Johanna

The informality of the slash in this title initially threw me off. It casted a shadow over the track’s first listen as being a slur of ideas or emotions, without a cohesive train of thought. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Rather, in being so blunt the title displays exactly what the work discusses without a flashy or derailing sling of words like I have done for this piece. Love/Paranoia represents the two sides of a theatre mask, without being traditional opposites. Love/ Heartbreak, for example, might make more immediate sense as one of the oldest cycles of time. But that isn’t what Tame Impala's mastermind Kevin Parker is talking about. He depicts a three part tale of infidelity, potentially over the course of an extended amount of time. By titling the track Love/Paranoia, Parker tells listeners the narrative theme from the get-go, identifying the intended meaning of the verses rather than just explicitly saying. In doing so he creates a story. Or, rather a tragedy. Lik...

But to walk away I have no capacity... For every musician I deeply love, I dwell in their music in recurring waves, feeling something new with their work with each phase of myself. I have claimed Amy as one of my artists for as long as I can remember. The pamphlet in the Back to Black CD my father showed me was wethered by my touch, I was enamored by the seduction of her mile long winged eyeliner. I couldn’t believe a woman of her looks and individuality could have such a hold on the world, but there was never a doubt that she should. I think people were so drawn to her because she sounded like an open-wound but appeared as a masked figure- the mix of vulnerability and mysticism was just so alluring. I immediately thought of her as a great and enormously important artist and have never changed my mind on the matter. She cultivated a hybrid of jazz, blues, and soul that stayed raw and sophisticated while still achieving mass appeal. For whatever reason I had never really spen...

There are some songs that I would never listen to on my own, but when I hear them in a car with the windows down and surrounded by friends I love the most, it feels like I’m in the presence of greatness. This is some type of weird personality crisis for me because occasionally I’ll have a split second thought that YBN Nahmir is the artist of our generation, and then look at myself as if from above like what the fuck is wrong with you. High Fidelity, one of my favorite movies, poses the notion that it’s not what we are like that matters, but what we like. Superficial, yes, but as someone who wants to discuss intangible things for a living I would have to agree to an extent. I also believe that the things people consume and absorb the most can be a great reflection of who they are as an individual, because we often present ourselves through what we enjoy. This theory established, my crisis becomes apparent. I didn’t even listen to rap music until this past calendar year ...

Warning: angst And by cure I mean relate to so strongly that when Lindsey Jordan’s guitar screams through my earbuds walking down the hallway I kind of forget that high school is killing me. It helps that Jordan was also 17 when the song was released, although this similarity makes me feel really inadequate as I type on Google Docs while avoiding AP Calculus work. At this point in my existence, just four days into my senior year, I really cannot wait to move out and on with my life. By fifth period everyday I cannot help but feel like the school day is an utter waste of my time and energy, and I’m struggling to come to terms with this fact. How original, to be a teenager that hates high school. It’s a right of passage, I guess.  At least I’m finding solace in the fact that this four verse Snail Mail demo understands me in a way my guidance counselor never will. The track has no chorus but no one would even notice. The lyrics may be simple and dismal, but ultimately surpass ...

Accidentally, the first CD I ever bought was the karaoke version of Taylor Swift’s Fearless . It’s kind of hard not to hate, or at the least be irritated, with 2018 Taylor Swift. She engages in petty drama with her peers, wears $900 tourist sweatshirts, and makes purely boring, conventional pop music. She was someone that remained great even when she was in the spotlight in a major way, but the bright lights seemed to have worn her down with time. Somehow at 28 she seems to be acting too old for her age which is one of the universal signals of a soon-to-be irrelevant popstar. So, before she dies out completely, here are some of my thoughts on Taylor Swift on when she was good and doing what she was best at. I remember ordering a small Taylor Swift unofficial biography from a school book order when I was probably around 8 and my dad pointed out his surprise to me over the fact that she wrote her own songs. He told me most artists, especially pop musicians, have people th...

My lips are chewed raw as an effect of my intense apprehension while watching Boot’s Riley’s Sorry To Bother You . It’s difficult to look away from this beautiful trainwreck: a struggling man joins a telemarketing agency in hopes to provide for himself and his fiance. He quickly works his way to the top by stripping away his black identity, before finding the levels of corruption were far more evil and outrageous than his coked-out mind could ever comprehend. Sorry To Bother You is an absurdist magical realist film that comments on our society’s abuse through corporate capitalism by the exploitation of the working class, specifically those that are people of color. It’s impossible, for me at least, to write a good or even proper review of Sorry To Bother You after only one viewing under my belt. Trying to put my thoughts into words over this movie is proving quite useless, so I’m leaving you with a few observations that I hope somewhat make sense. The comments on corruption, ident...

Not only is it possibly the most sweetest love song I’ve ever heard, but it tugs at an impossible sense of internal yearning beginning at the first breathless syllables of the word “dream”. To be fair there is a completely traceable reason for this tortured desire that the track instantly brews within me. I made the mistake of stumbling upon the song after connecting with a boy I had been head over heels for for previous years. Listening to this song with that giddy, teenage glee is the equivalent to crack cocaine, I’m sure. It’s dangerous. It was played in the car, on my computer, on my phone, in a record player, in my earbuds for a week straight. My dad took note of my relentless insertion of The Everly Brothers’ Greatest Hits’ and noted on what had ever gotten into me, which I felt couldn’t have been anymore obvious. There is no better representation than the chorus of this song for this ignorant and adorable fleeting trance I was in and for that, I will always feel the song jab...

Nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody..... Mitski released a new single by the name of “Nobody” Monday, June 26, in anticipation of her upcoming fifth album, Be the Cowboy. This is the second single Mitski has released, following “Geyser,” all under the record label Dead Oceans. These two songs couldn’t be more unlike one another in terms of both subject matter and their musical composition, creating much more anticipation for how the full album sounds, expected to come out August 17, 2018.   “Nobody” opens with rapid sixteenth drum notes before Mitski utters the first line that encompasses her entire tone on the track: “My God I’m so lonely.” The song is a complete ode to romantic isolation but pulls it off an a spectacular way, transforming the wallowing despair into a celebration of heartache. The words and sound of the single exist in juxtaposition. The lyrics are an endless cycle of pleading for a partner, even just in temporary form, in a way that is overall hopeless...

“Do you like me for me? Is there any better feeling than coming clean?” The first single off her debut album and Lindsey Jordan of Snail Mail seems to have been deemed the next indie princess. What makes “Pristine” so good, and what sets it above the rest? The track was released on March 21 in preparation for the album “Lush” set to come out this spring under Matador records. It’s getting rave reviews and spotlight features across the board, especially impressive for being the early work of an eighteen year old. Jordan is able to write with a sensible clarity that stabilizes her dramatic teenage temperament. Like many, her feelings on love are muddled between logic and temptation. She knows better, but cannot help but indulge in the hopeless, yet wistful desire of wanting the unattainable. Jordan uses the first verse to establish her capability of rational thinking, before spending the rest of the song gushing and pleading with reckless abandon. Despite all this she is able to ...

In 2016, Athens, GA-based quintet Warehouse released their sophomore album super low in deliberate all lower-case lettering. The band mixes the ragged, course vocals of lead singer Elaine Edenfield with the tight and melodic backing of guitarists Alex Bailey and Ben Jackson, bassist John Hughes, and drummer Doug Bleichner. A prime example of this infectious mixing of college rock and post-punk sound lies within the title track of the album. Just over three and a half minutes long, “Super Low” is a thick groove that first suspends listeners with intertwining bass and guitar lines, setting them free with Edenfields vocals. Her voice ranges from howling to muttering, but is constantly reminiscent of women like Ari Up of the Slits and Siouxsie Sioux. The track seems to find resolution after a toxic relationship of the past, “I can’t destroy the things that keep me alive/ And I can’t destroy the things that lead to where you lie.” A strong sense of desperation is also present to accom...