#music writing

[sigillite]

music (fanfiction) writing challenge!!

use your music taste to write a fanfiction or any story in this challenge!

first open your music app of choice and make sure your playlist is on shuffle -- then the first 5 songs that pop up will determine your:

Premise -- What your story is going to be about in the first place. What is going to be the main "selling point" of the story that sets it apart from the rest.

Main character -- Your main character's personality or inner struggle.

Main conflict -- The main conflict that drives your story and becomes an obstacle for your main character.

Vibes -- Is this going to be a light-hearted story? Angsty? Romantic? Whatever matches the vibe of the song.

Ending -- How this story is going to end.

yes, this is very vague, but that is the point! this can give you some ideas of what to write while also leaving plenty of room to be creative. feel free to switch up what songs represent what or even shuffle them a couple more times!

[deadhorsepress]

The first few times I disclosed the weighty sin of having liked Coldplay in middle school, I felt like I was Raskolnikov confessing to axe murder. Inevitably, though, the other person’s response baffled me more than outright mockery. “They’re pretty good” or “I like Viva la Vida” or something else like that. Each time, it left me more perturbed than if they had taken the bait and made fun of Coldplay with me. The basic question I was left with was: Why am I the only person who knows that Coldplay is lame?

or: is it actually cringe, or are you just mean to yourself

[dimonds456-but-only-hlvrai]

I'VE DISCOVERED THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ME TO MAKE A FANGAME AND I'VE GONE OFF THE DEEP END

Bonus Darnold and Benrey as well! :)

[your-favorite-roommate]

serial killer slimeriana concept

cw for implied killing and blood

someone is killing the islanders, the federation workers, leaving corpses littering the island. the egg event starts, thereve only been about 2 kills so far, but theyre still wary (is it an animal? another islander? the federation?). mariana and slime are together obviously, mariana is wary of everyone, no way hes taking this stranger into his house, knowing where he lives, what if hes the killer? or what if this egg is a trap? either way, no trust. they take care of juanaflippa for a bit, they hate each other, they love each other, its all good. until slime starts disappearing at night. now mariana doesnt really care what they guy does, he wouldnt have even noticed but he was staying over for the night (for once) and slime must've thought he was asleep, slipping out of bed quietly and grabbing… something, mariana couldnt quite see, slinking out the door and into the night

mariana doesnt really give a shit what his government assigned husband is up to in his free time (though it is a bit weird that its in the middle of the night. whatever, must be a night owl). but he does hear when slime gets home, ever so quietly but inevitably given away by the creaky door that he swore he'd fix. mariana got out of bed to see what was up, walking out of slimes bedroom and coming face to face with the man himself, covered in… something he couldn't quite make out in the dark. slime looked startled, breathing picking up, but he tried to play it off cooly, quickly shoving something behind his back. whatever, let him keep his secrets.

"mariana! i didnt… uh, w-what are you doing up, mi amor?" "you were out for a while. just checking on you" "oh, well, yes. im fine, you can go back to bed, everything is fine." "go shower before you get in bed. whats are you even covered in? looks like… mud, or slime or something" "slime! like my name! yeah, yeah no, its slime. im sorry mi amor" he kisses marianas cheek, a metallic smell filling marianas senses "ill go shower, of course. i was just out fighting slimes"

[llzrabin]

A recent interview of Alison Mosshart from The Kills for music magazine Dans Ta Face B. Full interview under the cut and French version on their website.

La Face B : You’ve just released your sixth album, God Games, twenty years after your first record. Which means you’ve been making music together for two decades now. You’ve mentioned a few times in recent interviews being ‘terrified’ of the process of recording this album. Obviously, danger is inherent to creativity and passion. What were you scared of in particular, regarding your own history as a band? Can one as a musician actually ever get rid of this fear? Alison Mosshart : I think as an artist, fear is good. Fear keeps one alert and desirous to discover something new in oneself, in one’s work, and about the world. Fear is a simple word to describe “facing the unknown.” At the start of every album, you are facing the unknown. There is nothing, a blank page... and you have to muster up the courage to turn this nothingness in somethingness. And not just any old thing. But something truly great. Even though we’ve been writing music together for 20 years, nothing is a given. Nothing is taken for granted. We constantly must prove to ourselves and to one another that we’ve got the goods. Every record is as important as the first, at least to the artist.

La Face B : When I first heard the album, I was under the impression that I was listening to a movie sequence or a journey, with some kind of movements. You kept the traditional verse-chorus structure in most songs, but they also sound like something else. What do you think evolved the most in your music over the years? And on the other hand, is there something that definitely stayed true to your first sound?

Alison Mosshart : A couple of things. We both think the traditional verse chorus structure is a little at odds with the mind. Whereas novels and poetry and film... can veer around elegantly, it’s a little hard with rock n’ roll structure sometimes. It’s nice not following the traditional rules and allow some abstraction.

Thoughts by nature...zig zag, skip, don’t really work in liner or predictable order. Thoughts lead to thoughts lead to other thoughts say “california can’t be trusted” to “I love rollercoasters” to “Thursday’s good for me,” to “I wonder what happened to Bob?” “Green car,” “dog bit my face,” “phone’s dead again” “papercut!” And on and on and on.

Having said all that, I do think our music is very visual. It seems to contain its own colours and shapes and tactility. I know when a song is done by listening to it and seeing it from start to end. When it feels like I’m watching a play or a short film and I’m satisfied with what I’ve seen, I’m happy with the song. If I’m listening and the scene freezes, there is still work to do.

La Face B : Did having another person involved in the studio give you a different perspective on your music?

Alison Mosshart : Having another person in the room always gives you a different perspective. You know right away if a song is working by feeling the energy of that person hearing it for the first time. They don’t have to say a word. The truth is just there.

La Face B : Your lyrics almost always address another person, like a dialogue between two people. Love and hate, hope and failure, tenderness and violence blend into each other in the stories you tell. They also almost always convey a sense of urgency. Alison, do you still record and write your lyrics in your car while driving at fast speed, CARMA-style?

Alison Mosshart : Sure. We’re all contending with one another and ourselves. There is surely a lot of back and forth and push and pull going on in the lyrics. The war is never won, right? About cars, I love to drive. It’s very meditative for me. A lot of ideas come when I’m behind the wheel. I do still have a little Dictaphone in the car that I keep handy. It’s a safer option then a pen and pad.

La Face B : When I first saw you in 2011 at Rock en Seine during the Blood Pressures tour, there were two other musicians with you onstage. Lately, it looks like you’ve gone back as a two piece again. Is it important to you not to depend on anyone? Is it a way of not having to compromise?

Alison Mosshart : Different times call for different measures. We love playing with other musicians and we love playing as a two piece. During certain records, it made a lot of sense to have the back up. But it was a different time in the music industry too. We’re in a different world now 6 years later. Streaming has made it unaffordable to hire extra musicians. Which I think is ultimately a very bad thing. I hope one day things change.

La Face B : The Kills have always been a very visual band. Alison, you’re also a painter, and Jamie, I’ve heard in a recent interview that you would have loved to collaborate with Lucian Freud… Do you feel the need to explore other art forms to maintain this global approach to music?

Alison Mosshart : We’ve always painted, drawn, taken photos, filmed things. I love every art form. I don’t think it’s important to do all these things to maintain a global approach to music. I’m not sure what a global approach to music even is. I just love making art. It all comes from the same place I think.

La Face B : A friend of mine who doesn’t like rock music was telling me the other day how he thought he witnessed the best rock concert he’s ever been to after seeing you live in Paris, precisely because your music didn’t sound like rock to him. I found that very interesting because you do have that kind of bluesy-guitar signature style, while also playing with noisy textures that could come from a cut-up approach, like hip hop music does. Do this kind of approach inspire you? Do you pay any attention at all to genre while writing?

Alison Mosshart : We see ourselves as an electric guitar band before a rock n’ roll band. With an electric guitar and a vocal, you can do anything, any genre, any style, fuck around with any rhythm you want. Being a two piece is the only limit we have, everything else, every idea that we can conceive of starting from that point, is fair game.

La Face B : Lastly- I recently came across these images and immediately thought of The Kills. A series of photographs by John Divola titled ‘Dogs Chasing My Car in the Desert’, which he took in 96-98 while driving in the Southern California desert, conjuring existential themes like isolation and desire, man versus wild, joy versus fear. It made me think of God Games’ cover, with the bull and the matador, but it also reminded me of Don Van Vliet’s painting retreat in California after Captain Beefheart’s ending, and of Vanishing Point’s iconic car chase. Basically a lot of the things you’ve often mentioned as an inspiration. I wanted to point it out to you, see if you knew this photographer. What does it evoke for you?

Alison Mosshart : I love this photo series. Meditative again, like driving a car. It’s cool to see stills of animals running, their shape, their sleekness, the body transformed into a bullet. I don’t know why but it makes me think of Benton Harbor, Michigan in the snow and the dogs at Key Club (a recording studio we worked at a lot)  running down the desolate main street in a town that time forgot. These photos look like love and loyalty to me. 

[thesinglesjukebox]

PORTER ROBINSON - "CHEERLEADER"

April Fool's Day is over, now time for some SINCERITY...

[5.92]

Taylor Alatorre: This song sounds embarrassing. It sounds excessive. It sounds like something you might regret putting into the world five seconds after hitting "publish." It sounds, in other words, like high school. Porter Robinson's post-brostep career has been an extended treatise on escapism -- from the appealingly plaintive paracosms of 2014's Worlds to the soothing self-inventory of 2021's Nurture, with his Virtual Self side project managing to be both esoteric and stupidly self-explanatory. He's crafted a series of immersive alternatives to analog messiness, allowing the listener to check out of the everyday and place themselves for a moment in a softer-edged realm, with more explicable rules and a more poetic set of problems. "Cheerleader," though, offers the listener no assistance in either sidestepping or reconfiguring the uncomfortable reality into which they were born; music video aside, it's not really a song about fanbases gone wild either. Instead it's about the girl in your school's Anime Club who gave out her deviantART username before her phone number and taught you against your will what the word yaoi meant. The fujoshi representation, besides filling a glaring gap in the TSJ search index, makes it clear that this is about a real person and not an avatar, and it's that awkward flesh-and-blood realness which is precisely at issue here. Maybe she's as real as him, and maybe he couldn't live with that. The perspective of a boy who is unused to being the object of obsession is an under-explored one in music, probably because it's very hard to land it within the narrow range of acceptable loserdom. But Porter sticks the landing by enveloping us fully within the loser's headspace, where both his emo-inflected chagrin and his fragmented memories of the girl's "cheering" are enshrouded by a waterfall of blown-out Obama-era detritus. If you ever wondered what a big room house remix of Two Door Cinema Club might've sounded like, or Oracular Spectacular if it had debuted on Beatport, here's your answer. Other seemingly out-of-place additions -- the bitpop cowbell, the Punk Goes Acoustic bridge, the hilariously overwrought drumroll that becomes less so the second time around -- fit right into this 1080p capture of late adolescent bag-fumbling. Taken together, they convey a mismatch in interests and hobbies that may have seemed like a deal breaker at the time, but in hindsight was just another excuse to avoid vulnerability. Perhaps I only arrived at this gonzo interpretation because the 4chan-core single artwork serves as a kind of shibboleth for these things. If that's the case, then I plead guilty: I ate the apple. [10]

Oliver Maier: "We have Anamanaguchi at home." [6]

Hannah Jocelyn: I loved Porter Robinson's Nurture for its unapologetic sincerity, a balm when emerging back into the world post-lockdown. I miss that early hopefulness as the years have gone on; even now, it's hard for me to hear "Unfold" without being close to tears. "Cheerleader" is a frustrating detour, with inane lyrics about yandere fujoshis fetishizing Robinson -- you know you're doing nothing new when the Nostalgia Critic beat you to it, and Robinson hardly sells the can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em message better. Nurture, for better or worse, incorporated the pitch-shifting vocals of hyperpop into EDM (to the point where a trans woman musician I know grew frustrated with Nurture's acclaim for doing what acts like Katie Dey had done for years, regardless of how Robinson himself identifies.) That's worth acknowledging, especially as this attempts to go right to the source: 3OH!3 and Metro Station come to mind. Except there’s none of the polish that makes those songs work despite themselves -- What's with that tinny hi-hat? Where's the low end on the guitar? Listen to "Shake It"; that song from 2007 sounds better than this one from 2024. It's not enough to replicate the aesthetics; for some ungodly reason, Robinson decided it must sound like it's coming from a Hot Topic speaker too. [4]

Claire Biddles: We have "Shake It" by Metro Station at home. [4]

Tim de Reuse: I admire the chutzpah to take a stylistic hairpin turn like this. And I appreciate the ability to do that while retaining the crystal-clear boom-bap production chops that made you a breakout sensation in the first place. And I appreciate how it makes its power-pop references clear without sticking to them too desperately. And I appreciate the sheer craft; birds fly, rocks sink, Porter Robinson writes synth hooks that wrap around your mind and squeeze tight. And I appreciate the line about getting drawn kissing other guys. But there's a clean and edgeless quality here, a sterile expression of his EDM roots, that directly contradicts his attempts at a heartbreaking singalong. Nowhere does his voice crack with raw emotion; nowhere does it seem even possible that his voice might crack with raw emotion. [5]

Kayla Beardslee: Porter Robinson’s doing anime OSTs now? Good for him. [7]

Leah Isobel: I see this fitting into a whole universe of PS1/Nintendo DS aesthetic indie games, YouTube video essays about old anime, trans girls with Neocities websites, indie pop sung by vocaloids. I could call it hyperpop -- not in the sense of overdriven chaos, but in the sense of the hyperlink. (HTML revival would be more accurate.) As such, it feels a little too precise, its scruffiness deployed too purposefully; I feel like this stuff works best when the self is obscured, and Porter is too big of a star to let that happen. But that also means the chorus is fucking massive, so I can't complain too much. [7]

Nortey Dowuona: The soft, limply placed drums in the song for once are not the sabotaging element in this song. The lithe, acoustic guitar bridge is even nicely played. The guitar riff, doubled by the synth, is the true arrow to the heart of this song. Porter is processed to hell and back, refusing to give over his composition to a more present, entertaining vocalist, but that riff is so grating and stiff that when it first arrives, sliding up as the culmination of the slowly hopping pre-chorus, it stops the song from progressing any further, simply pushing Porter into the background and leaving his Melodyned voice slack below it, struggling to be heard. Now, does this stop me from screaming that chorus in my head? Of course not. It's not fair I have to keep hearing this grating riff every time, though. [6]

Ian Mathers: God, I love that recurring, overdriven synth sound that kicks in on the chorus. If anything I wish it was more all-enveloping when it hits (yes, like shoegaze, yes, I'm predicable). There's lots of other interesting things going on here, but I can't quite get over that visceral rush enough to figure out my response to it all. Hit the whoosh button again, Porter! [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Not nearly dumb enough for me to enjoy its shtick. [3]

Isabel Cole: This sounds like a One Direction album track in a universe where after they got kicked off The X Factor, Simon Cowell realized he could save so much money by replacing everyone but Liam with robots, only when they got into the studio there was some kind of malfunction and Zayn-bot started screeching uncontrollably and Niall-bot fell on his side crackling horribly with static while Harry-bot and Louis-bot took turns punching each other until they were dented beyond recognition, and that's why it sounds like how it sounds. (Liam didn't notice anything amiss, obviously; have you met him?) [4]

Will Adams: At the heart of Nurture was its... well, heart. On that record, Porter Robinson wore his on his sleeve, crooning lines like "I'll be alive next year / I can make something good" without a hint of irony. On "Cheerleader," he surprisingly lets a bit of cynicism slip in. It's not a leap to see how producing such earnest, sincere art would naturally invite fans to form parasocial relationships, to draw fan art but not know where to "draw the line," to develop a near-fatalistic expectation of commitment. But between each of those details is a generous counterpoint, where Porter wonders if he benefits just as much from these feelings. It creates a fascinating tension, expressed best by the chorus: "IT'S NOT FAAAAIIIRRRRRR!", stretched over a fizzy, tightly-wound power-pop arrangement complete with a skyscraping synth line. Porter just can't help himself. We've all got feelings; why not scream them to the rafters? [8]

Katherine St. Asaph: Porter Robinson's brand of earnestness makes my heart feel burnt or dead. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[tipytap]

BRO WHO WAS GONNA TELL ME ABOUT MELODY FORMS??? SHITS LIFE CHANGING BRO

[writers-hub]

Writers Block Tips!

Get a move on!

Go for a walk or run! Physical activity can improve your brain function and reduce anxiety. Now that pesty voice in your head telling you your writing isn't good enough (which it is) can put a sock in it!

2. Start joggin your noggin!

Write something else! Writing something else will help you take a break while still using your brain. This way your breaks are still productive and you'll still be in the writing mood when you circle back!

3. You stink!

Take a shower! This one is a personal favorite of mine. The shower is where many people come up with their best ideas. Just be sure to have your phone near by to write down any thoughts as they come.

4. Consume consume consume

Read, listen to music, watch a movie, whatever you're trying to write or create, look at other peoples work to spark inspiration!

5. What next?

Move on from that point. Think about what will happen later on in your piece and start working on that. Then you'll have an idea where you want to go with your work and it may give you ideas.

6. Phone a friend!

Spitball with a friend! Just saying your ideas out loud may help. It's like when you go to ask someone a question and as soon as you say it you remember the answer. Your friends may also have ideas you never would have thought of. It's good to get different perspectives.

7. Z's take your writing to new degrees!

Take a nap! Getting some good rest could refresh your brain and you'll wake up ready to write. Don't wear yourself out. Ideas will come. Rome wasn't built in a day!

8. Practice makes perfect

Write for a couple minutes everyday. This will train your brain to be able to write a lot easier and come up with ideas much faster.

9. Do your chores!

Do some stuff you have to get done. Just get your mind completely off of your work. Then later come back with a fresh mind.

10. Just spit it out!

Write whatever comes to your mind. Any and all ideas put them down on paper. Don't edit until you've gotten everything out. Then go back after to edit. Trying to write and edit your work at the same time will have you going in circles. Rough drafts are allowed to be rough!

Not every tip works for everyone so try out different ones to see what fits you best! If You have any tips I left out please feel free to leave them in the comments for your fellow writers!

[witchy-aunt]

Hi guys! so I wrote this... uh didn't completely finish it, but its something!!! I don't completely remember where I was going with this when I wrote it, but y'know I figured I'd still post it on here lmk what u think!

I don’t like the way you said it

And im beginning to dread it

I wish I could forget it

Why cant you hold me

Ignite the fire 

Send a sign

Come rushing down, waves to head

I was misled, im not dead

[celestialiron]

Here’s something I’ve been working on for quite some time now! Although it’s only the beginning portion of this very much becoming a huge piece for me, I’m still so excited to see what everyone thinks of!

This is also a small example of what I can offer for commissions work if anyone is interested! I’m still getting everything set up on my Ko-fi page to start it up! I hope you all enjoy!

[valinized]

Initially taking shape as the last things I'd ever write, I extended it to a full album with more obscure feelings that kept popping into my head over these last few weeks. Exclusively released here on Tumblr

[rustbeltjessie]

God, that EP. It is, to me, near-perfect. It’s so garagey, raw and beautiful, with poetic, narrative lyrics. There’s a definite post-punk Kid Congo Powers-era Bad Seeds vibe, but it also harks back to older, bluesier, Rolling Stones-ier rock’n’roll. Starts out with “The Search for Cherry Red” (from the lyrics of which come the EP’s title); there’s that drone of the organ, the angular yank of the guitar, boom-shatter drums, mesmeric noise, and here comes Stewart Lupton’s voice: by turns breathy-raspy, then so down-low-deep you don’t so much hear it as feel it in your guts. —from "The Search for Cherry Red"

My most recent Substack is the first installment of These Fucking Songs, a new series I'm starting. Each installment will be about music I have loved for a long time. Some will be about one specific song, others about an album, and still others will be about a band or artist’s entire discography. This installment is about Jonathan Fire*Eater.

[thejoeypop]

[canadian-cannibal]

went and looked through the doc I write down all of my various random song lyric ideas and man, it looks like a middle schooler’s teenage angst diary lol.

[thenightsystem]

I’m having whatever the equivalent of writers block for songwriting is, so I had an idea. Can someone give me like a word or phrase for me to write a song about?/nf

Anyone feel free to reply to this at any point if you wan

-host

[thesinglesjukebox]

BEYONCÉ - "TEXAS HOLD 'EM"

Maybe the colossal discography of Beyoncé -- which now includes country music -- might lend a clue?

[6.00]

Dorian Sinclair: Rhiannon Giddens’ banjo is the first thing you hear on “Texas Hold ‘Em,” and it’s both a lovely introduction in its own right and a suggestion that Beyoncé is undertaking this genre shift in a smart, informed way. The banjo work isn’t the only standout on the track, either. Beyoncé, as always, knows how to wrap her voice around a melody line, and the backing harmonies are frequently gorgeous. I just wish the song that this is all in service to felt a little less slight. “Texas Hold ‘Em” is undeniably a real country song — but a middling one. [6]

Rachel Saywitz: Beyoncé’s long-awaited country turn is a bit lackluster, if only due to the nonsensicality of it—I find it hard to believe that the rumored Vegas Sphere headliner has been to a grimy Southern dive bar, drinking bad whiskey out of Solo cups, even once during the past few decades of her career. “Texas Hold ‘Em” sounds like what a pop star thinks country sounds like: stomp claps, echoing vocals, the word “hoedown.” Even with Rhiannon Giddens playing a banjo riff ready-made for the barnyard dance hall, the song is a bit too commercial to be fully believable. Yet as on even the most lackluster Beyoncé songs, her vocals and intonation save the track from diving into pure pop country slop. Her growls in the chorus fit the song’s overstated twang, and while the second verse’s depiction of a heatwave seems totally devoid of Beyoncé’s material reality, she rises to meet the drama with a tenor that sounds almost believable.  [7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Beyond the camp appeal of listing country apparel (“boots! spurs!”), this is shockingly half-assed stuff from Beyoncé. Lyrically and sonically, it’s the type of inoffensive pablum engineered to soundtrack a commercial for the new Lexus TX, with nothing spiky to distract from how its three-row luxury treats every seat like the best seat. [3]

Aaron Bergstrom: I understand that country songs are not required to be true-to-life first-person narratives, but I would believe that Johnny Cash actually shot a man in Reno before I would believe that Beyoncé has ever set foot in a dive bar. [5]

Brad Shoup: She's jumped right into the vibe of a country singer on the gentle downslope: the easygoing, modest gem that tips its hat at contemporary songwriting but is mostly an excuse for a nice hang. It's here for a good time, not a long time. The banjo's loping; the acoustic has a nice percussive affect. We're here to do a little stepping, not watch the band cut loose. The text itself is about a rich couple dabbling in the honky-tonk lifestyle—the image of perhaps the most in-control pop star of the century popping into a dive bar on a lark is pretty funny. The sampled piano and whistling at the end suggest another kind of dive; suddenly, it's the aughts and she's checking out Grizzly Bear with her sister. [7]

Jackie Powell: Beyoncé's decision to release the instrumental to "Texas Hold 'Em" and its a cappella versions accentuates her desire to remind those who love her, and those who might not, of the innate musicality that she has always possessed. She’s not just great because she’s Beyoncé. Her knowledge of music history—which has been a motif in her solo work since 2016—and also her vocal tone and ability to emote through her four-octave range are essential to her greatness. Between her intonation of each hook of “Texas Hold 'Em,” which captures how bouncy a hoedown feels in person, to the stunning two-part and sometimes three-part harmonies in the verses, Knowles gives such a memorable and fun vocal performance. Those overdubbed harmonies are so bright. They give off a warmth that feels like a much more enjoyable morning alarm. The banjo, which is heard throughout, is played by Rhiannon Giddens -- yet another example of Beyoncé’s methodology when it comes to using her platform. Her modus operandi as of late has been to use the attention she attracts to bring the mainstream public to those who have been doing the work and under-recognized in the genres she’s making music in. This willingness to uplift artists continues to be noble, but I question how self-aware Beyoncé is when she mentions parking a Lexus in the hook. While this is a reference to her partnership with the luxury car brand over the summer that provided half of a million dollars to small minority-owned businesses, it still comes off as a bit out of touch with the communities she’s paying homage to.  [8]

Jeffrey Brister: I’m astounded that Beyoncé released a song that sounds so dilettantish. The beginning really gets me—I’m getting ready for something incredible. And then it just…keeps going and going. It sounds marginally more country than “You Should Be Sad." [4]

Nortey Dowuona: The difficulty in writing music, especially popular music, is that when composing songs, the most catchy, acceptable, understandable sounds become so overused that anyone who's spent a lifetime paying attention to popular music in all its forms could start noticing the similarities. Megan Bulow, a German singer who lived in Texas at 14, is credited as a songwriter on this song, as well as Lowell, a Canadian singer who briefly tried to share the good news of her involvement and later took down the video. They both have written lyrics such as "I'm going all white at your funeral/if you think I'm gonna cry, you're delusional" from bulow's "Boys Will Be Boys" and "but not me, I'm free/by the wings on my back on my shoulder blades" from Lowell's "Runaways" -- two songs I picked from their discography at random that have lyrics evocative enough to jump off the page but empty enough for a stronger, more defined voice to take ownership. This is hopefully a reason they were chosen to work with Beyoncé. Raphael Saadiq, Killa B, and Nathan Ferraro are listed as producers alongside Beyoncé; Rhiannon Giddens is playing the banjo and viola, Khirye Tyler is playing the piano alongside Saadiq, Ferraro and Lowell as well as the bass, Saadiq is credited for piano, organ, and bass alongside Tyler and Ferraro and drums alongside Killa B. Hit-Boy is playing the synthesizer and contributing to additional production work as well as Mariel Gomerez and Stuart White. I'm just saying -- if any of these people watched Franklin when they were young and interpolated it, it was definitely an accident. The deeper one goes into making one little song, the spiderwebs of avoiding even partial similarities to existing songs is becoming less charming and more sinister. It is so difficult that I can list all of these veterans of the industry allied and united in creating this great, if only slightly vague song, but a random person can notice a similarity to a kids' TV show's theme song, and it can gain enough steam for the composer to gently and firmly deny it. Don't be a bitch, just take it to the floor now. [8]

Hannah Jocelyn: Props for rendering Noah Kahan redundant, but bettering one of Mumford’s sons isn’t saying much. The song is cute -- I won’t mind hearing it in every sandwich shop for the next year or so -- but of the two songs Bey released, this is by far the less engaging one. [5]

Taylor Alatorre: The difference between this song and "16 Carriages," and "Daddy Lessons" as well, is that it doesn't feel like either of those two songs expects me to be impressed by the mere fact of its existence. "Don't be a bitch," as the eternal anti-critic refrain goes -- what, were you expecting a reverent, sepia-toned tribute to Bob Wills or something? Just accept the thing for what it is, turn off your brain, and have some down-home country fun, dammit! And as a born-and-bred Texan who's unduly excited for the upcoming Twisters film, I so wish I could. But those mechanical stomps, those painfully forced "woo"s, the "dive bar we always thought was nice," and the chirping cricket sound effect that someone probably put in as a joke and then forget to remove: all of this is laziness dressed up as genre-busting. Rhiannon Giddens is called up to add more subtextual fodder about the Black roots of country, but with the anonymized production she's given, it comes across as just more stats-padding for next year's Grammys. Only in the outro does Beyoncé suddenly remember that she can do Beyoncé things with her voice, sprinkling some belated shards of personality onto a stiff composition that wouldn't be out of place on a filler episode of Phineas & Ferb. If Bey still has Diplo in her contacts, it may have been worth giving him a ring for this -- feels icky to say it, but he can at least make the appropriation go down smooth when he tries. [3]

Katherine St. Asaph: Has anyone done a tally of the number of country songs that mention the word "hoedown," versus the number of pop songs? Would the hypothetical person who'd do so not be among the most tiresome people in the world? "Texas Hold 'Em" (and companion single "16 Carriages," to a lesser degree) is an argument as much as it is a song. As on Renaissance, Beyoncé and her team have done careful, purposeful curation to showcase Black women in country -- and it's earned those women actual streaming boosts (if maybe not literal streaming dividends), which is pretty cool. But the thoroughness and fervor with which she proves this song's authenticity has inevitably -- and deliberately, I should add -- invited Discourse. And as usual, that Discourse keeps missing the most obvious points. There's no use arguing how properly rootsy this sounds or how storied its session musicians are. The country purists object because of the usual respectability politics -- i.e., Beyoncé says "bitch" and has her boobs out in the video -- and those politics form an auricular plug in them that is so strong that this could sound like literally anything and still be dismissed as pop. There's not much more use digging into the whys and why-nots of its country radio airplay. Country radio is playing this because country radio is dominated by iHeartMedia aka Clear Channel, who have the playlisting power that comes with monopoly and the inclination to support fellow megabrands. (Aside: According to Hits Daily Double, after the iHeart execs made their airplay decree, "[they then excused themselves as they were due to have their Stetsons blocked.") While the historical context and broken barriers are undeniably worth taking seriously, they've also kind of led people to make more of the song than what it is. "Texas Hold 'Em" is mostly frivolous, and that's fine! The melody is a grin put to sheet music. It's also a pop song, and that is also fine! If it's a country song about nothing more than the fact that it's a country song, then so are enough country-radio hits that not even I can write a sentence long enough to do the one-YouTube-link-per-word gag for them all. (And "Texas Hold 'Em" would probably be delivered as much more of a gimmick if it was instead given to Lennon Stella or Hailee Steinfeld or Madison Beer, or any of the other B-minus-listers that co-writer Lowell has sold songs to.) Any holdout doubters are advised to listen to the end, where the genres stop competing for views space and start to truly simmer together, with all the heat that implies. [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Fulfills the promise of Beyoncé-fied country only in its last 45 seconds – the house pianos interwoven with finger-picked guitars are almost psychedelic in effect, emerging out of the stomp of the rest of the song in a dazzling clarity. There, she's fragmented and lucid all at once, singing individual words and phrases each laden with strange wells of meaning. Everything else is just slightly too chipper, the joy of those whoops and whistles and nonsensical lines about various bars coming off like strange procedural imitations of authentic human experience. [6]

Isabel Cole: The song reveals itself as more of a fluffy little nothing with each listen, and while it’s carefully assembled it feels perhaps too careful—this is very well-mannered for a song about greeting life’s disasters with reckless abandon. Still, I love the way the melody twists on the pre-chorus, and I’ve always tended to favor the Beyoncé songs where she relies more on her unbeatable vocal charisma than the ones on which she flexes her sheer power. The way you can almost see her drawl Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now keeps me coming back. [7]

Alfred Soto: I don't care whether it "sounds country." It sounds like Beyoncé, just like Madonna made Madonna music and Bowie made Bowie music: they absorbed genres, reconstituted their DNA, and discarded the ephemera. "Texas Hold 'Em" treats contractions and banjos like Madonna did acoustic guitars on the chopped salad mix of "Don't Tell Me": an excuse to express whatever she damn pleases.  A fab radio track that reduces The Weeknd's latest to a puddle, "Texas Hold 'Em" is a challenge, a provocation, no more and no less. [6]

Mark Sinker: Reacting against the discourse™? froth up just as you’d expect round this light, slight, likeably McCartney-ish near-fragment of a song, it’s time to turn to sometime TSJ-er Frank Kogan in his essay ‘Roger Williams in America,’ the first superwords essay, as collected here, on the decades-old problem of authenticity, or actually the problem of the problem: “The discussion never seems to go anywhere, since the tendency is for people to debunk ‘authenticity’ without first trying to understand it (…) Rather than debunking it, I would want to explore the power of the real, why the search for the real has such a hold on rock. It’s not a problem to be stopped. I think this is one of the good things about rock (…) Even when the manifestations are stupid, rock’s uneasiness is profound. Great rock thrives on insecurity (…)". Even back in 2006, the word "country" couldn't always just be switched in anywhere to replace "rock" as an obvious identity — though the reason there’s a kerfuffle going on right now (or part of the reason, as ppl enthuse or recoil) is that the search for the real does also have a powerful hold on country. So you can swap words in and sometimes still get sense. Switch more words in and out of these sentences and (by the transitive properties of equality!) we will reach this: “Beyoncé’s uneasiness is profound.” And suddenly this seems much less of a slam-dunk. It surely isn’t the case in this song; to me it’s not much the case elsewhere either. Quite the opposite, in fact. She does not usually come across as (to quote Frank again, it’s a very quotable essay) “born in flight, chased by fear”. And you could — or I could — happily argue that this superb confidence is one of the great things about her. Take it all back out of algebra, though, and the upshot here is yes, of course, Beyoncé can be country, if and only if (of as logicians write it, “iff”) country both is and isn’t rock; when it’s bothered about the real yet at the same time not at all uneasy. I like this as a conclusion, because it has also to mean a whole bunch of stuff is going to be gently churned up — less by the song itself, to be sure, than by all the panics and chatter around the song. It’s an unstable solution, and even if you turn to the extremely solid undergirding supplied in this nice long interview with banjo-scholar and picker Rhiannon Giddens, complete with all kinds of detail you’d need to firm up several arguments (details that include Yo Yo Ma), you’re acknowledging that authority and justification are going at some point and in some places to need ruggedly repositioning or reclaiming, immediate catchy unruffled serenity notwithstanding.  [8]

Ian Mathers: I think it's both good and interesting to discuss the broader genre considerations (sonic, political, aesthetic, emotional, etc etc etc) of this, but I am neither qualified to do that myself nor interested in doing it. So let me just say that, while I have not looked up how it's actually doing, "Texas Hold 'Em" feels like it ought to be a hit, not in some overdetermined four-quadrant you'll-take-it-whether-or-not-you-like-it sense, but just because... it's so much fun! It feels like the kind of song all sorts of people will find entertaining and might catch themselves singing along to. Beyoncé is clearly prominent enough it's got a shot, and god knows all sorts of cultural factors might boost it or hold it back, but a world where this is blasting out of everyone's radios just feels nice and somehow correct. [9]

Dave Moore: I don't like admitting to myself that I find Beyoncé more exhausting than Taylor Swift (in part because everything Beyoncé does actually works). It's some real coolest kid in school is class president and valedictorian and the lead in the school play shit. Once again, the song's credits are impeccable, and the song itself is fine.  [5]

Will Adams: Much like the Verizon Super Bowl ad that kicked off her new promo cycle, this on-the-nose genre dress-up feels beneath Beyoncé. Renaissance proved she was willing to put in the research. Synthesizing that into something exciting requires more work than this. [4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I want Beyoncé to break barriers making country music as much as the next queer, but please god, I hope the album is more interesting than this Lumineers-sounding fluff.  [6]

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