#I have the tendency to listen to playlists or artists or albums or even lone songs on repeat

[yerimoonlight]

Siri...Play Traitor on repeat because The Legacy of Yangchen is coming out in July and I still have not forgiven Kavik.

[930club]

ALBUM REVIEW: J. Cole - 4 Your Eyez Only

Ten featureless tracks of hard-hitting, brilliant, and bluesy hip-hop. If you haven’t yet listened to J. Cole’s new album, 4 Your Eyez Only, it’s one of my New Year’s resolutions to change that ASAP. Never heard of J. Cole? Take it from credible sources like Drake, Jay Z, Kevin Durant, and even President Obama that this 31-year-old rapper’s music is what you should be filling your ears with in 2017. This album is especially resonant in the modern environment of police brutality, but the album doesn’t ring as aggressively as those from Cole’s colleagues in the rap game. Each song chronicles a story, manifesting countless emotions and painting a deep, pensive lament, as opposed to the shallow picture of rage that is easier to understand. “The voice of the voiceless,” as Ibrahim Haram (@KingOfQueenz) calls Cole, his album generates a parallel story from a perspective that isn’t his, as many fans theorized. Confirmed by co-producer Elite, who says, “the album is largely from a perspective that is not J. Cole[‘s],” 4 Your Eyez Only humanizes the problems existing for countless, platform-less African Americans today via an allegory lived by Cole’s friend, James MacMillan Jr. (name changed for privacy). Elite also touches on just how important keeping the theme, message, and commentary clear was in choosing the tracks to include on the album. The result is a craftily-curated album that tells the story of someone who is gone to their daughter. Cole, a social media hermit, has yet to confirm whether his friend is the subject matter, but regardless, the vibrancy of the feelings expressed, paired with the truth in the general stories, gives a voice to those people lost in the discriminatory system.

The first track, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” sets the morose tone of the platform J. Cole uses to deliver his heavy message. The vibe-machine triplets, paired with flugelhorn licks soaring above, create space for a waterfall of thoughts about death, its inevitability, and what should be done in the meantime to make life worthwhile.  Lines like “Do I wanna die? I don’t know” and “Tired of feelin’ low, even when I’m high” pivot off of themes in Cole’s previous albums, highlighting his own depression. The song is not so self-indulgent, instead representing the pain and exasperation that comes from the deaths of many. A reflection on his current environment, Cole’s titling of the song could be paying homage to two artistic works: a poem by John Donne bearing the same name, or the famous work by Ernest Hemmingway.  Donne’s poem preaches peace; the lines “Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee” connect the speaker to the death of others. This is especially pertinent in the plight of African Americans during the search for a solution to systematic violence and institutionalized racism in the United States. J. Cole echoes this tone as he hears the bell getting louder; preparing for death, searching for a solution, but knowing the bell tolls for “he” (whether it is his perspective or James’). Ernest Hemmingway’s novel recounts the story of an American soldier in the Spanish Civil War, in which case the title could act as a parable for the man whose story Cole is telling. The friend is also a soldier, but in the fight against poverty through pushing drugs. In both stories, the soldier meets a girl (see later songs) and no longer wants to be a part of the war.

“Immortal” answers the panicked searching of the first track with powerful solace. The song is “ripe with pain” and raw energy toward deaths of people of color. Cole’s friend, who was a drug dealer killed, is most likely the subject of this track as Cole has previously made known that he never dealt. His answer to the macabre musings in the previous track is that “real n***as don’t die.” This line serves to remind the public that those who died, if seen as good in the eyes of loved-ones, don’t really die. By impacting others, their impression remains long after they pass. The aggressive nature of the song and the tough-guy bite to the verse adds another meaning to the line. It’s almost as if “James” is convincing himself that if he’s a “real n***a,” he won’t die. Someone close to me once said that risky business pays off, but you live a life convincing yourself that “bad things happen to other people.” This cocky attitude and the payoff of the business usually keep people in it for life.

“Deja Vu” tells the story of a girl Cole couldn’t catch due to her status as a friend’s girlfriend. The song resonates in that lonely space in the head of anyone eyeing a crush from a distance. A familiar theme in previous Cole albums, the story of an untouchable femme this time takes a different ending. Manifested in the bitter hook that “she f*** with small town n****s, I got bigger dreams,” he takes a new course of action: focusing on his dreams. The tone is more laidback; instead of pushing for the girl and having his way, he talks himself down while the girl’s voice (sung by a background singer) echoes close enough to hear, but tauntingly distant.

Though Cole seems to sit steady with his bigger dreams by the end of the previous track, the next song, “Ville Mentality,” recounts a melancholy awakening to the fact that things won’t change if dreams stay dreams. In his 2014 documentary, Forest Hills Drive: Homecoming, he talks about how people in his hometown may have dreams, but the mentality is to put your head and heart into the limited opportunities available in small towns to simply survive. The term “ville mentality” was first coined in his track “Can I Holla At Ya” on his extended playlist “Truly Yours.” This theme resonates through the entire album, where J. Cole’s friend, who chooses to deal, questions, “How long will I survive with this mentality?” Featuring a girl from a school in Fayetteville (Cole’s hometown), the existence of this reality is proliferated when her interview talks about losing her dad in a set up. Artistically, the girl’s voice appears as the voice of Cole’s friend’s daughter, to whom he is telling the story, bringing humility to the nameless who are affected by loss like this. In reality, the fact that Cole can pull stories like this from random children at a school in Fayetteville emanates the album’s higher message and is quite possibly the reason Cole doesn’t reveal who the album is about. It isn’t just about his friend or Cole himself – it is about anyone who is given limited opportunity and does all they can to be stable in their world, but remains trapped, unable to touch their true dreams. The unequal opportunities for African Americans – the tendency for them to systematically be pushed into this trap – is substantiated by the song “Immortal” with the lines, “They tellin' n****s sell dope, rap or go to NBA, in that order. It's that sort of thinkin' that been keepin' n****s chained At the bottom and hanged,” perfectly summing up the mentality.

“She’s Mine Pt. 1” has one of the most haunting piano, string, and vocal melodies I have recently found in hip-hop. That’s of course an opinion, but the simplistic production that backs the poem in the verse softens the entire album up until this point. Falling in love for the first time – a feeling exposed in many songs, at many tempos, in many tonalities, in many genres – is here painted in a melancholy, bluesy timbre. I feel the pain and fear that is trying to let go and fall in slow motion toward someone else. The climax of the album’s storyline is represented in this track; he “Don't wanna die (Don't wanna die no more).” The voice now has someone to live for, the modal harmony representing the fear and sadness in minor and beauty and power in major resolve. Now, of all moments, is where someone trapped in a dangerous life wants out the most, foreshadowing the falling action in the album.

The first verse of “Change” recounts the themes of wisdom and confidence in “Immortality,” but in a less aggressive, more upbeat fashion. It’s almost as if Cole is no longer convincing himself through his spirituality that “real n****s don’t die.” He is at peace with the idea that God realizes people make mistakes and intuitively knows that things change — that there are always better days. “The only real change come from inside” proves that fear, pessimism, and living one’s failure is a self-fulfilled prophecy. The best thing one can do is have faith in change and continue to do the things that are right. Cole condemns opulence and materialism in his reference to the “prodigal son,” warning that luck shouldn’t be confused with reward. Faith must be lived out, with change coming from inside, constantly pushing against the vile mentality without “neglecting the execution.” He dissuades against “following homies” because time is too short to live based on what the outside tells to you do. Instead, decisions should be based on love, not economics, as well as on yourself and who you want to be at the end of the day. The end of the verse is the first mention of James MacMillan Jr.’s death and combines the inner desires for vengeance with the speaker’s words in a vigil. Thoughts of vengeance revert the song’s theme back to the tragedy that the black community often faces, inspiring cyclical violence in revenge –  a cycle that comes when people “Give up, give in, (and)…move back a little.” Change can come from the perception of death and whether the resulting actions of those effected will change them in a way that pushes people closer to the edge of more death, or whether it will convince them to break out in desperation to change to something better.

The song “Neighbors” is purportedly “inspired by true events,” and Elite talks about the story behind the album in his interview with Complex. Sheltuh, where a lot of the songs on the album are creatively rooted, is a house that Cole rents in North Carolina as a safe space for Dreamville artists and collaborators to work on their art in peace. The house is in a predominantly white neighborhood and with mostly African American artists arriving and hanging around the space, the nearby neighbors became paranoid enough that a “million-dollar investigation” with a SWAT team commenced. Fortunately, all of the artists were out of the house and audio engineer Juro “Mez” Davis came back from his lunch break to watch the investigation fail miserably, as all they could find was a studio. This story and the song incepted are the perfect example of what causes the cyclical violence. J. Cole has no record, so for a large investigation to be called on assumption indicates the institutionalized racism in our country. It’s racism that Cole wants to escape, but honestly thinking he can’t is something that shakes the very foundation of equal protection in our country. If everyone scoffs at your dreams, “Even when your crib sit on a lake, Even when your plaques hang on a wall, Even when the president jam your tape,” it makes one want to give up. People will believe what they want, so Cole says he is selling dope, “so much for integration, don’t know what I was thinkin’,” something unfathomable by those privileged enough to be born out of such of a reality. Why would he give up if that is what this whole album is about? The enterprising sarcasm in this song is also answered by change that comes from the inside. If instead of making your life about what others want – striving for the “right” promotions, the “right” image – you will BE someone to everyone else, but you might not DO anything. It is a matter of choosing which is most important to you and sticking to what comes from within.

Refusing to dwell in the mentality for too long, Cole returns to the feeling of escape and love with “Foldin Clothes.” The groove on this track is funky as hell and one can’t help but smile at a whole song about doing laundry for a loved one. Whimsical lines about almond milk, Netflix, and other “simple things” that “say ‘I love you’” draw the listener in. After all, “The right thing, feels so much better than the wrong thing,” and this song makes you feel good. The pacing of the piece lets people feel comfortable in the love and the escape from the hard-hitting reality. It doesn’t rest in funky love for too long, though; as in life, the track returns to the hard-hitting reality that is amplified by contrast in the third verse. It lays out the reality of living the hustle. “N****s in the hood is the best actors” because they act the second life, abandoning sweetness for a struggle, not letting their brothers see they’re “soft.” Living a second life like that hardens one’s soul and confuses a person’s reality with what they feel they must do to survive. This is the true plague of the ville mentality: the situation that African Americans live in today puts them in such a place that it isn’t a choice to be rough and hard because it’s cool – it’s a choice of survival. Not only is the lifestyle dangerous, unfair, and unfulfilling, but many people who exist on the other side only see it through a rose-colored window pane in pop culture. This is confirmed in the final track, “4 Your Eyez Only,” where the third verse laments the skewed version of what a “real n****” is” set by mixtapes, friends, and so on.

“She’s Mine Pt. 2” represents the falling in love that happens upon the birth of your first child. Again, the haunting mode develops a melancholy picture where, after bringing someone into the world out of love, there is pain in introducing them to the world of materialism, violence, and fear – a world where a father isn’t even sure if he is strong enough to quit his bad habits for something that feels so brilliant. The narrative on the album further emerges, supporting the theory about it being from another man’s perspective, as Cole seems to talk to a small girl. The power and spiritual awakening that come from the gifted moments in life are enough to make one question their lifestyle and bring change from within. Unfortunately, though, change needs to come from everyone’s insides to change to the world — it is not a magic wand that can make the evil disappear.

The resolve in finding someone or something bigger than you is beautiful and heartbreaking. The heartbreak comes at the end of the story, in the next track, “4 Your Eyez Only.” Our narrator lets his dreams fade for “far too long” and he faces “deadly consequences” – the death foreshadowed in “Change.” The verse outlines the crooked system that washes away the dreams of Cole’s friends, replacing them with the “ville mentality.”  The stress of providing for a wife and family is all he can think of, and his only wish is that his daughter can understand him through the verse. He hopes that she understands that no one is born with the mentality, praying that she can be tired of the lifestyle before it even takes over her dreams. The “real n****” created by the media, mentioned above, and preached by the father-to-be is, in fact, false. He asks that she find someone with goals and points of view – things that J. Cole preaches helped bring him out of poverty. In the final verse, Cole raps in his own words to his friend’s daughter, telling her about when her daddy told him what to say. Cole’s perspective rings loud and clear when he recounts all the things that her dad did that could have made him a “real n****” in some people’s eyes. Pushing with all his lyrical and artistic might, Cole wants to her know: “Your daddy was a real n**** ‘cause he loved you.”

That line shook me and caused me to shed some tears because somehow love, education, and unique perspectives have lost power to what it takes to survive in your own skin. For some people, this is doing drugs; for others, it is making money, but I sincerely hope that in the new year, everyone finds something that is bigger than themselves, even if it means pushing against what everyone else says is cool and likeable. Change is inevitable, but channeling the direction of that change is not. Change comes from within, and I wish for everyone to keep looking inside themselves in order to send that change in the right direction for you, even if it’s along the road less traveled. J. Cole recognizes that the type of change needed to heal wounds isn’t going to be easy, but his perspective is real in my eyes, and real isn’t always easy.

-Erin Jones

[lenaglittleus]

Listen to Tony Horton’s High Energy Cardio Workout Playlist

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, fandom and fitness can go hand in hand. Long before Tony Horton created the P90X series, he was helping musicians like Usher, Bruce Springsteen, and Annie Lennox get in stage-ready shape.

“It was a really fun learning experience for me,” he says, adding that he never got starstruck. “I don’t treat Bruce Springsteen or a Beachbody Coach any differently. I try to be as encouraging as possible, and I’m always checking on form and making sure that I’m cueing them right so they get the most out of the workout.”

Tony continues to be a big music fan, actively seeking out new music through the recommendations of friends and using Shazam to identify songs that catch his ear. These discoveries inevitably make it to his workout playlists. On days when he’s focusing on weights and resistance training, “sometimes I’ll just play a Police playlist or an ’80s rock Pandora channel,” he says. “But when I’m doing cardio, it’s got to crank.

“You’re constantly moving if you want it to be a cardio routine, so the music has to be the same way,” he continues. “The beat of the song will allow you more revolutions on the bike or to run faster on the treadmill. If you’re doing one of my workouts, there’s a tendency to move quicker based on the beat of the song. You’re not going to get that with Barbra Streisand ballads.”

For his Beachbody Super Trainer playlist, Tony assembled a program of contemporary alternative hits that mix big guitars with beats designed to keep you on your feet. He also threw in a handful of punk classics that nod to his roots. Below, he walks us through his selections for a cardio workout.

Listen to the full Spotify playlist below, and follow Beachbody On Demand on Spotify for more great playlists to pair with any kind of workout.

Motivational Music: Tony Horton’s Cardio Playlist

“In this particular playlist, these songs don’t have to line up with any particular series of moves. There’s a certain quality they all have that works well with almost any fast-paced workout, like boxing, a 22 Minute Hard Corps routine, or Triometrics in P90X3. ”

–Tony

“Born 2 Run”

Artist: 7Lions

Album: Born 2 Run

“Tell me that doesn’t make you want to get going right there. What I like about this song is it starts out really low, and then the beat comes in. So you put your headphones on, you start your run and you’re slow, and then maybe a few seconds in you start picking up your speed.”

“Radioactive”

Artist: Imagine Dragons

Album: Night Visions

“This song also starts out super mellow, like you don’t think it’s going to be what it’s going to be. I just love a song that builds. It’s not just hitting you in the face right out of the box, and then [when the beat] comes, you just want to run your ass off.”

“Bodysnatchers”

Artist: Radiohead

Album: In Rainbows

“Radiohead is like learning how to drink booze for the first time. Nobody likes beer or wine or booze initially; it takes time. I don’t drink at all anymore, but Radiohead is just a band like that. When I hear this song when I’m on a run, blood shoots out of my ears, man. This song makes me want to just crank.”

“Salute Your Solution”

Artist: The Raconteurs

Album: Consolers of the Lonely

“This is The Raconteurs. They’re really an offshoot of The White Stripes. This song has that same kind of beat. All these songs have that in common.”

“This Head I Hold”

Artist: Electric Guest

Album: Mondo

“It’s kind of lighter. It doesn’t drive as hard, but it has that sort of double beat to it, and it’s still a get-up-and-go song. It’s terrific. I’m always playing with the sequence of these songs. This particular sequence seems to work, but every once in a while I’ll just play this song on random just for fun.”

“Kill Your Heroes”

Artist: Awolnation

Album: Megalithic Symphony

“This band, I think they’re great. It’s thumpier, it’s a little slower, but the beat itself just works for me.”

“The Golden Age”

Artist: The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

Album: Fruit

“This is a song that nobody knows about. I think I Shazam-ed it on a really funny, eclectic, goofy Heineken commercial. It’s got a great beat, and there are highs and lows.”

“Punkrocker”

Artist: Teddybears featuring Iggy Pop

Album: Soft Machine

“It’s an old, old song. It went under the radar for a lot of people. I just love the ‘Birth, School, Work, Death,’ part of the song. It’s like, ‘Hey, this is life, man. It’s these four things. You better get busy and make the best of it.’ There’s the beat right out of the box. It’s just killer. I’ll be working out with a group of people, and maybe two will know this song, and then when the chorus comes up, they’ll look at me like I’m out of my mind.”

“Optimistic”

Artist: Radiohead

Album: Kid A

“When this song plays and I’m on a run, I automatically get emotional. I start to tear up, and I don’t know what it is. There’s just something really powerful about it. It’s almost theatrical. If I was a director, this would be my opening song in my film; some guy on a highway out in the middle of the Mojave Desert with cactus or Joshua trees going by really fast, hands on the wheel.”

“People”

Artist: Awolnation

Album: Megalithic Symphony

“We have another Awol song, which is more of the same stuff. This is like another anthem to me. [Aaron Bruno]’s got a great voice.”

“Sex On Fire”

Artist: Kings of Leon

Album: Only by the Night

“If you can’t move to this, then you’re not supposed to ever move. What’s great about this is the double beat. Why don’t more bands do that? There’s two of them. There’s three different bass lines in this song at the same time. It’s genius.”

“Soul Wars”

Artist: Awolnation

Album: Megalithic Symphony

“This beat goes 100 miles per hour. It’s like a machine gun. It’s just too good. It reminds me of early punk.”

“London Calling”

Artist: The Clash

Album: London Calling

“Of course, you’ve got to have one Clash song or forget it, right? This is in my top five songs of all time. I just want to put my fist in the air. It’s one of the greatest rock songs.”

“Sweet Disposition”

Artist: The Temper Trap

Album: Conditions

“This is another one sort of on the lighter side. Everything is sort of up and high and airy and cool. You feel like you’re running on the moon when this song comes on. This is a song that I would even play in a yoga class. It’s got a great, strong beat, but it’s not knocking you over the head. It just feels like after that ‘London Calling,’ you just needed to change it up a little bit, right?”

“Roll It Up”

Artist: The Crystal Method

Album: Tweekend

“This thing is almost electronic meets alternative a little bit. It jumps the playlist back into that beat again.”

“Message of Love”

Artist: The Pretenders

Album: Pretenders II

“Another one of my top five songs. This is one of those songs where I sing every damn lyric. It’s just super inspiring. To me, that’s really important. The message is really about the importance of love in general. This line makes me cry: ‘When love walks in the room, everybody stands up.’ Are you kidding me? ‘The reason you’re here as man and woman is to love each other. Take care of each other.’ That just kills. Come on. I’ll be hanging out, working out, playing this with a bunch of Millennials who have never heard this song before, and they think I’m insane. I don’t know why everybody who hears that doesn’t just want to start a nonprofit right then and there.”

“This Is Why We Fight”

Artist: The Decemberists

Album: The King Is Dead

“Another really great tune. All these songs have one thing in common, and that is they’ve got a great beat for cardio-type routines. They’re high energy, big beat songs, but they’re all very different. There’s alternative, alternative punk, electronic, and rock and roll. There’s even a little pop. That’s the world I live in. That’s the world I grew up in. That’s what gets me going.”

from News About Health https://www.beachbody.com/beachbodyblog/fitness/workout-playlist-tony-horton-cardio