareness that comes with age, and one that I hope never slows as I get older.

Maturity is an uncontrollable factor that’s hard to pin down, and impossible to quantify. I’ve experienced “musical maturity” as recently as this year with the Fleet Foxes. They were a member of my generation’s pivotal “indie folk movement” and I consider them one of my gateway groups, but despite their importance, I’d never really considered myself a fan. And it’s not for lack of trying, I own all their albums, gave them multiple chances throughout high school and college, but I had always found them interminably boring. I didn’t see what other people saw in them… until this year. With the multi-month build-up to 2017’s Crack-Up, I found myself giving into the hype and giving their older albums another shot for the first time in years. To my surprise, after a handful of half-passive listens I really liked everything I heard. All three of their previous releases grew on me over the course of several weeks, and I became a fan like that. I can still see why I found them boring in high school, but I think the real reason is a lack of maturity. I now have the patience and appreciation for the kind of careful, measured indie folk they’re making, and that openness has rewarded me with hours of enjoyment.

Circling back to Point #1: it’s often hard to fully grasp an album on first listen, and sometimes a record’s complexity doesn’t allow it to truly grab ahold of you until years down the line. In a way, this is also a point against pop music since so much of it “of the moment” it tends to age worse. It’s a genre that’s by nature the most tapped into pop culture, and as a result, it’s harder to go back and enjoy older songs when A) you’ve heard them thousands of times, and B) there’s more recent stuff that’s more tapped into the current sound. It feels like there’s more of an “expiration” to pop music which means it’s not necessarily as rewarding to venture back to.

5) Streaming, Permanence, and Getting Your Money’s Worth

A semi-recent extra-musical factor at play in this discussion has to do with how we consume music. Up until about a decade ago the process was 1) hear a song 2) go buy the album at the store 3) listen to the album. With the rise of iTunes, YouTube, and more recently, digital streaming platforms the entire process has become flattened. A song can come to mind, and we can pull it up on our phones within 30 seconds. You can hear a song at a bar, Shazam it, and add it to your digital collection within an instant.

As a result of this, albums as a concept have been diminished in both stature and importance. You have people like Chance The Rapper releasing retail mixtapes, Kanye West updating his albums after release, and Drake releasing commercial playlists. But on top of these (somewhat arbitrary) distinctions, there’s a layer of increasingly-pervasive accessibility. You can hear about an artist and have their discography at your fingertips within seconds. You can read about a new release and be streaming it by the time that it takes you to finish this sentence. That freedom has forever changed how we consume music. Comparing this on-demand accessibility with the “old ways” of going to a store and buying a physical record, it’s easy to see how the times have changed.

As a result of this shift, people are less committed to albums. If you don’t like an album you can play another just as quickly. We can jump ship with no loss at all. We’re not connected to the record, so it’s easy to abandon.

Funny enough, with the rise of streaming we’ve seen a near-direct correlation with the rise in the popularity of vinyl as it’s on track to be a billion-dollar industry this year. These are people that want and miss that physical connection with their records. There's an undeniable difference between listening to an album on Spotify and hearing it come out of your vinyl player at home. “Warmth” and all that bullshit aside, this is an example of the format influencing our listening habits. If you’re using Spotify and don’t like an album, you can easily stop streaming and jump to any of the millions of readily-available alternatives.

Most importantly, when streaming, there’s also no reason to “justify” your purchase because we haven’t dropped $20+ on a piece of physical media. If you bought a record and didn’t like you’d damn sure try to listen to it more than a few times because you invested in it, goddammit!

There’s also a pattern of familiarity at play too. Every time you open Spotify you’re given the choice between something new and something that you already like. If you gave an album a shot and didn’t like it, you’re now given a choice between that and something you know you already like. So why would you ever opt for the thing you don’t like?

Reddit user nohoperadio explains this phenomenon and the wealth of choices that we have in the modern music landscape:

“Those pragmatic constraints on our listening habits don't exist, and we have to make conscious decisions about how much time we want to devote to exploring new stuff and how much time we want to devote to digging deeper into stuff we've already heard, but every time you do one of those you have this anxious feeling like maybe you should be doing the other. It's only in this new context that it's possible to worry that you're listening wrong.”

It really is an interesting psychological door that’s opened with our newfound technological access, and analysis paralysis aside, it explains why some songs draw listeners back by the millions. Drake’s “One Dance” is the most streamed Spotify song of all time with 1,330 million plays. It’s a good song, but not that good. It’s an example of a song achieving a balance of accessibility and pervasiveness until it becomes habitual and self-reinforcing. That’s something that only could have happened in the streaming world.

6) Fandom

Up until now, we’ve mostly been talking about this framework within the context of “new” albums, but what about when you already have context? What about a non-accessible release from your favorite artist?

This has happened to me with many albums over the years. I wrote a 7,000-word four-part essay that was mostly just me grappling with my own disappointment of Drake and Travis Scott’s 2016 releases. For the sake of talking about something new: The Wonder Years are one of my all-time favorite bands. I’ve written a loving review of their second album, and I plan on doing the same thing with their third and fourth releases as well. After a trio of impactful, nearly-perfect pop-punk records, the band released their fifth album No Closer to Heaven on September 4th of 2015. While it’s not an “inaccessible” record, it’s easily my least favorite from the band and a far cry from their previous heart-on-sleeve realist pop-punk. It took me months of listening to the album to fully-realize my disappointment, and even longer to figure out why. I’m still not sure I can accurately explain why Heaven doesn’t gel with me, but that’s not what this post is for. The point is I’ve subjected myself to this album dozens of times racking up nearly 700 plays at the time of this writing. In fact, it’s my 19th most-listened-to album of all time according to Last.fm, and that’s for an album that I don’t even enjoy that much!

I was driven to this album partly by my frustration and confusion, but also my love of the band. I’ve enjoyed literally every other piece of music they’ve ever recorded, what made this one so different? I guess 700 plays isn’t something you’d afford even the most promising album, but this is an example of the listener’s history influencing their own behavior and desire to love an album. It’s trying to make an album into a “grower” when it may never be one in the first place. That leads nicely into #7…

7) Instant Gratification, Uncertainty Tolerance, and “Forcing It”

The most common argument I see against the concept of albums as growers is the idea that the listener is “forcing it.” This is problematic mainly because everyone’s definition of “forcing it” is different. Some people have a specific number in mind ‘if you listen to an album three times and don’t like it, then you're forcing yourself’ others base it on feeling ‘if you’re despising every second of an album, then just turn it off. Otherwise, you’re forcing it.’

The idea is you force yourself to like something out of pure habit or by subjecting yourself to it over and over again, eventually becoming hostage to something that you didn’t really like in the first place. To me, this is the meatiest discussion point here because it’s such a multifaceted issue. I’ve already discussed this concept within the context of Drake’s Views, but to briefly recap: I loved his 2015 album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, and he had a killer summer with What A Time To Be Alive and a high-profile rap beef. I was beyond hyped for his next release in 2016 but came out of my first listen incredibly disappointed. Over time I grew to like most of the songs, presumably from sheer repetition, but I still recognize it as an album that isn’t good on an objective artistic level. So is this forcing it? I never hated any of those listens, I just grew to like the album more after time had passed, but I still don’t think it’s good.

I’ve done the same thing this year with Father John Misty’s Pure Comedy. After an impeccable 2015 release and a meta months-long interview-laden lead-up to the record’s release in April I, again, emerged from my first listen disappointed. I have come to enjoy the album more over time, especially after giving myself a break from it and seeing some of the songs performed live. So maybe these two cases just have to do with unrealistic built-up expectations and already being a fan (Point #6) but no matter how you look at it, I wanted to like these albums and kept subjecting myself to them.

At any rate, the biggest flaw with this argument is that everyone’s definition of “forcing it” is different. Unless someone’s making you listen at gunpoint, there is no force. You can stop at any time and you shouldn’t feel pressure to like something just because. But I fully recognize someone could see my listening history with Drake’s Views and say “my god, why would you listen to an album you’re lukewarm on that many times? That’s torture!” but I guess what’s torture for some is simply passive listening for another.

For a more scientific perspective, this youtube video details some of the crazy behind-the-scenes factors at play in making pop music particularly pervasive. Everything from the radio to Urban Outfitters to fucking memes spread music and have the ability to make something exponentially more popular. This circles back to “forcing it” because you may have no power in these cases. God knows after years of the same retail job I grew to hate some songs that were otherwise great just from sheer repetition. It would make sense that this then becomes “forcing it” since you have no power, but sometimes even that can circle back to genuine love if you build enough positive associations over time. I may not like “Hotline Bling” as a song, but god knows I’ve upvoted enough memes featuring the turtleneck-clad Drake that I enjoy something about it.

Furthering the pseudo-scientifical discussion of articles I that don’t have the intelligence to write of research: this blog (which cites this study) discusses “addiction economy” and explores the profiles of “explorers” and “exploiters.” The primary difference between the two groups is their propensity for either delayed or instant gratification. The study explores the idea that technology has accelerated this process which (in a music context) circles back to Point #5 of streaming’s role in our listening habits. Why bother trying to listen to something “difficult” or “weird” when you can have the instant hit of euphoria that comes with a bouncy non-offensive Taylor Swift song?

I really think this one comes down to what you’re in the mood for. If you have the attention, time, and necessary background, why not explore something rich that you may love? But if you just want something quick and easy, just put on the Spotify Top 50 for some background noise. It becomes the musical equivalent of a hearty homecooked meal versus a big, greasy fast food burger. One may be objectively “better,” but it’s not always right for the situation.

8) Expectations and The Initial Approach

Another factor that exists outside of the music itself is the listener’s initial approach. If you go into any art with a preconceived notion you’ll either be surprised by the outcome or have your beliefs confirmed. If you go to a shitty movie expecting it to be shitty, you’ll emerge thinking “well duh.” The inverse of this could also be true (a shitty movie turning out good, etc.), but the real discussion here has to do with the viewer’s initial expectation.

I do think with music it’s rare that you’ll do a complete 180 in either direction. The most likely case of a “grower” is generally a record that you go into not knowing anything about and then some unknown factor (Point #2) keeps bringing you back. It’s also true that you could dislike and album and over time come out liking it (as I did with Views). And while it’s a rare occurrence, I suppose an album could also be a “shrinker” that you love on first listen, but grow to dislike more and more.

Circling back to genres, I think pop music tends to be a shrinker more often than not. It’s something that’s (by nature) immediately accessible but slowly drives you mad with each repeated listen like a screw tightening into your skull. We’ve all been there (especially anyone with a retail job) but I can’t think of a single occurrence where I’ve done that to myself of my own free will. Oppositely, I know people that only interact with music by listening to songs until they’re absolutely sick of them. That’s not how I prefer to interact with art mainly because I feel like there’s only so much time in the day and so many other things to listen to, why force that upon yourself?

I think that the listener’s starting point is a huge concept. Reddit user InSearchOfGoodPun outlines his thoughts on the initial approach and the impact of time on your listening experience:

“My personal opinion is that if you listen to almost anything enough times with a receptive attitude, you will start to appreciate it. It might not become one of your favorites, but you'll like it for what it is. In any case, at the end of the day, you like what you like.”

The key phrase here is receptive attitude. If you aren’t listening with a receptive attitude, then you’re forcing yourself. Then you’re just making it unenjoyable no matter what. I think this is one of the biggest points in this whole write-up and a key indicator of who you are as a consumer of art. It’s all about being receptive regardless of your starting point.

9) The Language of Genres

Jumping back to Kanye: it was a long and winding road filled with lots of resistance, but despite my own hangups, I now consider myself a hip-hop head. I listen to the genre constantly, I’m up on the “newcomers” and I find myself devoting an absurd amount of time to researching the realm’s happenings each day. I wouldn’t have cared that much without Kanye, and I wouldn’t have discovered half of the shit that I currently love without Yeezus breaking those barriers down.

I’ve spent this entire time talking about albums as “growers,” but it’s also possible that this concept could be applied to entire genres too. I mean, after all, a genre really is like a language you have to learn, and I was fortunate enough to have Kanye as my teacher. Through his discography, I learned about the genre’s history, who its major players are, as well as the language, cadence, and frameworks that it uses. In another sense, it’s almost like “building up your tolerance” to something you previously didn’t understand or couldn’t grasp.

I’ve detailed my own history wading into genres like hip-hop and indie, but it makes sense that this personal context would impact how we would interact with albums through the broader umbrella of their genre. I wouldn’t have understood hip-hop if I jumped straight to Migos. Everyone has a starting point for their musical taste, and it spreads outward from there. Pop music is an easily-accessible taste, but most other genres take a little bit more of an adjustment to get used to. Certain albums or genres are just objectively less-accessible, and harder to get into as a result.

In fact, it could easily be argued that exploring a genre could be the biggest decider on whether an album is a “grower” or not. Contextualizing a record within a larger space can help the listener and understanding it better and appreciate it more. Listening to one album multiple times might be the exact opposite of the correct approach, because while the listener may not like it, they may find something musically adjacent that’s more up their alley.

10) Songs Versus Albums

For the sake of furthering the discussion outside of albums, it’s also worth zooming down to a micro level to look at individual songs. While I tend to listen (and think of things) in terms of albums, it’s undeniable that songs are the main component at play. In fact, a single song is probably the reason for you checking an album out in the first place. Thinking “hey I like this one thing, maybe I should check out the rest” is how I’ve discovered most of the music in my library.

But this same framework of “growers” can easily be applied to songs too. When listening to an album the first time, occasionally only individual songs will jump out at you right away. I love Lost in the Dream by The War on Drugs, but for the first dozen or so times I played the album, the only song I could remember was the opener “Under the Pressure.” That song had a memorable chorus, a catchy riff, and a driving rhythm. It alone is the sole reason I kept coming back to the record, but each time I put “Under the Pressure” on I’d find myself thinking ‘ah, I’ll just let the rest of the album play.’ Eventually, the rest of the record revealed itself to me and individual songs emerged from what was once an amorphous blob of sun-drenched heartland rock.

I did the exact same thing with Young Thug’s breakthrough 2015 album Barter 6. I’d already had a passing interest in Thug thanks to his previous collaborative efforts with Rich Homie Quan, so I gave Barter a semi-attentive spin and left underwhelmed. After a glowing Pitchfork review (Point #3) I gave the album another shot but couldn’t find myself getting past the first track. In a good way. I kept relistening to the album opener “Constantly Hating” and every time I tried to move onto something else, this transfixing opener drew me back in. Soon Barter 6’s second track grabbed me just as hard. Then the third. Then a single. Then a late album track. Eventually, I was listening to the whole thing front-to-back and enjoying every song. Individual songs are a viable path to an album becoming a grower, and while I don’t like digesting albums piecemeal, sometimes that approach can allow an album to creep up on you over time.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, there’s a difference between feeling lukewarm on an album then giving it a few more chances and hating an album but feeling like you’re obligated to listen because you “should” like it. Usually, there’s some redeeming quality that brings you back, God knows there’s plenty of albums I’ve heard once then forgotten forever.

Patience is key, and that receptivity can lead to an album becoming better over time. With pop music, I feel like there’s an individual tipping point that everyone hits where you go from fully-embracing a song to actively combatting it. We don’t all have the time or patience to devote ourselves to “difficult” albums, so sometimes the road less traveled is less appealing.

After writing all of this, I’ve come to the conclusion that my initial theory is a flawed. Like many things, it’s not universal. There’s no one “right” answer or perfect framework that applies to all of music. This theory still works on a case-by-case basis, but there’s nuance to every genre, artist, and song, and this broadness makes it hard to view music through such a broad lens.

If anything, a big takeaway is that there’s no one “better” genre, just different fits for different people. With all these possible elements at play, it’s easier to see how someone could gravitate towards one easier genre meanwhile a different person has cut their teeth in a different genre and has a more developed understanding of its intricacies.

And whether you look at it as “a grower” that gets better over time or a “shrinker” that driver you more insane with each listen, there is a point at which you are “forcing it” but (again) that varies from person to person. The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

The truly compelling part of music is the way that you interact with it. What you bring to the experience and how you interpret the artist’s work. Whether it’s going track-by-track or listening front-to-back, or listening to one single song until you’re sick of it. Music is special because of what we project onto it. The memories we make around it.

It’s obviously incorrect to view all pop music as shallow, just as it’s incorrect to view all rock as deep, or all rap as thuggish. Everything is on a spectrum, and your perspective within the genre, the artist, your life, and the world all come into play when listening.

I don’t think there’s any defined “conclusion” to arrive at, just many different elements to keep track of. These frameworks can help explain why I like A while you like B. The absolute most important thing to take away from this is to keep an open and receptive mind.

I’ve recently come to the realization that my dream job, the one thing I really want to do, is to share things that I love with other people. To spread art, joy, and love in hopes that someone else is affected by these things the same way that I am.

That requires an objective mind, but you still won’t ever like everything. And that’s okay. You shouldn’t have to.

I think sharing things and spreading love is productive for the world.

It’s the most positive impact we can make on the world around us.

It’s spreading beauty.

Both being able to see why someone likes something and being able to share your own experience. It’s the one universal. The human experience. We all have unique perspectives, thoughts, and lives. Sometimes sharing is the only thing we can do.

Art is a bonding agent.

What we add to it is the special part.

Remain open.

Share your love.

Additional Reading and Citations

As the Roots Undo by Circle Takes the Square Doing Good in the Addiction Economy Internet Explorers (Not Exploiters) Is Pop Music Holding You Hostage? The Mozart-like Complexity of Carly Rae Jepsen’s Biggest Hits Reddit Indieheads Discussion Thread A Scar No One Else Can See The Secret Science of Pop Taster’s Choice: Let’s Talk About Love

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bthenoise · 5 years

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Track By Track: Here’s Everything You Need To Know About Wolves At The Gate’s Powerful LP ‘Eclipse’

For nearly ten years now, Ohio post-hardcore outfit Wolves At The Gate have been providing some of the most consistent and thought-provoking heavy music around. From 2012′s scorching debut Captors to today’s fierce eye-opener Eclipse, Wolves At The Gate continue to churn out melodic yet hard-hitting records that make you want to both sing and scream along to.

Take the band’s latest LP, for example. For 13 straight songs, the Solid State signees are able to give listeners a wide range of emotions embodying the perfect balance of heavy and soft. Talking about the motivation behind blending these two contrasting styles together, vocalist/guitarist Stephen Cobucci says it all ties into the album’s name.

“We named the record Eclipse because of how well it encapsulated the relationship the light and the dark can have,” he says. “An eclipse tells you that it's dark, but it takes truth and faith to know that the sun is still shining. All of this revolves around my walk of faith in believing the truths of the gospel message, seeking to help others find hope and peace in the love of God, as well as how to come to grips with various social/political/personal issues.”

Giving fans an even further look into the brilliant work of art that is Eclipse, Cobucci sat down with The Noise to explain the meanings behind each and every song on the album. To check out the singer’s honest and open track by track rundown, be sure to look below. Afterward, make sure to pick up a copy of Eclipse here.

The Cure

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We're excited that this is the first track people hear on the new record because it truly captures the wide dynamics sonically and lyrically that we wanted to deliver. Both musically and lyrically it's a roller coaster of darkness, tension, and release. The whole album revolves around the idea of the light being obscured by the darkness and creating a “different reality.” This song is about how when that darkness comes, it creates a different reality that seems so real but is just a lie. This song cries out for help and grace in times of doubt and fear.

Face To Face

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“Face To Face” probably went through the most changes to its structure. It was rewritten more times than I can remember. Our guitarist Joey believed in it from the first day he heard it and worked hard to help it get to its final stages. Regardless of all of those changes, the lyrical content remained the same. We so often fear having our weaknesses and flaws revealed, going to great lengths to ensure they are hidden from everyone to see. ... This song is about how I was forced to come to grips with many of my sins and weaknesses in order for me to see that there is forgiveness in the love of God. Even though accepting my own guilt seemed like death to me, it was the very thing that led me to trusting and resting in God's grace.

A Voice In The Violence

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This song carries a lot of weight and emotion in it for us as a band. It's so easy to identify with feeling the burden of darkness in our hearts and minds as we wrestle with the sins and addictions that plague us. The lyrics carry a dialogue that goes back and forth between thoughts of falling into despair and then hearing the voice of truth calling me away from running headlong into the things that are killing and destroying me. We so often entertain this love affair with the sins, addictions, and vices that ruin us whether it be mentally, physically, or spiritually. These pursuits are always irrational and cause us to drown out the voice of God. The voice of truth. A voice that carries messages of hope, grace, and mercy. Yet the beauty in all of this comes in the fact that there is no hell too deep for God to pull us out of. It is in these darkest of times that God shows even more grace and love.

Drifter

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Songs like this one are so important to us as a band because they've come from real heart-to-heart conversations. We're brothers. We bear each other's burdens. A lot of the time when you just bury away the pain, the hurt, the lies, the emotion, it tears you apart on the inside until it eventually begins to manifest on the outside. As an outsider looking in, I could see how Nick was being torn apart and was stuck spirally down the same road. Numerous songs throughout our career have come from these sorts of situations where Nick just spilled his heart and we were able to build him up in the truth reminding him of the greater love he has in Christ and how all his failure and sin was erased at the cross.

Enemy

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We tend to think that the great enemies in our lives are “out there” while ignoring a certain truth that we ourselves tend to be our greatest enemies. The song begins with an arrogant and misguided fight against the "enemy" that is soon realized to be myself. This has been a humbling experience that I have been through many times in my life. I figured it was about time that I cataloged how this progression tends to go for myself and ultimately how my hope of escape from this is in the power of God.

Evil Are The Kings

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This was the first song that came out when I started writing for this record and helped set the tone for quality and level I wanted all the other songs to be on. Our guitarist Joey played a big role in helping this song come together in the way that it did. He helped me restructure it in a way that really took advantage of the strengths of the song. In writing this song, I immediately knew what I wanted it to be about. As a society, we have amassed a world of knowledge, but it hasn't moved mankind one step further to making peace, stopping wars, curing racism, etc. If “knowledge is the power” then we are to be considered evil kings. Politics haven't moved the needle of solving any of these issues and all that has been revealed is that while there may be shifts in power and policy the greatest need we all have is for our hearts to be changed.

Eclipse

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The music of this song was something I had written a long time ago but was never able to put all the pieces together. While on tour last year I was finally able to get all the pieces to fall together. Our drummer Abishai was critical in helping me structure the format of the song in its early stages. When I sat down to title all of these songs, I realized that an eclipse was the imagery that best encompassed the heart of this song. As I continued to think about this imagery and concept, I realized how it touched all of these songs in one way or another. Songs like this are very personal for me as I use them as outlets to be vulnerable with myself and with our fans for them to be encouraged by the fact that I often have the same doubts and fears that they may have. Yet while also having these same doubts and fears, there are still certain truths that we all can rest upon for peace and comfort.

Response

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This song is a response to the Ghandi quote, "I like your Christ, not your Christians." The truth of this statement is not lost on me and to be honest, it grieves me. I can understand why people's view of “American Christianity” puts a bad taste in their mouth and am sadden by the fact that the name of Christ gets dragged through the mud and applied to people and organizations that do not represent what true faith is. When people hear that we are a Christian band, it immediately conjures up all sorts of thoughts, generally negative ones, yet I can understand why. I can see how it is really difficult for some people to separate emotional pain and damage caused by some wearing the name “Christian” from the one they claim to follow, namely Jesus. I say that in the lyrics of the song, “You find a lot of fault in me - I find it hard to disagree with you - I’ll own my crimes - My guilt has shut my mouth.” I'm not here to talk about myself, there isn't much good to say. But I believe in a good Savior. This strikes at the very heart of what we want people to see in our lyrics. Christianity is not about a person's ability to be perfect, but imperfect people trusting in a perfect Savior. Our guitarist Joey summarized the song well by saying, “The presence of hypocrisy does not equal the absence of God.” This song is a call to take your eyes off of messed up people and to take a look for yourself at who Jesus is.

History

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I wrote “History” in light of all of the racial tension I see within our culture. I have dear friends that have been on the receiving end of this prejudice [and] it's sad that even after all this time and all we know this still is very present in the heart of our society. It is because we have tended to turn a blind eye to our past that we are ignorant [of] the present issues. Our culture does not have a healthy relationship with this issue and therefore it causes serious strife and conflict. Everyone is fighting for their side of the argument and in that fight there will only be victims. It's a wake-up call that identifying with political parties, the color of your skin, etc. puts you further into bondage and perpetuates this cycle of hatred and violence.

The Sea In Between

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This song is an imagery of my salvation. I knew God existed and I knew I was separated from Him. I was on a shore and an endless sea separated us. The sea was a metaphor for my sin and my attempts to live self-righteously. I tried to live a perfect life and make up for all my failure and sin. Every time I navigated those seas, I failed, was destroyed, and was washed back to shore left with nothing. Yet in the goodness of God, Christ came and saved me, trudging through the sea that separated me from Him by dying the death I deserved.

Alone

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I remember writing this song really late one night in my studio and how it all came together so quickly. Sometimes a song just seems to fall into place all in one sitting and that was the case for this song. Every piece of it came together that night including the vocals, but to no surprise, I struggled to figure out what to write about. It wasn't until many months after that I was thinking about the idea of how differently we all view this journey of life. For some, it is a terror. For some, joy. And I thought about the fact that however you view the destination of the journey affects how you experience it. If all you have to look forward to [is the] temporal aspects of life, then that can be incredibly bleak for many. And to others it may not seem like that big a deal but nothing we have here can be kept forever. If I can quote one of our older songs called “Morning Star”: I know this is a voyage, it's not my destination. My hope is not in what I can gain out of this life regarding physical things, but that in the fact that all good things I enjoy here are just a shadow of the joy it will be to know God and see Him face to face.

Counterfeit

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There are a lot of voices out there vying for our attention. Voices that don't have our best interests in mind. Voices in the media, politics, and sometimes even our own minds that push an agenda based upon lies. This track was written as a sort of fight song against those things to give a voice back to those that desire to push back against those lies. I love how the pace and rhythm of this song perfectly fits the content. Hopefully this song can help give the listener a voice and words to say [and] combat these lies.

Blessings & Curses

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It was actually our drummer Abishai who created the core of this song. He wrote a drum groove that he was really into and so he put a simple chord progression down to go with it. He showed it to me while we were on tour and it just clicked with me. As soon as I heard it I knew it needed to be one of our songs and we started working on it right then and there on tour. It has a crazy time signature and then at the end the time signature bounces back and forth, but you'd never know it, which is really cool. This is a song about betrayal, namely my betrayal. It puts me in awe of the fact that all I ever offered God was my betrayal and my curse and yet in return He gives me the blessing of His forgiveness and love.

#Wolves At The Gate #Track By Track #Eclipse #Solid State Records #interview

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ladyjaneasher-blog · 7 years

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Wait I'm sorry for being misinformed, but the info about Paul calling Yoko a jap tart is not true? From what i read he sent a letter to john (i think) saying this. So it's not true? (because thank god if it's not true)

it’s okay, anon. let me reiterate:

the full message – if you believe francie, that is – was “you and your jap tart think you’re hot shit” and the full quote reads:

“John obviously loved Paul enough to let him run wild if it would help ease the tension Paul was creating in the studio and at home. Yoko could see it too.

But Paul was treating them like shit too. He even sent them a hate letter once, unsigned, typed. I brought it in with the morning mail. Paul put most of his fan mail in a big basket and let it sit for weeks, but John and Yoko opened every piece. When they go to the anonymous note, they looked puzzled, looking at each other with genuine pain in their eyes.

‘You and your Jap tart think you’re hot shit’, it said. John put it on the mantle, and in the afternoon, Paul hopped in, prancing much the same self-conscious way he did when we met.

‘Oh I just did that for a lark…’ he said in his most sugar-coated accent.

It was embarrassing. The three of us swiveled around, staring at him. You could see the pain in John. Yoko simply rose above it, feeling only sympathy for John. I was sad to see the Lennons go, even though it took the pressure off of Paul.”

putting aside that you can already read the clear bias between the lines, sometimes in other retellings of the story, it’s said to be a postcard and other times it’s a typewritten message left in an envelope. the discrepancies here alone should tell you something.

now, where does the claim come from? it comes from an ex-girlfriend of paul’s from the late 60s, who he has parted not on the best terms with: francie schwartz. francie wrote a book about her relationship with paul where francie claims that while john and yoko stayed at cavendish, they received a note saying “you and your jap tart think you’re hot shit”.

why is it bullshit? i have several points to make:

francie schwartz is one of the most unreliable sources in beatles history. ask any beatles researcher worth their salt on their opinion about francie and her book. what’s more important in this particular case: she relies almost exclusively on sensational claims to make her book body count (1972) more palatable and exciting to a general and broad public instead of actual proof. other such claims include paul having been sent love letters from brian; a claim just as insubstantial and without any actual tangible proof.

first off, to get a more personal picture of francie during the time she wrote and published her book you have to ackowledge her agenda as the scorned ex-lover as is evidenced by the book itself as it displays a great deal of vindictiveness towards paul. read body count and you’ll know what i mean. it’s absolutely vile in places.

second, the book was published in 1972 – when paul’s critical reputation was possibly at one of its lowest points – and it was published by none other than jann wenner’s rolling stone press, which very obviously chose john’s side in the john versus paul breakup era split and which back in the day had a lot of sway in the music industry. the magazine wasn’t yet the joke it was to become. something else that is interesting and slightly related: jann wenner. paul’s critical acclaim wasn’t at it lowest point because mccartney (the album) was years ahead in its day and the press just didn’t get it, but because wenner directly influenced his reviewers to slam paul for – as wenner saw it – breaking up the beatles. here’s the relevant quote:

“When I became record reviews editor, I made it clear to him after a few months — nobody had done the job before me — that the record review section was an independent republic within the country of Rolling Stone. That meant that nobody else could tell me what to review or what a writer could say. They could argue with me, but ultimately it was my decision. And that worked well. There was one incident where Paul McCartney makes his first solo record and people thought it was wonderful: this rough, homemade one-man-band album. It was accompanied by a press release, a self-interview, about why he no longer needed the Beatles and how little he thought of them … this real obnoxious statement, you know? I assigned it to a friend of mine, Langdon Winner, and Jann saw the piece and said: “We can’t run it this way — he’s just reviewing it as if it’s this nice little record. It’s not just a nice little record, it’s a statement and it’s taking place in a context that we know: it’s one person breaking up the band. This is what needs to be talked about.” I said I didn’t agree and “in any case it’s up to Langdon to say what he wants to say.” Jann said, “We have to talk about this.” So we went to dinner that night and spent three fucking hours arguing about this record review. Finally he convinced me. So I went over to Langdon’s and sat down with him and spent three more hours arguing with him until I convinced him! Now to me this was the essence of great editing, of how you put out a publication that is utterly honest. All that time spent over one 750 word review! And it was worth it.”

—Greil Marcus in conversation with Simon Reynolds,

Los Angeles Review of Books

there are other instances where wenner displays his clear bias against paul, which was especially rampant in the time where paul was hailed as the talentless and flighty hack who did nothing more than book the studio for the beatles and john as the deeply misunderstood true lyrical and musical genius behind the beatles. a narrative that was formed then and persists to this day.

third, a number of writers – including, disappointingly, doggett and carlin – have recounted the “jap tart” episode from paul to john and yoko as fact, but it’s NOT. it’s the unverified retrospective eyewitness testimony years after it happened of a very much biased, secondhand source. we’ve never seen evidence from anyone else that this event occurred. no picture, no copy, nothing. just like any other event francie “remembers”, if i might add. and since other private notes and copies from letters and even journals exist from other and more deeply involved with the beatles people, it is suspicious.

even during “lennon remembers” – also done with involvement from wenner – john himself admits that his examples of the others treating yoko badly in the studio or elsewhere come off as him being paranoid. if he had indeed a clear and very much damning example, such as this “jap tart” postcard or typewritten message or handwritten note, why didn’t he bring it up? or, more glaringly, yoko herself? when discussing why she and john left cavendish in philip norman’s paul bio, she doesn’t mention this incident at all. why didn’t either of them ever bring up this incident in all the years after it supposedly occurred?

it’s also important to point out that the narrative that paul was an absolute and continuous horror to john and yoko during the let it be era is just that: a narrative. let’s see what yoko has to say:

“After the initial embarrassment, then – um, now Paul is being very nice to me. He’s nice, and a – a very, um, str– on the level, straight sense. Like, um, whenever there’s something happening at Apple, he explains to me, as if I should know, [inaudible] and things like that. And also whenever there’s something like they need a light man or something like that, he asks me if I know of anybody in the art world, and things like that.

And like, um, I can see that he’s just now suddenly changing his attitude, like he’s being – he’s treating me with respect. Not because it’s me – but because I belong to John. I hope that’s what it is, because that would be nice. And I feel like he’s my younger brother or something like that. I’m sure that if he had been a woman or something, he would have been a great threat – because there’s something definitely very strong between John and Paul.

And, um – and probably among those three people of George and Ringo and Paul, Paul is the only one that I can sort of feel the vibration [from]. Like, sort of sense it, you know, that something is among that. ‘Cause Ringo and George, I just can’t communicate. I mean, I’m sure that George and – I’m really sure that they’re both very nice people, but that’s not the point… I think that’s because being, uh, [because of John, Paul, and me] being air signs, like Libra, Gemini, and Aquarius.”

[x]

another point is the nature of the source itself: francie didn’t – at least as far as we know – write any of these instances down, be it in her diary, or even in a letter to her mother, with whom she stayed in contact during that time. all of which would have made the claim more credible, as those would have been never intended for public view and subsequent consumption as her book was.

she wrote them in her memoir, something she wanted people to buy, and there has been discussion that wenner encouraged her to promote the “sex and dissension” between paul and her and paul and the beatles in her work, because that’s what would sell and ensure publicity.

lasty, i’ve seen another valid point brought up: linguistics. “hot shit” is something that is more an americanism – francie is american – than something used in the late 60s by someone of liverpool descent.

tl;dr: francie’s claim is unfounded and to this very day has zero (0) proof to it.

i’ll include another good quote about the issue under a read more should you be interested.

While Erin toils in academia with an unusually heavy workload, I thought I would share another unpublished excerpt from The Historian And The Beatles regarding this now infamous statement attributed to Paul by his erstwhile lover, Francie Schwartz:

One example of Doggett’s occasional acceptance of unverified testimony as fact is his use of Francie Schwartz’s claim that the reason Lennon and Ono left McCartney’s London house (where they were temporarily staying) in Summer 1968 is because McCartney left the couple a postcard with the words “You and Your Jap Tart Think You’re Hot Shit” on it. Schwartz, McCartney’s girlfriend at the time, is the only source for this scene, (Body Count, 220) which, Doggett argues in both You Never Give Me Your Money and in a later interview with Oomska, initiated an irreparable wedge between Lennon and McCartney.

However, neither Lennon nor Ono ever mentioned this incident, even during Lennon Remembers, in which Lennon accuses the other Beatles of seriously mistreating Ono but also acknowledges that their offered examples of mistreatment are unconvincing: “Even when it’s written down, it’ll just look like I’m paranoid.” (Lennon Remembers, 44) Given that Schwartz portrays this incident as an extremely painful moment in Lennon’s relationship with McCartney, and that it directly led to Lennon and Ono departing Cavendish, it would presumably have been, for both Lennon and Ono, a particularly memorable moment. More, describing this incident would have heavily reinforced Lennon’s Lennon Remembers interview agenda to portray himself and Ono as victims of McCartney and the other Beatles. His failure to remember and recount the incident in this particular instance casts suspicions on the accuracy of Schwartz’s account.

While Garraghan declares that “the testimony of a single witness whose competence in every respect is above suspicion may be accepted as true,” (Garraghan, A Guide to Historical Method, 244) Schwartz does not qualify as a competent witness. Her brief relationship with McCartney ended badly when he told her to move out and Schwartz quickly sold articles about her time with McCartney to Rolling Stone and later produced a book, Body Count, in which Schwartz details the postcard scene. The Beatles Bibliography (which repeatedly discredits those pro-Lennon sources promoting the “Lennon Remembers” and Shout! versions of Beatles history) describes Body Count as “a travesty of a memoir,” in part because of its “self-serving and non-reflexive tone.” In credibility terms, Schwartz’s unverified eyewitness testimony is equal to that of the Apple Scruff claiming that Lennon once attempted to hit a pregnant Linda McCartney. While both Schwartz and the Apple Scruff’s claims are generally reinforced by circumstantial evidence (Schwartz by Beatles insider Derek Taylor’s claims that McCartney was sending him anonymous but ominous postcards in that same time period, the Scruff’s by Lennon’s admitted acts of occasional violence against women) Beatles writers who recount both scenes should explain that they are unverified testimony presented by an unreliable source.

Anyone still questioning whether Francie Schwartz is being truthful about the “jap tart” comment need only consider the point which Erin makes here: that J&Y would have been been screaming about this to the press to bolster their position that the rest of the band mistreated them/Yoko, had it been true. I would also add that the vernacular–calling something or someone “hot shit”– sounds far more American than late 60’s British. I think Schwartz gave herself away with that one.

I’m shocked that Doggett didn’t come up with those same, very simple observations.

What say ye, commentators?

(source)

i’ve also incorporated a lot of the points from the beatlesbible here.

#paul mccartney #yoko ono #john lennon #francie schwartz #text: asks #p: paul mccartney #p: francie schwartz #slurs cw #Anonymous

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willandandy · 7 years

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The National - Sleep Well Beast by Will

Hello my name is Will Stubbs and I love music. I feel that music is the best medium for creativity. People can explore new ideas and emotions with the help of music. I am here to talk about music that interests me and maybe start a great conversation. Thanks for reading and remember to love music forever.

The National are an indie rock band from Cincinnati. They are well regarded and respected within the indie rock community with several albums on NME’s 500 albums of all time. I myself am a huge fan of their work, especially the album Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. While the album is very juvenile and melancholic, it has overwhelming charm and catchiness that really grabs me. While many people criticize this band for being too simple and sophomoric, I quite enjoy them.

This album was interesting to say the least. I had an unbelievable time trying to decide if I enjoyed it or not. I don’t think that this record is divisive or anything unless you are already a fan of this band. I think after several listens I can write this review, but I wouldn’t be surprised if my opinion changes very abruptly.

Let’s start this review off with the first song “Nobody Else Will be there”. I love the ethereal muddy piano with the quiet soothing drum beat. I think that this song took the road that Radiohead and Fleet Foxes went with their newest records. Not comparing these albums other than the way that they have many songs that are slow, somber, quiet, and beautiful. When this record does that I find it to be their strong point. This song seems to be about a failing relationship, which is not a new topic of this band at all. This one doesn’t seem to be about a break up necessarily, but more like the trouble of a stagnant relationship. He feels it’s going nowhere and he needs to figure it out.

The next song “Day I Die” seems to compliment the last song lyrically, but is faster paced and not as produced. The guitar mixing doesn’t meld well with the rest. It’s distracting and unpleasant. This song is clearly about a nasty breakup. He talks about other people who will accept him and how he drinks to forget his problem. I think maybe the anthemic guitar and steady drums are supposed to make this problem sound more uplifting, but I don’t think this song was well put together.

From my research on “Walk It Back”, I could find that this song is equating the failing relationship and instability to the Donald trump presidency and his distaste for the way this country has been run. This seems more apparent by the Karl Rove interview that was sampled within the song and the bands political efforts with the Obama Campaign. I don’t like getting political when I write these or even in my art in general, but I enjoyed the track and what it had to say. As for the sound, I think that the sampling is precise and poignant. In opposition of the last song, I think the mix is much better in this track.

I love the next track “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness”. Even though the punchy guitar riff that is repeated throughout is annoying and sort of misplaced, the rest is fantastic. The lyrics, title, and instruments are awkward and confusing. The band even mention that the song name and the band themselves are at an awkward place in their careers. Look at the chorus “I can't explain it

Any other, any other way”

It seems to follow The National’s typical theme of relationships and the anxiety that comes with that. This is a great example of how they use it to their advantage.

“Born to Beg” is a great relatable track for me personally. It is most likely my favorite track on the album because of this reason. I love the slow muddy ethereal melody that is throughout this track. The production is very spacious and impassioned. The lyrics are about not feeling good enough, self-esteem, self-worth, and being involved with a person that you feel you don’t deserve or is better than you. The bridge of this song says enough “I'd cry, crawl

I'd do it all

Teakettle love, I'd do anything”

The next track “Turtleneck” is a very obvious political track. It’s obvious in its implication and vitriolic to a large degree. The music really enforces the theme. It’s punchy and loud, especially for The National. They make reference to a national embarrassment and while I may agree with them in this regard I have to be impartial. This song is very messy and too short. It’s out of place and boring.

The next track “Empire Line” fits better in the context of the record. Its theme is again a long standing and failing relationship that he has a hard time dealing with. Matt is hesitant and depressed that he has to let it go and is frustrated at all the mixed signals and unanswered questions. I enjoy the thumping drums and the slow, thick, and enveloping instruments that climax towards the end of the track. It seems that Matt is trying to salvage what this relationship is and it’s very touching. I love the sentiment and the music is great.

The following track “I'll Still Destroy You” is about matt’s toxic qualities and how he has anxiety about his relationships, whether it’s with his spouse or his child. I find it interesting how in the beginning of the song its really bare and that’s when he presumably talks about taking pills or some other substance. Then when he does the song begins to pick up and become more full and catchy. The beginning synth beat is really stupid sounding, and not in a good or charming way. I like the track as it moves on, but the beginning idea is great but poorly executed.

Matt Berninger describes the next song “Guilty Party” as being about him and his wife growing apart and dealing with that in a healthy way. When asked about by Tim Lewis from the guardian, he was quoted saying “It was a way for us to tiptoe into dark territory without actually having to talk about those things,” he explains. “Most of the songs are about things I’m afraid of or things I really want to hold on to. A lot of it is about inhabiting alternate realities and digging into it. Its confessional but it’s not autobiographical, if that makes sense. It’s emotionally confessional, but the details aren’t always specific to my stuff. Some of it is just made up.” I love how emotionally honest and self-deprecating he is. Like other songs by The National, Matt is talking about himself and his emotions very openly. This track is gorgeous. I would say that the production is the best on this track. Nothing feels out of place. They experiment with it but done deviate too far from their formula and I appreciate that.

I love the following track “Carin at the Liquor Store”. Its simple melody and emotional performance by every member speaks to me very clearly. The mixing is also fantastic. I wanted to go over the meaning and preface to this song. Carin is Matt’s wife. This song is about how important she is to him and how fundamental she is to his life. The track/album is dedicated to Aaron Desner’s mother who had passed away from cancer while they were recording this album and I appreciate the sentiment.

One thing I appreciate is that this album gets much better as it goes along. The last few tracks are all great and all flow together seamlessly. The next song “Dark Side of the Gym” is just a pure love song. Yet again, it’s ruled by its simplicity and I appreciate that. It doesn’t take any bold moves or gestures, but it’s still a beautiful song. I like when the national experiments, but sometimes you just need a simple song to explain the complicated and confusing idea of love.

The last track “Sleep Well Beast” is really strong and threaded. It’s a great ending to this record. The track is very ambitious and leaves me satisfied. The band talks about the beast as their children and youth In general as though they are preparing for life ahead of them. The sleep is the bands metaphorical hibernation as a method of distancing themselves from everything and focusing on their family. I loved the intentional ambiguity and obvious anxiety threaded throughout this record. They show themselves very thoroughly in this record and I’ve always adored them for that.

I enjoyed this record quite a bit. It’s a bit messy and some things they did didn’t really work but I enjoyed it. I love their honesty about their work and the method of delivering emotion. They didn’t break new ground, but they are consistently putting out good work.

Top Tracks:

Nobody else will be there

The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness

Born to Beg

Carin at the Liquor Store

Rating:

7.5 – 8/10

Sources

Lewis, Tim (August, 27, 2017) The National: ‘Even in the hard times, we always loved each other’ retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/27/the-national-sleep-well-beast-interview

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