Issue 80.5: Oops! All Reviews

No 80.5 Spring 2025

FOREWORD In January, the brave, humble folks at Tastemakers Music Magazine dared to ask the question: What if we released three print issues this semester instead of two? Such a proposition seems almost unthinkable — nay, impossible — opening the door to immense ridicule from narrow-minded fools who did not feel the goal was within reach. But at Tastemakers, we dare to dream. We dare to believe. We dare to produce one additional issue of the magazine with a significantly reduced page count. Indeed, it was a harrowing journey to reach this proverbial promiseland, but our glorious writers remained undaunted in the face of adversity, persevering to the end.

WRITERS FEATURED Jack Arseneau Connor Bedell Henry Bova Joseph Brant Ananya Chaudhari Valentina Cunha Kayli Harley Mya Jassey Jackson Laramee

Gabriel Lynch Paige Pataky Thomas Paulus Sam Pollak Lauren Salemo Hannah Storer Rilyn Szabo Julia Towne Design by Ava Ackerman

The Spring 2025 academic semester will be remembered as the infancy of the golden age of journalism, where Tastemakers Music Magazine released the profession’s crowning achievement hereby known as “Issue 80.5: Oops, All Reviews.”

Inside, you will find 17 album reviews written by 17 different writers spanning a myriad of artists, genres, and years. It is meant not just to serve as a lesson in how to master the art of the written word, but a reminder that you can’t spell “GLORY” without “TMM.” Now, bask in our glory.

True Romance Charli xcx Released April 12, 2013 Label Asylum Records Genre Pop Tasty Tracks “Grins,” “Lock You Up,” “What I Like” Charli xcx has “it girl” in her blood. The release of her wildly successful seventh studio album BRAT reintroduced her irreverent-yet-sincere pop persona to swaths of new listeners. However, long before she was flooding Twitter and TikTok with neon green, she earned that title from Tumblr mood boards and niche Instagram niche meme accounts. In the early 2010s, Charli was known for her grunge and darkwave style, a sound that came with the release of her debut album True Romance. Although she has since shed the 2013 image, this album stands out as containing some of her best work, despite the somewhat dated production.

Charli was a certified “Tumblr artist,” rubbing shoulders with the likes of Lorde, Sky Ferreira, Marina and the Diamonds, and Melanie Martinez. It was almost impossible to scroll without coming across some post dedicated to one, if not all of these artists and their music. The district sound of these artists was morose, cynical, and very expressive. Their strides in the music zeitgeist was a direct reaction to the current state of pop music. Listeners were shifting away from vacuous, mass appeal tracks, poptimism was running out of time, and fans gravitated to the music with darker aesthetics. With the rise of internet culture and streaming, many music oriented netizens were searching for more stylish and

substantive work online, True Romance being one of them.

While this album is not emo, it’s certainly an outlier in Charli’s discography due to its moodiness. She boasts retro-futuristic rehashes of 80s dark synths, adolescently lovesick lyrics, and a glamorous grit.

However, unlike her Tumblr contemporaries, this album was only a stepping stone in her journey as a pop artist, not the defining moment of it. As an artist, Charli is ever changing and improving her artist's motifs.

A common through line in Charli’s music is the concept of being both volatile and highly sensitive. True Romance establishes this motif by playing out like a game of “he loves me, he loves me not.” Every other track is a plucked petal that approaches different facets of a young and intense relationship.

The album is full of fantastical metaphor and melodrama that established Charli as an effective and expressive songwriter. The opener, “Nuclear Seasons,” likens the force of love to protection against the big one, while the following track “You - Ha Ha Ha” details Charli’s relief of breaking up with a cheating boyfriend, cue the laugh track. While there are some cliches scattered throughout the album, like a crush hitting someone like a ton of bricks, the overall product is poignant and sharp and still holds up today.

Sadly, this album is not perfect due to “Cloud Aura,” a haphazard attempt at trap R&B. Charli’s vocal fry is dialed up unusually high, and the track also presents a horrible feature from Brooke Candy. She squeak raps metaphors of star-crossed love using examples like Chris Brown and Ivana Trump for some reason. Which is baffling because even in 2013, these were not the best choices to get that point across. But that’s the price of Charli’s progress.

• Thomas Paulus (Cell and Molecular Biology)

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Reviews

Third Portishead Released April 28, 2008 Label Mercury Records Genre Experimental rock, Electronic rock Tasty Tracks “We Carry On,” “The Rip,” “Machine Gun”

Spring 2025

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Geoff Barrow never liked the idea of his band’s most seminal work being considered dinner party music. “In the sense of people actually having a dinner party and putting our music on, I would want to go in with a baseball bat and smash the [expletive] out of their fondue set,” he told The New York Times in 2019 while celebrating the 25th anniversary of Portisead’s debut album, Dummy. Arguably trip-hop’s most revered work, the record’s smooth vocals from Beth Gibbons, booming drum samples from Barrow, and spy movieesque guitar passages from Adrian Utley cultivate a nocturnal, sensual environment.

But that fostered the wrong impression of what Portishead was and what they could be.

The general public responded to the record’s sultriness, rather than the underlying despondency in the lyrics, rocketing songs like “Glory Box” and “Sour Times” up the UK charts. This soft acceptance of the group’s sound wouldn’t sit right with Portishead.

The trio’s 1997 self-titled follow up took the sounds of their debut and left them out to rot in the sun — Gibbons vocals sounded more witchlike than sexy over a series of sour, dreary melodies. Still, their full turn into harshness wouldn’t take hold until their next full-length work over a decade later.

Portishead, akin to the discordance in their music, is a band of misfit toys. Formed after a chance encounter in the middle of an unemployment program and comprised of three band members born in three different decades, no part of the band’s makeup screamed mass success — they never even intended on playing live shows before their first album. The initial wave of commercial appeal may have come from the surfacelevel readings of their sound, but the magic that garnered them endless critical acclaim was hidden somewhere in that isolated, depressive friction that united the band.

On Third, all the band delivers is friction.

Completely abandoning the box of triphop, Third steps into an experimental rock vacuum, thrashing in the blackness of space with electronic spasms, hostile synths, and the gentle strums of acoustic guitar. It may not be what most consider their crowning achievement, but it’s one that cements their three-album discography as one of the most remarkable of all time, and solidifies their mission as one of consistently subverting expectations.

The band’s perceived swan-song is its most oblique, distilling the rawest feelings of unease and despondency into nearly 49 minutes. The instrumental world of Third completely defies type; a goal of the recording process was to not use any of the instruments from their previous two records in an effort to “sound like ourselves, not to repeat ourselves,” as Barrow put it. This is felt from opening hi-hats of “Silence,” setting the opening track’s tempo far faster than anything the band put out before, as well as the record’s first line, translated into Portuguese: “Beware of the rule of three.”

From there, Third goes further and further off the rails, with each track seemingly settling into itself before either an unexpected element takes hold, or the track picks itself up and moves to a different setting entirely.

The album’s cold, often minimalist soundscape doesn’t make for the most viscerally exciting listen, but its malleability creates a lasting sense of tension that pays off in thrilling ways. For any group, the startling instrumental intrusions on tracks like “Hunter,” “Plastic,” and “Small” would feel jarring, but for Portishead — a band whose legacy was built on droning repetition — these moments feel like they come from another universe.

In that desire to break from their roots in trip-hop, Portishead creates a mercurial environment that elevates the revelatory

nature of Third from an aberration in their discography to a landmark experimental rock project across all music. Nowhere is this better shown than the three track run in the album’s midsection. It’s bookended by “We Carry On,” a six-minute, Silver Apples-esque anxiety attack, and “Machine Gun,” which shines the spotlight on Gibbons’ voice amid a metallic, militant cacophony of electronic drums. In between is “Deep Water,” a sub-two minute ukulele cut which offers a momentary pause from the album’s anxiety before plunging right back in. Out of the album’s context, “The Rip” is a gorgeous, toned down number, with cascading guitars giving way to propulsive synths. Within Third, its gentle reprieve from the surrounding album creates a track that’s an especially striking oasis, though it’s one that’s equally dark from a lyrical perspective.

Rarely would a band this notable depart from all expectations in such a bold way, and rarely does it entirely pay off like on Third.

Over 20 years after their debut, Portishead solidified their legacy as one of the darkest and most inventive bands of their day; a group that was willing to throw out their established sound entirely and could still make something that felt so distinctly them.

• Henry Bova (Journalism)

Punisher Phoebe Bridgers Released June 18, 2020 Label Dead Oceans Genre Singer-songwriter, Indie-rock Tasty Tracks “I Know The End,” “Chinese Satellite,” “Garden Song”

“I wish I wrote it, but I didn’t, so I learn the words,” a standout lyric from Phoebe Bridgers’s “Chinese Satellite,” can be used to describe the feeling of listening to Punisher for the first time. Phoebe Bridgers’s first album, Stranger in the Alps, skyrocketed her popularity, showcasing her ability to capture emotions and build breathtaking tracks around them. Three years later, Bridgers released Punisher, cementing her place in the industry as a songwriter and producer.

Stranger in the Alps was amazing, Punisher is nothing short of outstanding.

Bridgers illustrates her inner thoughts and feelings through the album in a candid way as if confiding in a longtime friend.

Her multidimensional lyrics are written so expertly that one can’t help but marvel at their witty, yet heartbreaking nature.

Bridgers unapologetically writes her life as it is, flaws and all. She acknowledges the many emotions she feels whether writing about touring, losing a friend, her relationship with her father, or her dream of meeting her idol. To say her lyrics tell a story is an understatement; the stunning tracks on Punisher put you inside Bridgers’s mind in a way that few artists are able to do.

In “Garden Song,” Bridgers sings “I don’t know how, but I’m taller / It must be something in the water … The doctor put her hands over my liver / She told me my

resentment’s getting smaller,” and a pause to let the lyrics settle is inevitable. Bridgers has grown over time, able to let go of the resentment she was previously clinging to. Throughout the song, she recounts her deepest fears that manifest as recurring nightmares while touring. The song circles back at the end to the reality that Bridgers is still haunted by these fears despite getting to live her dream as a successful artist; “I get everything I want / I have everything I wanted,” leaving the listeners in awe. The arrangement of the song feels dreamlike, with muted instrumentals and Bridgers’s voice clear. Layered vocals harmonize making the track all the more haunting, a theme present throughout the album.

The title track “Punisher” is an ode to the deceased artist Elliott Smith, who largely influenced and inspired Bridgers’s music career. Bridgers sings about Smith’s life, music, and overall impact on his audience.

A “punisher” is a term Bridgers created for a passionate fan who meets their hero yet makes them feel trapped, punishing the artist for their success. In the second chorus, Bridgers sings “What if I told / I feel like I know you? / But we never met / It’s for the best,” describing how she would rather give up the chance to meet Elliott Smith than risk the possibility of being a “punisher” to him.

With Elliott Smith being such an influence in Bridgers’s life and songwriting, it is only fitting that the track finds its place as the title track of such a personal and genuine album.

“DVD Menu,” the first track on the album, plays an interesting role in the listening experience. The ambient instrumental piece introduces the tone of the album stylistically, with eerie, guitar and chilling strings. The lack of lyrics truly transports the listener to an empty planet left to wander alone, setting the perfect stage for experiencing the rest of the album.

If the other tracks are short stories, then “Kyoto” is a novel. Bridgers’s masterful writing brings the listener through her relationship with her father, acknowledging the complex nature of her family dynamic.

The song trends more on the upbeat sound instrumentally, contrasting the heartbreaking lyrics Bridgers delivers nonchalantly, making the song all the more impactful. The closing track, “I Know The End,” is almost split in two halves, the first half full of slow, dreamlike production and aching lyrics similar to the other songs on the album, then bursting into flames at the second half with a buildup of loud drums and chanting vocals. Through

the song, Bridgers compares life and anxiety to an apocalypse, with the escalation at the end feeling equal parts off-putting and freeing. The ending screams truly send chills as Punisher comes to a close, Bridgers nonchalantly singing “Yeah, I guess the end is here” accepting the inevitable, a theme found throughout the album. Bridgers sings these existential lyrics as if they are just normal facts of life, making them all the more devastating.

Punisher truly shines as a piece of art, filled with heartbreaking lyrics told through Bridgers’s casual tone, each song overflowing with talent and creativity. Bridgers is okay with not knowing the answer to why every experience happens, but she does everything in her power to try to understand and connect her experiences, as seen through her songwriting. Bridgers’s lyrics have a unique depth to them that require hours of listening in order to somewhat grasp their brilliance, while still holding more to offer with each listen. Defining what it means to write honestly, Bridgers’s Punisher is an album everyone deserves to listen to at least once.

• Hannah Storer (Computer Science/Game Development)

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Reviews

A Tribute to Jack Johnson Miles Davis Released February 24, 1971 Label Columbia Masterworks Records Genre Jazz, Jazz Fusion, Hard Rock Tasty Tracks “Right Off,” “Yesternow”

Spring 2025

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In 1908, Jack Johnson became the first Black heavyweight champion of the world.

60 years later, a different kind of heavyweight — this one from the jazz world — was pegged to score a film about him. Miles Davis didn’t just manage to do so, he excelled at it, so much so that, even despite the film being all but lost at this point, the album stands as a singularly great moment in the career of an icon.

The first track is “Right Off,” an exhilarating romp in which Davis turns his band into an auditory representation of the famed fighter. Billy Cobham’s drums and Michael Henderson’s bass form the legs of the sonic Johnson, providing a steady support to which other players can return to throughout the 27-minute-long composition.

The real Johnson relied on his legs in a similar way, utilizing a stance that allowed him to quickly duck and dodge opponents’ strikes, all while keeping his arms in a position to keep punching. The arms in this case are represented by guitarist John McLaughlin, who opens the track with an explosive first few licks and keeps up the voracity the whole way through. His playing throughout the track is simply immaculate: the brief strikes of solos, the pervasive flurries of riffs, and the quick, funky jabs. Just as Johnson would at times resort back to his legs to keep him

out of trouble, so too does McLaughlin, taking the back seat at times while Cobham and Henderson dance around the ring.

While Mclaughlin’s arms are the tour de force that powers the sonic boxing match, it’s Miles Davis’s trumpet that provides the most memorable moments. Davis naturally acts as the head, being both the leader of the group and the one who understands Johnson the most. Just as Johnson’s mouth was brash and boastful, so too are the bursts of Davis’s trumpet that infiltrate the song. A deep knowledge of trumpet or jazz is not needed to appreciate his playing, It’s brazen spunk speaks for itself.

The sonic Johnson, just like his physical counterpart, is a titanic pugilist, and he cruises along for a solid 10 minutes with no real competition to speak of. It’s at that point that producer Teo Macero takes the role of Johnson’s trainer, splicing in an ambient backing track that, for a few minutes, mellows the mood, giving his fighter the recovery needed to finally take on a worthy opponent.

Those opponents take the form of Herbie Hancock’s relentless Organ and Steve Grossman’s superb soprano saxophone. Both enter the ring a little over the halfway mark and dance around at first as if testing the waters to see if they really can go toe to toe with the McLaughlin-Davis combo. Ultimately they both decide they can, and while they put up blazing, intense efforts, they both are unable to disparage the titular fighter.

The duels, just like Johnson’s real fights, are won not with a knockout punch, but with an endurance originating in the rhythm of his legs.

Side two, “Yesternow,” is a vastly different feeling. The song starts out with 11 mellow minutes of scattered soloing over the bass line of James Brown’s “Say it loud - I’m Black and I’m proud.” It’s an ironic rip given the drop in energy level from the first track, but the repetition of it seems to slowly convince the rest of the group to listen to the instructions. Just when they begin to click, though, Macero drops in a snippet from Davis’ album In a Silent Way, which marinades for a few minutes before the Jack Johnson crew returns with a more complete togetherness. While the band is still mellower and moodier than on “Right Off,” they are no longer as pensive, repeatedly diving headfirst into melodies and grooves instead of just flirting with them as they did on the first half of the track. At the very end of the song, the ambient track returns and a new sound arrives. Brock Peters, acting as

Johnson, speaks to close off the album, “I’m Jack Johnson, Heavyweight champion of the world. I’m Black, they never let me forget it.

I’m Black alright, I’ll never let them forget it.”

These lines put the song into context. If “Right Off” is the physical challenges Johnson faced in the ring, then “Yesternow” is the societal ones he faced outside of it. Johnson could never escape his race, but he could decide to own it, and after years of calls from people like Jack London for a “Great White Hope” to defeat him, that’s exactly what he did. He stopped caring about the view others had of him or trying to fit into their stereotypes, and instead acted as only he could. Musically, Miles Davis did the same. On A Tribute to Jack Johnson he didn’t make music for the critics who had specific ideas of what a genre should be, he made music for Miles Davis.

• Gabriel Lynch (Civil Engineering)

Weird backwards path Tek Lintowe Released April 30, 2023 Label Tek lintowe Genre Electronic, Sound collage Tasty Tracks “Style”, “ICE FIRE”, “33”, “A motion capture nightmare”

Weird backwards path is a confusing mess of sounds. Each track seems to represent an idea of a song, but it often feels more like a brief passage, like a vignette of a hyperabstract feeling. The album cover at first glance appears as a garbled gray mess, but upon closer inspection, you notice it is a cluster of layered drawings and pictures, most of which cannot be made out aside from a “My Little Pony” character. The cover, in this way, perfectly represents the experience of hearing this album. It is an amalgamation of the pop, hip-hop, and electronica that have occupied the internet culture for the last decade and a half. Perhaps the album itself is a metacommentary on how pop culture melds into one mutant collective consciousness as everything within it obfuscates everything else. Maybe it isn’t that deep.

“Secret Place” is the poppy intro that welcomes you to the world of this album.

The song transports you to what sounds like an artificial world of rainbows and ponies; it could be the theme song of a cartoon show. The swirling synths and the animated artificial guitar give a truly synthetic feeling as lintowe sings about a magical place where the sun shines every day. The song perfectly sets the mood for the album as everything that

follows feels surreal, representing music that you’ve heard before, but something about it is off. After a brief interlude of dissonant and brutish electric piano noodling on “I get frustrated,” the album reaches Tek lintowe’s most popular song to date, “Style,” which embraces the numb and bright aesthetics of cloud rap artists like Bladee. His mumbly and moany delivery over the melancholy beat is a genuine treat.

Weird backwards path is never afraid to take you to a weird sonic landscape, impossible to pin down in genre. On “Speak,” lintowe continues with his mumbly vocals over a slow, odd beat with severely bitcrushed drums, resembling an ambien-induced abnormal dream that only grows stranger as dissonant metal clanging sounds startle the listener during the outro. “ICE FIRE” is a remarkably entrancing listen, as layers of synths and arpeggios chirp over a thumping four-on-the-floor beat. The aesthetic could be best described as attending a rave in an enchanted forest with a clique of wizards.

“33” simultaneously demonstrates Tek lintowe’s sense of humor and musical creativity. He remixes “33” by Polo G by pitching down the lyrics, altering the melody to transform the energetic trap song into a mesmerizing ballad. The outro, “Message in a bottle” is a tongue-in-cheek lo-fi rap love song that feels ripped straight from the 2000s. You can’t help but smile as Lintowe serenades his love interest, belting out about trips to Japan as he adlibs over himself in the background.

The 11-minute “A motion capture nightmare” serves as the opus of the album, and is easily its most disturbing listen. It can best be described as an eclectic collage of sounds, living up to the chaotic album cover the best. The track begins as a treading beat that sounds like different ringtones playing over one another before the instrumental reaches an explosive finish of dissonance and random sound effects. The song weaves through wildly different sections, including disjointed and unintelligible autotune vocal runs from an unknown female vocalist, the national anthem sung by Hatsune Miku out of sync with a xylophone, and various sentimental electronica instrumental passages. The song is a psychedelic trip gone terrifyingly wrong, but creates an awe-inspiring experience if you take what the song is giving you. The song is at times harrowing to the ears, but it contains a genius underpinning of the strange offputting-ness of the project. The strange, at times scary world of this album is intended to feel distant,

yet the cloudy production and genre choices give it a nostalgic feeling. Its aesthetics are retro and new-age at the same time, reflecting how the aesthetics and cultural touchstones of our internet-dominated world have become self-referencing and timeless.

The meaning of this album is hard to parse. The feelings it presents are so abstract that it is hard to tell if you are meant to take something further from the music or just be impressed by the fact you felt them.

Listening to it can feel confusing, and this is undoubtedly an intended consequence of the disjointedness of the album. It presents a world that is beautiful, unsettling, and fun all at once, connecting its loose ends into a somehow cohesive collage of sound.

• Sam Pollak (Data Science / Economics)

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Reviews

WORRY. Jeff Rosenstock Released October 14, 2016 Label SideOneDummy Records Genre Pop-Punk Tasty Tracks “We Begged 2 Explode,” “Wave Goodnight to Me,” “To Be A Ghost…”

Spring 2025

Jeff Rosenstock had a lot to worry about in 2016. Having just released his solo debut We Cool? in 2015, an album steeped in uncertainty and embarrassment about not being as put together in his 30s as he’d like to be, Rosenstock was still having a hard time shaking that feeling. On top of that, he was watching the collective political apathy of our digital age manifest itself in the looming threat of a Trump presidency. Luckily, Rosenstock is masterful at channeling his anxiety into some very catchy and hardhitting punk music, and 2016’s WORRY. is evidence that he can do that like no other.

Ska evangelist Jeff Rosenstock had just begun his solo career following the breakup of his Brooklyn music collective Bomb The Music Industry. Already though, Rosenstock had carved out a unique sound in the pop punk space with his versatile use of instruments and genres that he managed to fit into his chaotic punk tracks. WORRY., though released only one year after his debut, feels even more refined and artistically ambitious than his previous work.

The record takes a similar structure to The Beatles’ Abbey Road, the beginning loaded with singles while the back half features a medley of short songs that all bleed into each other, tackling topics from seasonal depression to police brutality.

The medley crosses genres with ease,

incorporating ska, heavy metal, and powerpop all while feeling cohesive as a single experience. The more ska-forward tracks are delightful, and his incorporation of synthesizers and stylophone give new dimension to his incredibly catchy and straightforward pop-punk tunes.

Cropping up on most tracks across the record is the common theme of eviction, which perfectly highlights what Rosenstock is trying to communicate about modern America. He portrays the growth and gentrification of cities as entirely apathetic, with landlords and the elite not caring who or what they trample over in their pursuit of growth. Most blatant is the song “Wave Goodnight to Me,” a peppy surf-punk song detailing the loss of the DIY venue Death

by Audio in Brooklyn which was forcefully closed in 2014. Other tracks like “Staring at the Window at Your Old Apartment” and “Rainbow” are more explicitly about being evicted from one’s home, and begging those in power to relent.

The thesis statement of WORRY. is simple: To love is to worry. Rosenstock makes this point across the record, be it worrying about his career as a musician, or worrying if the girl he likes feels the same way. But most frequent are his concerns for his country, where he sees a hatefueled culture taking root in America, one exacerbated by the growing presence of online discourse. But there is always a tinge of hope in Rosenstock’s survey of the political state in the US. In “To Be a Ghost…” his commiseration is interrupted by a harsh outro suggesting to “burn those fuckers in their homes” and that “they can’t stop what they refuse to see.”

Amidst all the apathy of the ruling class, Rosenstock relishes in empathy as resistance. To worry about your career path is to love yourself enough to want what’s best for you. To worry about being evicted is to love your home and community. And to worry about the state of America is to love your country enough to stand up against the hate controlling it. WORRY. isn’t just a product of its time, it’s a product of our current age.

And unfortunately, its tales of hate filled internet discourse and an apathetic ruling class continue to be more relevant every day. WORRY. ends with the raucous “Perfect Sound Whatever,” which insists that the pursuit of perfection is pointless because it doesn’t exist. But WORRY. feels as close to perfection for the punk genre as possible.

• Jack Arseneau (Computer Science)

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Electra Heart MARINA Released April 27, 2012 Label 679, Atlantic Genre Pop Tasty Tracks “Lies,” “Primadonna,” “Teen Idle,” “Starring Role”

tw - contains references to suicide Albums centered around American culture have been released time and time again. Born in the U.S.A. is one of many albums by Bruce Springsteen, and perhaps the most revered, that captures the spirit of working class Americans condemned by societal change and injustice. Lana Del Rey provided an updated take on these themes with her 2019 release, Norman Fucking Rockwell!, which expertly contrasted the idea of the American dream with the issues that tarnished it. In 2012, MARINA, formerly Marina and the Diamonds, released Electra Heart, expanding the Americana rolodex by satirically depicting prominent archetypes among American women, flaws and all.

Electra Heart centers around a titular character, whose story throughout the record is fixated on failed relationships, material obsessions, and power, among others.

Opener “Bubblegum Bitch” sets the scene for this narrative in just a few words: “I’ll chew you up and spit you out / Cause that’s what young love is all about.”

MARINA partnered with some of the biggest producers of the 2010s to construct the album’s maximalist sound, including benny blanco, Diplo, Greg Kurstin, and — unfortunately — Dr. Luke. The commercial appeal of Electra Heart is a vast departure

from the indie-rock sound of her debut, The Family Jewels, but one that ultimately works in the record’s favor. Pop music from the late 2000s and early 2010s is memorable mainly for being danceable and digestible, creating a sense of escapism rather than a vessel to sink your teeth into.

With Electra Heart, MARINA manipulates these trends to provide commentary on the problematic archetypes she seeks to portray, resulting in an output with enough surface appeal to attract the masses. Lead single “Primadonna” is an electropop banger centered around temperamental behavior and unaccountability, while dance-pop track “Power and Control” explores the desire to have the upper hand in relationships.

But the story of Electra Heart is not as perfect and polished as she would have you think. This is where the album shines, pulling listeners in with its glossy production and earworm choruses before exposing listeners to the much deeper story of a character crumbling under the weight of the facade she puts on. On “Lies,” the expectation to have a textbook relationship hinders any realization of incompatibility, leaving MARINA to admit that it’s easier to lie and save face than confront the truth. The track features many of the same building blocks that make songs like “Primadonna” hit material, but it rearranges the pieces to up the emotional intensity.

“Teen Idle” is the emotional centerpiece of the album, a bleak documentation of longing for something greater during adolescence.

Like “Lies,” “Teen Idle” conflates sour realities with the pressure to perform: each “Super!” in “Feeling super. super, super suicidal” is chanted with feigning happiness, as if MARINA is trying to devalue her emotions and carry on.

In interviews leading up to the record, MARINA revealed the influence Tumblr had on the conception of Electra Heart, inspiring her to introduce the Electra Heart character to depict values she did not believe in. Tumblr culture also prompted MARINA to embrace a distinct visual aesthetic for each of the archetypes the Electra Heart character represents, tied together with a bleachblonde haircut and a signature black heart stamped on her cheek. To flesh out Electra’s story fully, MARINA filmed an 11-part video series released over a year, an expensive investment that sent her record label into bankruptcy.

Electra Heart received largely mixed reviews upon its release, with many critics disliking the shift in direction and drawing

issue with the abrasive nature of the Electra Heart character. Despite this, the album has had immense longevity, both with fans and in pop culture. Songs like “Bubblegum Bitch” and “Teen Idle” have received new audiences thanks to TikTok virality, and the latter has been cited by artists like Billie Eilish as a source of artistic inspiration. The sticking power of the album is a testament to the ethos of Electra Heart and its starring character—no matter what you think of her, she’ll always capture your attention.

• Jackson Laramee (Journalism/ Communication Studies)

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Reviews

Things Take Time, Take Time Courtney Barnett Released November 12, 2021 Label Mom+Pop Genre Indie-rock Tasty Tracks “Rae Street,” “Write A List of Things To Look Forward To,” “Turning Green”

Spring 2025

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Since the release of her 2013 debut EP, Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett has stood out for her expressive electric guitar work and witty, often cynical lyricism. But her 2021 album Things Take Time, Take Time took a step in a different direction; it’s a quieter reflection into her cyclical thoughts and observations of the everyday mundane. She keeps with her signature monotonal vocals, but Barnett has a new theme: patience. She seems to say, even though it’s a delicate dance that’s difficult to define, time marches on — and maybe that’s a good thing.

Over the album’s 34 minutes, there’s little sonic variation. The 10-song collection relies on a simple blend of electric guitar, a sprinkling of keys, and a drum machine.

Barnett wrote and recorded this album from the end of 2020 into the beginning of 2021 when life was slowed down by the pandemic, giving ample time to overthink everything.

Her songwriting reflects this time of physical disconnection. “Sunfair Sundown” and “Here’s The Thing” speak to a long distance relationship of sorts, one where contact is dictated by scheduled phone calls. Barnett encapsulates the uneasiness of this digital detachment with doubtful, questioning lyrics.

The opening track, “Rae Street,” serves as

Barnett’s thesis, as her blunt, straightforward songwriting often has. “Time is money, and money is no man’s friend,” she says. As she sits by her window and looks outside, she paints the picture of a neighborhood fighting the slow but brutal nature of change, naming small, almost unnoticeable tidbits that subtly illustrate the passage of time: a garbage truck rolls by to empty bins, a parent passes down the sacred knowledge of how to ride a bike to their child, a neighbor covers their house’s sun-bleached bricks with paint, Barnett changes her bedsheets. These seemingly meaningless tasks are periodic, too. They happen on a regular schedule but speak to moments that, though often overlooked, are fundamentally human. And that there’s a simple beauty to this. As Barnett sings in “Turning Green,” “springtime lethargy” forces you “to see flowers in the weeds.” The soft and vibrant instrumentation of Things Take Time, Take Time makes these still moments swell with color.

The album cover is a set of nine circular swatches of varying shades of blue paint, like a palette a painter used to experiment what shade would be just right. It’s all trial and error. In her reflection, Barnett gives advice — may it be from a therapist or some internal sense of stubborn optimism — to keep moving forward. Her song titles spell out a step-by-step guide: “Take It Day By Day” and “Write A List of Things To Look Forward To.” They are simple instructions that demand consistency and persistence as time trudges onward. In “Rae Street,” she reassures “the sun will rise today and tomorrow” even if “we’ve got a long, long way to go.” The record’s tracklist pensively journeys through Barnett’s relationships with herself and those around her. If the record feels repetitive, it’s intentional; it’s methodical and meditative and obliges the listener to sit with her lyrics.

Barnett works through her recurrent thoughts about a potential love interest. “If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight” is a confession of Barnett’s impatience in the tricky test of time. The repeated words in each line of the chorus of “Before You Gotta Go” plays into her relentless, repetitive thinking patterns about this person who’s “always on my mind.”

The repetition in the album’s title, lyrics, and monotonous sound are mantras being mulled over. Her main worry: Is now the right time?

There’s never a conclusive answer to this question, but there’s a sense of satisfaction.

Barnett seems to understand that maybe there never will be a true, immediate answer.

If there is one, it will reveal itself over time. For

now, Barnett says she’s “just waiting for the day to become the night.” Even though the record is less biting compared to Barnett’s previous releases, its laid-back production lends to a more honest, introspective feeling.

It’s fitting for this contemplative collection.

It’s a pause, a deep breath, as Barnett looks inward.

• Lauren Salemo (Journalism/Environmental and Sustainability Sciences)

Where The Light Is: John Mayer Live in Los Angeles John Mayer Released July 1, 2008 Label Columbia Records Genre Blues Rock, Acoustic Pop Tasty Tracks “Neon,” “In Your Atmosphere,” “Free Fallin’,” “Gravity,” “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room”

Normcore. Cringey. Arrogant. Bland.

Taylor Swift’s weird ex-boyfriend. Critiques of John Mayer’s music and character are prevalent and plentiful. Whether or not these reservations are valid, his skill as a guitarist is perhaps the only agreeable trait between critics and fans. Mayer’s 2008 live album and concert film, Where The Light Is: John Mayer Live in Los Angeles, establishes his status as a talented songwriter, performer, and musician.

The performance’s three distinct parts — an acoustic opening set, a cameo from the John Mayer Trio, and a full band session — demonstrate Mayer’s depth, versatility, and creativity.

The film follows Mayer’s concert at the Nokia Theater at L.A. Live on Dec. 8, 2007, during his Continuum tour. In addition to the live performance, the released physical media features Mayer’s reflections on his career and snippets of backstage preparations in between sets, bringing viewers behind the curtain and beyond the mystique of the stage. The result highlights the personality of his shows, the fan connection palpable in every ripple of applause.

A prime example of this fan connection

is the crowd’s reaction to the performance’s opening track, “Neon.” Mayer coyly transitions into the song through a riff reminiscent of the track’s tone, and when he finally slides into the opening chords, the crowd erupts in recognition. It’s the kind of moment unique to live performances and immortalized through live albums as testaments to a show’s atmosphere. Similar moments occur throughout the night as Mayer drives his way through the show by way of his guitar, talking through his hands.

The acoustic set also features Mayer’s wellregarded cover of Tom Petty’s iconic “Free Fallin’.” His softer tone gives the cover a tender, musing nature, contrasting with the original’s lively rhythm. Some protest Mayer’s interpretation for its near melancholic sound, but the alternative arrangement is a unique spin on Petty’s genius, offering listeners a different lens through which to hear the song.

Seventeen years later, the cover remains one of Mayer’s most talked-about renditions, and has over 570 million Spotify streams.

The trio set, featuring Steve Jordan and Pino Palladino, kicks the show into a higher gear. Where the acoustic set allows Mayer’s soulful, pensive sound to thrive, this set highlights his lively blues-rock roots.

In the film, Mayer describes the trio as the “antidote” to his “pop sensibilities,” the very sound that brought him fame. He notes his unease with people assuming they have him pinned. “I realized that I didn’t tell the whole story,” he says. The trio was his answer. Of the show’s three sets, this set most exhibits Mayer’s versatility. Most tracks come from the trio’s 2005 album, Try!, but covers of Jimi Hendrix’s “Wait Until Tomorrow” and “Bold as Love” give them space to play and experiment.

If the acoustic set is the slow opener and the trio set is a burst of energy, the full band set is a fusion of the two. The return to his “pop sensibilities” allows Mayer to pull shamelessly from his creative repositories; he is entirely in his element. These classics sound reimagined in the wake of the previous set’s freshness. He brings the crowd home, but that home is ever so slightly new.

As a whole, Where The Light Is is a two-hour, wholehearted catharsis. Aware of varied public opinion concerning his music and persona, and a self-critical individual by nature, Mayer brings the energy of a man with something to prove to this production.

But what he sets out to prove is not his merit but rather his breadth of possibility.

This album exists in the gray area between

conformity and resistance, a product of the urge to maintain the heart of something while pushing beyond its bounds. Even now, Mayer asserts he doesn’t deserve the praise Where The Light Is received; to him, there are always unturned stones, poised to create new ripples in the water. Although he may not hear it, Mayer was an artist at play on that Nokia Theater stage. A musician fused to the notes.

• Kayli Harley (Communications)

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Reviews

Norman Fucking Rockwell!

Lana Del Rey Released August 30, 2019 Label Polydor Records Genre Art-pop Tasty Tracks “Mariners Apartment Complex”, “Next Best American Record”, “Venice Bitch”

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Lana Del Rey’s 2019 release, Norman Fucking Rockwell! is her sixth studio album and marks a pivotal shift in her pop star persona. While this psychedelic pop-rock album draws inspiration from American culture — like much of Del Rey’s music — for the first time, instead of romanticizing the culture, she mocks it.

The inspiration for the album draws fromthe famous American painter Norman Rockwell, whose paintings depicted the American Dream of white-picket fences and suburbia. Similar to Rockwell paintings, Del Rey has romanticized various elements of American culture throughout her previous albums. In Born To Die, it was old Hollywood glamour, and in Lust For Life, it was a nostalgic 60s summer of love getaway.

However, rather than glorifying the American Dream like Rockwell does, Del Rey works to uncover the ugliness that exists beneath the surface.

Starting the album off with the line “Goddamn man-child, you fucked me so good that I almost said I love you” on the title track was certainly a way to get the audience’s attention. The song’s blunt lyrics paired with Del Rey’s soothing voice and piano ballads creates a contrasting feeling that Del Rey upholds through the rest of the album. Having

the opening track create such a back-andforth emotions sets the stage for what Del Rey wants listeners to take away: There is a fine line between the American culture we choose to believe in and the reality of it.

“Venice Bitch,” the longest song on the album, perfectly demonstrates the juxtaposition of chaos and longing that surrounds ideas of the American Dream. Del Rey paints a portrait of suburbia with “On the stoop with the neighborhood kids” and then directly mocks it, connecting to Rockwell’s paintings with “paint me happy in blue.” On the outside, the dream may look picturesque in the yard with kids, but underneath is unfulfillment and bad relationships that come with domestic life. The production on the song is reminiscent of waves crashing on the shore. While it pulls listeners in with a slow and melodic Lana lullaby, it quickly piles up into a chaotic mess. Three minutes into the song, her voice and beautiful lyrics fade into messy verses like “La-la-la-la-la-la, losers.”

Just like this song, the American dream looks beautiful at first glance, but the more time you look it fades into a mess.

Aside from referencing the old American dream, Del Rey comments on modern pop culture in “The greatest,” reminding listeners that a culture which distracts us from truth still remains. When she sings “Kanye West is blond and gone / ‘Life on Mars’ ain’t just a song / Oh, the livestream’s almost on,” Del Rey reinforces the fakeness of American culture. Listing those chaotic lines and finishing off with “the live stream almost on” highlights how our current culture is so distracted by the media, that they miss reality.

Del Rey doesn’t shy away from critiquing her own participation in all of this either. On the final song, “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it,” Del Rey criticizes the fakeness of her own pop star persona. The intimate slow ballad song unveils that while she plays into the “sadgirl” persona she’s built with lyrics like “24/7 Sylvia Plath,” she reminds viewers that the persona is just for show with lines like “Hello, it’s the most famous woman you know on the iPad.” Once again, communicating that the culture is fake, and she is just another person who fell victim to it.

Distaste towards American culture’s fakeness is a belief Del Rey’s stood by throughout the rest of her career. After Norman Fucking Rockwell! she has slowly moved out of the Americana persona she created early on in her career to reveal more

about herself. With Blue Banisters, her 2021 release, Del Rey doesn’t reference a past Americana dream like she always has but instead comments on present day pandemic life, singing “Grenadine quarantine... ‘Hey’ on Zoom” on the track “Black Bathing Suit.”

Her latest release, Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd, was the icing on the cake. For the first time, she shares more about Lizzie Grant, the real person behind the Lana Del Rey persona with tracks that directly touch on her personal life.

It’s clear that Norman Fucking Rockwell! served as a turning point in Lana Del Rey’s career. No longer just dressing up as characters on each of her albums, Del Rey became a spectator with a critical eye on her culture and herself. Norman Fucking Rockwell! was the first crack in her high-production persona that allowed for a new, unmasked era of Lana to begin.

• Valentina Cunha (Communications/Media Studies)

When I Get Home Solange Released March 1, 2009 Label Columbia Records Genre Neo-soul Tasty Tracks “Down with the Clique,” “Almeda,” “Binz,” “Sound of Rain” Many of us leave home in haste, ready to step into visions we’ve been brewing since childhood. In a new place, you melt a life welllived down to a neatly packed origin story and carry on. In time, your old life turns into a set of memories only the people back home can decode, and where you were once trapped inside, you’re now locked out.

We begin carrying a honeyed vision of home in our back pocket, keeping the unsavory blurred. In memory, home becomes medicinal, morphing — faces, streets, flavors — into whatever form is needed to hold us over until return. On When I Get Home, Solange invites the homesick into the Houston she carries in her back pocket, dosing them back to health.

When I Get Home is Solange’s fourth studio album, but only her second to be fully realized outside the shadow of her early industry days in Destiny’s Child. It follows A Seat at the Table, a composed neo-soul oasis bound by the unofficial thesis “for us by us,” a nod to the power and autonomy of Black art.

Released three years later in 2019, When I Get Home was met with praise, though less; many felt it lacked the cohesive throughline that defined its predecessor, and while this is true, When I Get Home’s ambiguity is what gives it staying power.

Home is a rich palette of ambient sounds, chopped and screwed 90s Houston style. Lyrically, Solange plucks at the

same chords Frank Ocean does on Blonde, freewheeling through what it means to be a Black artist and navigating ones own multitudes. Her storytelling is syrupy, almost inebriated, with a distinctiveness that’s unmistakably hers. Like Ocean, she crafts a world so clearly rooted in her own experiences — late-night drives in candy painted cars, the hum of Houston at dawn, the laughter shared in dimly lit kitchens. The sunset hues of Solange’s childhood This album unfolds in a continuum so arresting, it resembles cinema. Solange abandons traditional song structure for impressionistic vignettes and uses repetition as her signature device throughout. The musings mumbles over and over again are the breathing pulse of the record; in “Down With the Clique,” they’re longing; on “Way to the Show,” they’re tantalizing; and on “Almeda,” they’re empowering.

It’s only fitting, then, When I get Home is accompanied by a forty-minute visual album. A medium popularized by her sister Beyoncé, Solange uses this medium as an opportunity to expand the album offscript. The film stitches together images of Third Ward, a historically Black Houston neighborhood, with surrealist vignettes, blending archival footage, fashion-forward cowboys, and Afrofuturist dreamscapes. It’s a visual homage to the cultural and artistic contributions of Houston’s Black creatives, questioning what it means to be grounded in heritage while also being forward-thinking.

When I Get Home challenges the conventional notion of homecoming. Instead of revisiting memories of Houston looking to excavate nostalgia, Solange approaches the idea of home a fluid space, one that reshapes in accordance with her changing identity.

The album slashes through the expectations of returning to places frozen in time, instead focusing on the more permanent traditions and people that have molded Solange as an artist. On When I Get Home, home is not a location or a past life but an evolving presence we continue to carry.

• Ananya Chaudhari (Business Administration/Economics)

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Reviews

The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom Jens Lekman Released May 4, 2022 Label Secretly Canadian Genre Alternative/Indie, Folk Tasty Tracks “Sipping On The Sweet Nectar,” “A Postcard to Nina,” “Your Arms Around Me,” “Shirin”

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Jens Lekman’s album Night Falls Over Kortedala is an underrated indie-pop gem. Lekman had been releasing music for years, but this album allowed him to finally find acclaim outside of his native Sweden — Pitchfork even named it the eleventh best album of 2007. On Night Falls, Lekman transforms the nondescript Swedish neighborhood of Kortedala into a fairytale destination filled with love, hope, and wonder. Lekman’s songwriting becomes the most touching and introspective it’s ever been when accentuated by the album’s lush orchestration. He is a master at excavating grandiosity from even the most mundane moments in life.

Sadly, in 2022, the album had to be taken off of streaming services due to sample clearance issues. However, this loss was short-lived, as Lekman released The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom, a reworked version of Night Falls Over Kortedala, a few months later. The new album features refreshed versions of all of the tracks, along with six new songs, including unreleased tracks Lekman has played live over the years, a couple of covers, and original material.

Lekman possesses a unique ability to bottle up a moment and tease out what exactly was emotional or awe-inspiring

about it. Much of his songwriting is autobiographical, and he doesn’t shy away from awkwardness and desperation. Despite this, Lekman makes these cumbersome emotions charming by finding whimsy and connection in his experiences. On “Your Arms Around Me,” Lekman sings about a laughable experience where his lover surprises him with a hug in the kitchen while he’s slicing an avocado, causing him to cut his palm and pass out. What was once a lighthearted anecdote becomes a love song for the ages with Lekman’s romantic perspective. Glittering harp flourishes and a string ensemble that tugs at the heartstrings join Lekman as he croons about his lover’s embrace instead of pain or embarrassment.

While Lekman is quite the romantic, he’s also plain hopeless. His passiveness paralyzes him, and we see the women he interacts with taking the lead in his stories, like in “It Was a Strange Time in My Life” and “Kanske är jag kär i dig.” That’s not to say Lekman is completely meek; he knows himself – and when to make fun of himself. The jaunty and misleadingly upbeat “The Opposite of Hallelujah” is defined by Lekman’s witty sense of humor. Lekman tries to explain his sadness to his sister by saying “I picked up a seashell to illustrate my homelessness / But a crab crawled out of it, making it useless,” finding humor in his pain. As the chorus of the song repeats and the drums become increasingly hypnotizing, Lekman’s insistence of his misery becomes akin to a jovial hymn.

While Lekman’s storytelling is captivating, it wouldn’t be complete without the theatrical instrumentation that uplifts his emotions and provides the punchlines to his jokes. While recalling his first kiss on “Sipping on the Sweet Nectar,” a twinkling flute represents how Lekman slips into regret.

But when the full euphoria of his memory kicks in, dramatic horns transform the song into something out of a musical. Alternatively, a tender acoustic guitar accompanies Lekman’s honeyed baritone on “Shirin” as he reminisces about an immigrant hairdresser running an illegal hair salon out of her apartment.

While still technically proficient, the new tracks on this album aren’t as instrumentally lavish as the ones from Night Falls Over Kortedala. The aimless piano on “When I’m Swimming” and the repetitive choral vocals on “Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death” are a result of Lekman becoming a little too contemplative. While these tracks are a

great testament to Lekman’s maturation as a musician, they don’t have the same starryeyed appeal of the older tracks.

Re-releasing this album gave Lekman an opportunity many musicians don’t get to take: he was able to write a continuation of one of the original songs. “A Postcard for Nina” tells the story of Lekman posing as his friend’s boyfriend in front of her conservative father to hide the fact that she is a lesbian.

Lekman wants to be there for his friend, but he recounts how hard it was for him to keep up with the lie. Over the years, this song became a fan favorite, and the truthfulness of the story was speculated about. On the title track of The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom, Lekman addresses these doubts and reminds listeners of the intolerance LGBTQ+ people have faced. More impactfully, Lekman also uses the track as a way to send one last “postcard” to Nina, who he lost touch with after the events of the first song. His sincerity and affection for his old friend is evident, but he knows to hold no expectations for the continuation of the friendship.

In an interview with Stereogum, Lekman stated that he “just want[s] the music to be alive and be allowed to change.” While The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom doesn’t include the sampling that brought attention to the original album, the emotional heart of the album is still there. It never stopped beating.

• Rilyn Szabo (Behavioral Neuroscience/ Design)

Achilles Kevin Atwater Released March 7, 2025 Label Mutual Friends Genre Indie Folk Tasty Tracks “the cage,” “family party,” “Achilles” Kevin Atwater has the rare ability to make every listener feel like his best friend. With his voice close to a whisper and his melodies just as soft, Atwater picked up his guitar and opened his diary for his sophomore album, Achilles. Achilles is a collection of stories that gracefully navigates the undefined spaces between vulnerability, violation, and intentional denial.

Atwater first gained popularity in the COVID-lockdown era of singers performing in their bedrooms for TikTok. He continues to post successfully, but his artistry is certainly not relegated to his bedroom. A singer, songwriter, poet, filmmaker, and actor, Atwater is a rounded creative. Each track title on the album was revealed on his Instagram with an associated multimedia collage. He directed and acted in Achilles’s music videos for “the cage” and “ferry beer,” as well as a short film for his hit single “why did you invite me to your wedding.” He also collaborated with fans in a literary project, developing a curated series of fan-written poems that align with individual tracks off the album.

For Atwater, music is about more than just songs — it’s about storytelling.

Consistent with other artists in the indiefolk genre like Sufjan Stevens and Adrianne Lenker, Atwater packs powerful lines into gentle acoustic instrumentation.

However, Atwater stands out among his contemporaries as an arguably unmatched

lyricist. Each song on Achilles can be isolated into its own complete world, but when stitched together to form the album, they create a cohesive thematic revelation.

Opening with “threat,” Atwater places his listeners in the perspective of someone being asked to accept violence for the offer of intimacy. Seamlessly transitioning into “Jamie’s Daydreams” on the same chord that “threat” ends on, the rest of the album becomes an attempt to respond to that offer. Each song that follows is a story that explores a different response, revealing the naive confusion, conscious denial, and shameful wanting inherent to an exploitative relationship.

Atwater approaches this with the maturity of a retrospective angle. While his songs are confessions of the delusions from his past, he shares them from a grown place of vulnerability and grace. Over airy strings and in layers of soft vocals, Atwater reflects on what it’s like to continue loving someone who hurts you when they’re hurting. He poses an unanswerable question in “lonely gift” that resonates throughout the entire album: “And I woke up holding nothing / You were mine once / Or were you gone?”

For Atwater, it’s impossible to distance this from queerness. Growing up gay in the Midwest, Atwater learned about his own sexuality through examples of guilt and hiding. “jailer” reflects on what it’s like to love someone who is unwilling to love as freely.

The memory of being caught with a boy by a cop parallels the feeling of being trapped in a self-imposed prison of shame— the jailer being at once you, your partner, and your relationship. Atwater studies this internal conflict throughout the album. Remembering a toxic relationship with a boy from his youth on “origami roses,” Atwater discusses the frightening experience of having a crush that spirals into obsession. Unable to process or get help for fear of confronting his identity, Atwater kept the experience a secret until it was no longer safe to do so. “origami roses” grounds the album in the knowledge that it’s not always possible to identify a single victim and perpetrator. Both Atwater and the boy who folded roses were just kids, lost in desires and fears they couldn’t understand.

The album’s overarching message that intimacy is complex and messy rings true here. Similarly, “the cage” tells the story of Atwater’s relationship with an older man when he was young through the fantasy of revenge. A distinctly grungier rock-leaning song, it tastes like an anger you can bite and

chew, which is an act of violence in itself, blurring the placement of blame and serving as a reclamation of power.

Romance is not the only kind of intimacy Atwater articulates the complexities of. “family party” details how spending time with family as an adult makes him feel just as lonely as he did as a kid, as if it’s fated that he’ll never find a place with them. While he finds them just as otherly as they find him, the hurt still weighs heavily. Meanwhile, “Call of Duty” draws a closer connection between Atwater and his family, unpacking the gravity of generational trauma and the redemption in breaking cycles of violence.

The final three tracks on Achilles follow Atwater’s craving for a simple, mutual wanting. “ferry beer” describes Atwater’s dream of a long-lasting love with someone that he knows won’t last. He accepts this truth, though regretfully, resolving that he might as well give them the knife himself that will hurt him when they cut things off. Next, “Huntley” which bears the name of Atwater’s recently deceased dog, is about the loss of unconditional love, something a dog is willing to give despite the meanness that sometimes comes with pain. Finally, “Achilles,” the title track that closes the album, marks a sonic and narrative shift for Atwater. Atwater lets loose with this song, introducing a more upbeat rhythm and higher energy. Hoots and laughter come through in the background, and while this track sounds like a release of the heavy emotion bared throughout the album, he still acknowledges that “it gets heavy being so light.” “Achilles” returns to the initial exchange of intimacy for violence, responding plainly with, “Fuck it! I just want to be held!” — in other words, “I don’t wanna fight!”

• Mya Jassey (English/Media and Screen Studies)

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Reviews

Cutouts The Smile Released October 4, 2024 Label XL Recordings Genre Alternative Rcok Tasty Tracks “Zero Sum,” “Colours Fly,” “Tiptoe”

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The Smile is composed of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner: twoparts former Radiohead members, one-part jazz drummer, and all parts multitalented.

The band was formed in 2020, entering the studio with the initial intent to complete unfinished tracks pulled from Radiohead’s stockpile. Cutouts is the third release from The Smile, but make no mistake, this is not a Radiohead album. Tight and groovy soundscapes that display the band’s musical mastery work in tandem with equally world-building but contrastingly foreboding lyricism. As a result, Cutouts is a project that is as different as it is complex, a testament to its members’ artistic and musical prowess while reflecting the inherent duality that runs through the band's work; their musicianship, their artistic freedom, or the emotional versatility covered in their lyricism.

The Smile has stepped well out of the shadow of Yorke and Greenwood’s previous collaboration. No longer held down by the commercial pressures of releasing another smash-hit Radiohead album, The Smile, experimenting with musical and lyrical realms that are equally fresh as they are intense, is visibly unconstrained and having a great time. The band’s second release this year, Cutouts was born out of the same sessions at Abbey Road Studios as its predecessor, Wall of Eyes. For Radiohead

fans, this may evoke memories of Kid A and Amnesiac’s dual status. But, Cutouts is far more than just B-sides. Fully delving into the extents of their instrumentalist skills and genre-bending abilities, Cutouts speaks to The Smile’s continued artistic evolution and deftly explores the psyche of Yorke, the listener, and modern society.

The Smile’s projects bloom in the form of musical and lyrical clash. Uplifting musical backdrops contrast to the doomsaying lyricism characteristic of Yorke and Greenwood’s previous works, a welcome deviation from Radiohead’s usually ponderous sound. Wall of Eyes gave tastes of this with its charming bossa nova title track and grunge rock playout on “Bending Hectic.”

Cutouts sees this contrast to its complete potential, and that full fledged dissonance does more than just succeed. Following the lead of drummer Tom Skinner’s scattered fills and Jonny Greenwood’s near-inhuman guitar lines, Cutouts in all its beauty provides a vibrant, jazzy canvas for Yorke to splash his instinctual sorrow onto. The result is nothing short of sublime. Standout tracks “Eyes and Mouth” and “Zero Sum” epitomize this; the latter utilizes a tight and wiry guitar line to set the piece in motion, coupled with clacky percussion and full-bodied saxophone sections to bring delicious, flavorful chaos.

But even though you can tell The Smile is having fun, the music comes with a lingering sense of impending doom, an emotional undercurrent set by the echoey layered vocals and synths that sit in the background of this pandemonium, supporting the album’s ranging lyrical themes of sorrow. It’s a reminder to listeners that this is a Thom Yorke musical project after all.

The despair in Yorke’s lyricism and vocals is more existential than ever; “Foreign Spies” discusses the paranoia of false sociopolitical utopia, stating that “In a beautiful world / we are melting” and evoking citizen helplessness in the face of danger with "somewhere lurking / form a line / falling over / zip tied." “Zero Sum” takes on technological worship at the expense of environmental degradation, singing “That’s a lot to burn for no reason / They’re thinking all the ways the system will provide” and repeatedly muttering “Windows 95, Windows 95.” While many of these are set to the backdrop of the electrically energetic musical harmony of the trio’s multi-instrumental talents, Cutouts makes room for Yorke to wallow, at times to a laborious extent. The album’s longest track, the nearly six minute long “Don’t Get Me

Started” comes off bleak when listeners crave devastation. Paced by meanderingly boring synth beats, the track lacks a commitment to either simplicity or intricacy and instead leaves Yorke's albeit evocative lyricsm out hanging However, other tracks successfully reach emotional lows in their full form. “Tiptoe” is a result of such; accompaniment from the London Contemporary Orchestras envelopes listeners and communicates elaborate hurt through Yorke’s sporadic, yet dismaying vocals that hiss “We are just baggage with no label / You will find us in the rubble… While you people tiptoe / All of you appeasers and enablers / Eating scraps from the swill.” On “Colours Fly,” listeners are left alone with the discomfort usually shared with Yorke, who turns borderline manipulatively accusatory with opening lines “Let your colours fly / and start lashing out / you can change your mind / I won’t be surprised.” The lines sarcastically invite authenticity out of the listener, threateningly acknowledging the unattractive truths that hide behind human performance.

Meanwhile, the track becomes indulgently unsettling; Yorke’s monotone repetition of “no no no no no” fade into incomprehensible vocals halfway through the track. Anxietyinducing whispers lurk behind ethereal synths before they pick back up into the rhythm of the song. Cutouts drags listeners into the depths of the Smile’s dread before pulling them up into an infectious groove, an emotional whirlwind that is crave-worthy.

During the first ever live performance of The Smile, Yorke described the meaning behind the band’s name: “Not the smile as in ha ha ha, more the smile of the guy who lies to you every day.” Smiles, just as human experience, are manifold, acting as expressions of love and dishonesty alike. The Smile, in all aspects, embody this duality, whether that be between musical purity and complexity, moving grooves and paralyzingly saddening ambience, or — most frequently — human hope and despondency. Cutouts communicates this variation through a new, tighter, jazzier lens for Yorke and Greenwood, further securing The Smile’s place as a boundary-pushing and refreshingly new act, even if composed of repeat players.

• Paige Pataky (Psychology/Music Industry)

SOPHIE SOPHIE Released September 27, 2024 Label Transgressive Genre Experimental Tasty Tracks “Berlin Nightmare,” “Why Lies,” “Love Me Off Earth,” “Live In My Truth” Few 21st-century artists have a talent for reinvention in the way that SOPHIE did.

Best known for her punchy and dynamic run of 2013-2015 singles, her work with Charli xcx on her 2016 Vroom Vroom EP, and her highlyacclaimed, amorphous 2017 debut album OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES, SOPHIE represents an ethic in the music industry that aims to challenge and redefine the standard of what “pop music” is and, more importantly, what it can be. In a world where Charli xcx’s BRAT is now dominating the culture and pop music continues to reach new levels of exaggeration and experimentation, it’s impossible to deny the role SOPHIE played in shaping the modern pop landscape to be intrinsically self-aware and adventurous.

So three years after her untimely death, we arrive at SOPHIE, an album tasked with the impossible: to give a proper sendoff to one of the most inspirational and transgressive artists of our time.

SOPHIE faced nearly insurmountable expectations. As not only a posthumous album, but a follow-up to the beloved and incredibly original OIL, SOPHIE needed to capture the essence of her work for posterity while simultaneously meeting the demands of fans who had combed through unreleased tracks for years. The moment the album was announced, social media was flooded with ideal tracklists and features that set the bar impossibly high. Although the album

does not include many of the favorites fans expected (besides the long-awaited “Reason Why” featuring Kim Petras and BC Kingdom), SOPHIE offers interesting insight into where SOPHIE’s career was headed before her passing. According to her brother, SOPHIE’s long-term plan was to operate on a twoalbum cycle: one experimental, then one pop to continue pushing herself as an artist. This album serves as the pop counterpart to Oil, meaning SOPHIE was only able to complete her creative revolution one time.

SOPHIE is divided into four sections by genre. The third section of the album is the strongest, placing the listener in a setting where SOPHIE’s fans came to know her best: the club. Following SOPHIE’s career meant chasing snippets of DJ sets where she would tease new and unreleased music and play almost unrecognizable remixes of her own work. SOPHIE's live performances demonstrated how effortlessly she could reimagine her own work, unbound by the conventions of the trends she set herself.

2020's HEAV3N SUSPENDED, a benefit livestream which funded support for Black trans and femme people during the COVID-19 pandemic, feels like a necessary precursor to understanding why SOPHIE is groundbreaking, even if it isn't her most focused piece of work.

Futuristic techno tracks like the bombastic “Berlin Nightmare” and “Elegance” evoke an image of SOPHIE towering over the mixing board like an otherworldly angel, bobbing her head as she sets a loop on the offbeat or slides the BPM to the boldest tempos. These tracks embody SOPHIE’s signature coolness and penchant for the extreme. Others, like the ambient, unstructured first quarter of the album (namely the abstract “The Dome’s Protection” and the heavy-handed “Plunging Asymptote”) struggle to reach the same exciting depths and heights but demonstrate SOPHIE’s talent for sound design and the creation of a space that feels at once physical and shapeless.

The album’s dance-pop core reaches its peak with “Why Lies” and “Live In My Truth,” both featuring BC Kingdom and LIZ, whose carefree lyrics give testament to the liberation queer people find in SOPHIE’s playfulness with genre and gender. These tracks best capture the vapid and ephemeral bliss of SOPHIE’s music. “Ooh, I just wanna party with my friends / 'Til the end of the world / Hey, immaterial boys and girls / So please save that drama / For your mama

and daddy and your granny / I don't want no trauma comin' at me,” BC Kingdom croons as you can’t help but sing along.

It’s difficult, even painful, to imagine the transformation the tracks on this album would have undergone if SOPHIE were able to see them through to their completion and eventual reinvention. Her talent at mixing and creating new sounds was unparalleled, meaning that anyone attempting to recreate or fine-tune her work encounters a musical vocabulary that would be alien to anyone but SOPHIE. This is evident on tracks like “One More Time” and “Intro (The Full Horror),” chunks of which are virtually imperceptible in a murky, sometimes overwrought mix of tones and textures. It’s unclear exactly what SOPHIE mixed herself, but nonetheless, the album's sense of adventure compensates for its weaker aspects.

Much of the album’s final leg, composed of anthemic, explosive pop tracks, is imbued with a much deeper and existential meaning knowing that SOPHIE has passed since its recording. Tracks like “Always and Forever” and “Love Me Off Earth” feel surrealistically prescient. The emotional weight of these tracks functions as a parting gift to her audience, a way to memorialize the constant diffusion of her ethic and ideas. “Forever and for always we'll be shining together / And as the years go by you'll still be by my side,” sings Hannah Diamond, canonizing the omnipotence of SOPHIE’s work in pop music in both her life and her death.

SOPHIE invented new sounds and genres, pioneering a style of artistry that would be impossible to recreate without the ethos implied by her stature and personality.

Her provocative and otherworldly sound is meant to transport you to somewhere else, even if you have no idea where you're headed upon your first few listens. Although SOPHIE doesn’t achieve the same immediate metamorphic quality of OIL or HEAV3N SUSPENDED, pop history has proven that SOPHIE was always ahead of her time, forging sounds that we never knew we needed to hear. The same will likely be true for this album. Until then, we’ll keep loving and remembering SOPHIE, on and off Earth.

• Joseph Brant (Political Science)

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Reviews

People Watching Sam Fender Released February 21, 2025 Label Polydor Records Genre Rock Tasty Tracks “Chin Up,” “Wild Long Lie,” “Remember My Name”

Spring 2025

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While advertising the release of his third studio album, People Watching, Sam Fender joked that he is picking up where he left off in 2021’s Seventeen Going Under – now reflecting on life at 18-years-old. The album continues that album’s theme of Fender growing up in Northern England, specifically North Shields, as a “troubled youth” attempting to make his way. The title track offers social commentary on the “treadmill” everyone is running on, with Fender observing different people in his hometown experiencing their own downfall.

By people-watching, he feels less alone in his hopelessness. Fender remembers the North Shields of his youth as idyllic: He was invincible, strangers were beautiful, and safety and love were inherent to existing.

The album’s musical choices reinforce this hyper-nostalgic mood set by the lyrics. The abundant and tantalizing saxophone solos that pop up sporadically across the project are reminiscent of the 80s, a time when it was still cool to rock out in earnest. The use of saxophone and swinging brass is consistent throughout Fender’s discography, invoking a sense of nostalgia. Throughout the album, the past is seen through rose-colored glasses and juxtaposed with the harsh reality that life was never perfect, as seen in the aptly named track “Nostalgia’s Lie.” People Watching poses a sharp contrast to Seventeen Going Under’s sense of feeling trapped in one’s own

circumstances, with cynical optimism shining a light on the darkness of the time.

Starting with “Wild Long Lie,” the tone shifts. Haunting, layered vocals, stripped from their typical energetic instrumentation, reflect a sense of sadness with the refrain “I think I need to leave this town.” The conflict between the pain of evil done for political gain and the love one has for one’s community proves to be too much to bear, but sharing that emotion as a man is taboo. Only alone can he mourn the place he loves, with his departure seeming to be the only answer for the “crumbling empire” to not bring him to ruin along with it. As a proud advocate for men’s mental health, Fender reflects on how poorly he treats himself across several tracks as a means of recognizing the need to change.

In “Little Bit Closer,” a variety of traumatic experiences are recounted in the context of religion, with atheism encroaching on the artist. The hurt of childhood panic attacks, losing loved ones to violence and mass incarceration, and hatred justified by the Bible proved to turn a young man cold and questioning. Not only is God questioned, but several tracks allude to becoming withdrawn and pushing away loved ones, rejecting any attempts to understand his inner psyche.

“TV Dinner” is the exemplar of this paranoia, combined with legitimate societal criticisms to the refrain of “no one gets into my space.”

Overall, People Watching unveils more of Fender’s story, with each track utilizing unique instrumentation and vocals to match the message being sent. The album ends with the powerful “Remember My Name,” a raw and honest ballad about not wanting to be forgotten by the same loved ones pushed away in an attempt to save face. Each track plays a role in painting a picture of a complex man, having experienced several trials before reaching the limelight.

• Julia Towne (Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology)

Flood Hippo Campus Released September 20, 2024 Label Psychic Hotline Genre Alternative/Indie Tasty Tracks “Paranoid,” “Slipping Away” At its core, Flood is an album about growing up. Rotating between a retrospective and optimistic mood, the record stresses that you will never have enough youth or money, and you won’t find true happiness until you accept that. Coming at a pivotal time for a band deciding what to do next, Flood is a powerful vehicle for a band seeking to evolve its sound away from the high-school rock it gained notoriety for.

Flood is the band's fourth studio album, coming two years after the release of LP3.

Fans were curious to see the direction the new album would take, after a third album that was more electronic and overproduced than their previous records. Flood could cement the sound explored on LP3, return to the genres of their first two albums, or tread completely new ground. It’s clear that Flood is meant to chart a different course, as Hippo Campus tries new things, whether it be through the use of more ballads, or the wider variety of instruments that populate the tracks.

Gone is the indie-rock sound from Hippo Campus’s first two albums, replaced by a more pared back folk sound, with a harmonica to boot. This is attempted with mixed results, as the tracks with more country stylings end up being among the weaker songs on the record, namely “Corduroy” and “Everything At Once.” While Hippo Campus gives several songs the opportunity to occupy this new space, it still

doesn’t quite fit and they struggle to execute a folk sound successfully. On “Everything At Once,” lead singer Jake Luppen’s vocals sound strained when he pushes for higher notes, and “Corduroy” is mellow to the point of being underwhelming. However, the more subdued acoustic sound lends itself to a lyrical focus, which is where Flood truly shines.

Over the course of the album, themes of regret and acceptance are interwoven into practically every song. Operating as a yin and yang, they produce a narrative of someone mature enough to recognize their past mistakes, and mindful of how to be a better person in the future. Yet with how often the album discusses getting old, you’d think the band consists of retirees, rather than the oldest member being only 30. Hippo Campus looks back at younger, wilder days, cherishing those moments and understanding the need to move past them. On the second to last track titled “Closer,” Luppen gently croons out, “I know we’re getting older/ We’re kicking up some dust” and “All those days are over and they’re never coming back,” delivering a sense of contentment and peace with their place in life.

Each band member went through a journey of sobriety during the production of the album, with the lyrics offering clues as to why. On the track “Slipping Away,” there is an admission of pushing others away and turning to drinking for comfort. “Slipping Away” is one of the best songs off the album.

Its succinct writing and production merges the band’s varying styles over time. It pulls from their new folk sound as the track opens with a somber piano and then quickly morphs into a production of distorted vocals, drums, and an electric guitar that would feel right at home on their first two albums. Flood contains a message of growing up and evolving, while also serving as an artistic expression of that exact same dynamic for the band’s work.

What Hippo Campus produces today isn’t going to sound the same as what they released when they first formed almost ten years ago.

To pigeonhole a band in the type of music they made when they first started out, and disliking anything that sounds different, stands directly in the way of growing and evolving, both personally and musically. For an album so heavily focused on themes of maturing and changing in who you are as a person, it doubles as a powerful demonstration of allowing yourself to try new things and evolve from your younger self.

• Connor Bedell (Political Science) 19