Trumpets can be familiarized with happy feelings, yeah, they're used in horror movies to enhance fear and here they're used for a fatalistic effect. The love described by Beth Gibbons in this song is not a realized love, it feels kind of platonic but deeply intense. A bond so strong that just a smile is able to send you to heaven. There's a sadness in the whole vocal melody and Beth's voice is at its most vulnerable like feeling like child inside the body of a grown woman. And that's how love leaves you, at your most vulnerable, you might be a heavy weight but when you're in love, the slightest negative treatment you receive by you loved one can tear you down. The vocal interpretation is of a totally broken person but the determination of the delivery reflects the strength of the possessor of the love and the strength of the love itself.
The love is not rotten but definitely damaged like a heart in thorns bleeding out. There is absolutely no resentment towards the loved one but the pain of the unaccomplished love has perverted the lover. Slow hard drums like the air that lacks after a fortunate but highly accidental encounter. The guitar bridge expresses the rotten anger of the privation from the loved one. The trumpets accompany with fatality the whole story, the singing expresses desperation, and the lyrics in times can picture a stalker but also could picture a kid who with so much inexperience has to beg for what he or she needs on the verge of crying out of impotence. Like love leaves you, defenseless.
The music video makes me remember a lot what Sia is doing with Maddie Ziegler on her "1000 Forms of Fear" videos, here, a little girl is placed with an orchestra in a setting that resembles an old TV show to replace Beth and the band, this time the girl does lip synching. The video looks of old quality, greenish, muddy, of low definiton. The song sonically, lyrically and on video reflects how blurred unrealized love leaves you, nothing is clear or makes sense, and the insaneness shines on the bridge in the video, it becomes a horror movie scene, with the girl appearing and disappearing in a strange and obscure setting with the host of the TV show looking like a modern old evil cupid that prompts the girl to express her love. This negativity feels analogic to the dirty apartment Maddie dances in 'Chandelier'. Both girls are different, though, in 'All Mine', the girl looks paralized by trauma but her performance is strong and fluid, Portishead achieved a tremendous single with this one. A realistic love song and a piece of music that helps picture that real (and hurtful) love. A highlight of the selfitled album and of music let me tell ya. More bands should experiment the way Portishead does, different ingredients but not necessarily complex constructions just different, perhaps bizarre ones.
Has any millennial pop star musician gone through more than Britney Spears? Hard to tell, but Britney has had a rough time proving she was the true deal. Before the teen pop explosion, post-grunge took over and mixed with electronica there was an amalgamation of different sounds that made the musical landscape very varied, until teen pop took over and it pretty much overshadowed everything. Leading the pack with N*SYNC, Backstreet Boys and Christina Aguilera, there was Britney Spears, an awesome performer, dancer and possessor of a very unique voice that screamed innocence. While an undeniable performer, for many she was a label "puppet". She didn't write any of her songs on her debut and she was accused of lip synching.
Single by single, album by album, Britney Spears tried to prove she was in control of her career as a performer and musician. First by message, on 'Oops!... I Did It Again' she wasn't that innocent, on 'Stronger' her loneliness wasn't killing her no more (as in '...Baby One More Time'). Later she went urban with 'I'm a Slave 4 U', kind of launching Pharrelll who would later become a superstar. She did rock covers, 'I Love Rock 'N' Roll'. She was never afraid of being a pop star, 'Toxic' was bold pop. Then her breakdown occurred and after 4 albums people would say she had a decent run for a pop star. Wrong they were, 'cause she came with the dark club album "Blackout", a fan favorite, with urban bangers like 'Gimme More' and 'Piece of Me', the latter which was a straight shot at her haters and won 3 VMAs, including Video of the Year. She came even bolder with "Circus", 'Womanizer' and 'Circus' were world smashes. She didn't leave it there, "Femme Fatale" provided her 3 smashes, ''Til the World Ends' is one of her danciest tracks yet, and we can pretty much say with all of this that Britney Spears might have an innocent voice and could be a charismatic sweetheart but she's been a hell of a strong woman and an undenible pop musician.
On her 8th album, "Britney Jean", she took the "bitch" famous out of her mouth and made a strong dark eletro-banger which features one synth line over the whole song and her sing-speaking. How can Britney make work a song like this? It worked for me about a hundred times when it was first dropped. Motivating, hard, it makes you wanna dance and work. I think 'Work Bitch' is proof that whatever people could have said about Britney Spears, she's a hard working woman, her emotional struggles may have affected her work through her career but she succeeded, she already proved to everyone she wasn't a puppet, she's a survivor, she's a rocker, she's a singer, she's a dancer, a human, a person who loves and a person who has been deeply heartbroken, and she kept on working, bitch.
Thanks guys for the input!
I loved this song when it came out. I still like it, but i kinda got tired of it. The video still slays tho!
Loved what you had to say on Britney. Your write-ups are great too!
So far, I like everything you have here. It took me awhile to get into Godspeed, but it was worth it.
I have the album the Tortoise track is on, and I like it, I just need to spend more time with it.
Thanks, been a fan of Britney since the '...Baby One More Time' era. Awesome you liked Godspeed! And yes, with a little patience and just having the time to appreciate you can enjoy Tortoise a lot.
Ty Segall is awesome, what I like most about him is how melodic he is. I have a problem with the rock genre, a part of it is terribly unmelodic, and it's the problem with guys being this originally a guy genre, rock itself, not rock and roll. Melodies, that express a lot of feelings don't go along with guys, they have to make the most out of riffs, changes, rhythm, paces, solos, etc and that channeling of energy is great but it's different from a woman voice singing pop that "just" goes up and down like crazy and real, doing with the vocal melody more than a guy usually does when singing. That woman voice can make you travel but it's just a voice, right? Rock bands have to put a lot of effort into the instrument playing and they can achieve great things, they already have but melody making have been best with the bands who didn't fall on the machismo of being tough and therefore making not very expressive melodies, except when doing furious ones which is a rock forte. Of course, not to say that because a band that decides to be not so melodic and more complex with the instruments is bad or that is naturally associated with machismo. The problem is that there are bands who are neither melodic and their instrument playing or songwriting isn't anything to write home about. And that's when there's a problem.
The great thing about Ty Segall is that he manages to be both things, hard rocking and very melodic and in this song his songwriting talents shines. The bass line and riff are pretty much the same but the way they complement each other feels pretty accomplished. His voice sounds adolescent and emotional, also angry going along just fine with the feelings of breakout and rebellion described in the lyrics. The vocal melody he chose exhudes pain in liberation, while on the verses it sounds pretty fine, right about the half he just goes "oh-oh-oh-oh-oh" on the same melody and it feels just glorious, extremely cathartic like the end of one of the best songs ever but it doesn't stay there, right after that, Ty and company go on a guitar solo trip, that builds up from bass and drums that would make me remember Kill Bill Vol. 2 where Elle Driver is driving through the desert all determined and menacing looking. Then the guitar explodes fitting in another scene, the fighting scene in The House of Blue Leaves in Kill Bill Vol. 1. This song could be used in so many intense scenes of great movies but it doesn't actually talk about fighting. The lyrics talk about being fed up with the system, giving it the middle finger and a wholehearted goodbye to do what your soul and heart calls for. Ty described it, paraphrasing, as a song of two lovers saying goodbye to the stupid rules that don't permit them to be happy.
This song shouts classic from wherever you see it. It has everything, unique lyrics, raw emotion, incredible melody, awesome structure and a superb performance. I can't compliment Ty Segall enough for 'Slaughterhouse' and this song. If rock comes back hard to the mainstream, this guy should be one of the people leading the pack, a sincere musician with a lot of deserving recognition. I kinda feel a little Kurt Cobain in him, don't get me wrong, they're both very different people but he has that thing of making really emotional and catchy melodies buried with all the rock sapience they have, and both have different influences but Ty demonstrated what not all successful rockers do, loving the genre for the music, not for the pose, even when he likes to crowdsurf. With 7 albums as a solo artist, 1 with the Ty Segall Band and many others with other people being just 27, Ty Segall is a force to be reckoned with. And this song is a magnum opus.
2014 TOP 25 TRACKS coming!
The best tracks released from December, 2013 until December 2014 with a couple of exceptions that could come as early as late October, 2013.
Has any millennial pop star musician gone through more than Britney Spears? Hard to tell, but Britney has had a rough time proving she was the true deal. Before the teen pop explosion, post-grunge took over and mixed with electronica there was an amalgamation of different sounds that made the musical landscape very varied, until teen pop took over and it pretty much overshadowed everything. Leading the pack with N*SYNC, Backstreet Boys and Christina Aguilera, there was Britney Spears, an awesome performer, dancer and possessor of a very unique voice that screamed innocence. While an undeniable performer, for many she was a label "puppet". She didn't write any of her songs on her debut and she was accused of lip synching.
Single by single, album by album, Britney Spears tried to prove she was in control of her career as a performer and musician. First by message, on 'Oops!... I Did It Again' she wasn't that innocent, on 'Stronger' her loneliness wasn't killing her no more (as in '...Baby One More Time'). Later she went urban with 'I'm a Slave 4 U', kind of launching Pharrelll who would later become a superstar. She did rock covers, 'I Love Rock 'N' Roll'. She was never afraid of being a pop star, 'Toxic' was bold pop. Then her breakdown occurred and after 4 albums people would say she had a decent run for a pop star. Wrong they were, 'cause she came with the dark club album "Blackout", a fan favorite, with urban bangers like 'Gimme More' and 'Piece of Me', the latter which was a straight shot at her haters and won 3 VMAs, including Video of the Year. She came even bolder with "Circus", 'Womanizer' and 'Circus' were world smashes. She didn't leave it there, "Femme Fatale" provided her 3 smashes, ''Til the World Ends' is one of her danciest tracks yet, and we can pretty much say with all of this that Britney Spears might have an innocent voice and could be a charismatic sweetheart but she's been a hell of a strong woman and an undenible pop musician.
On her 8th album, "Britney Jean", she took the "bitch" famous out of her mouth and made a strong dark eletro-banger which features one synth line over the whole song and her sing-speaking. How can Britney make work a song like this? It worked for me about a hundred times when it was first dropped. Motivating, hard, it makes you wanna dance and work. I think 'Work Bitch' is proof that whatever people could have said about Britney Spears, she's a hard working woman, her emotional struggles may have affected her work through her career but she succeeded, she already proved to everyone she wasn't a puppet, she's a survivor, she's a rocker, she's a singer, she's a dancer, a human, a person who loves and a person who has been deeply heartbroken, and she kept on working, bitch.
Thanks guys for the input!
Yaaaas sis, you better stan for this exercise anthem, also it's good to see somebody who likes many genres and it's not stuck in just one as many Atrlers, kudos for that!
Thanks for taking the time to create this thread and share some of your fave tracks with us. Also giving your thoughts on each entry was interesting too. Thanks for contributing to this forum.
MASTAMAIND'S 2014 TOP 25 TRACKS
Tracks released from December, 2013 to December, 2014 with a couple of exceptions.
#25 KATY PERRY - THIS IS HOW WE DO
This girl took over singles wise with her 2010 album 'Teenage Dream', extremely wise marketing, catchy songs and incredibly poppy creative videos. On 2013 Katy Perry came back with 'PRISM' and while it did provide her two big smashes, this song couldn't quite replicate the success of previous hits. I don't know why, this song is quite neat, the problem is that all the focus group lyrics Katy seemed to have to propel the success of her previous singles doesn't seem so assertive this time with this song. The lyrics are completely ridiculous, try to be a college chill out party song but it's incredibly left field. Some of the activities described by Perry here don't seem fun at all but oddly, it contributes to the song having a happy funny feel. The main synth riff is nice, and Katy is on the verge of sing speaking, but the flow is so nice that it doesn't matter, this song achieves being fun pushing the wrong buttons. Maybe it was on purpose.
#24 ARCA - XEN
Venezuelan producer, Arca, takes us to a trip of interrupted dance. The track evolves slowly and it seems much longer than the 3 minutes and near half that is. It's slightly melodic. Arca makes me remember The Haxan Cloak, only that Arca is dancier and more upbeat. He is still dark. There is structure to this even though it sounds pretty irregular. I see this being played at an avant-garde artsy dark club, where people aren't so worried about a track stopping it beats for a while. 'Xen', the song, is menacing, trippy, obscure and inviting. The sexy but broody nature of the body presented in the video is distorted in the end as if fun might be something inviting and pleasurable at first but in the end is satiating, rotten and perverted. Arca explores the depths of of pleasure, impact and curiosity with 'Xen' (also the album name) in sound and image.