The year of 1994 was economically disastrous for the UK under Margaret Thatcher’s government. There was widespread strikes amongst the public sectors and unemployment had reached 3.2 million people. So how did two brothers from Burnage, a somewhat unremarkable area of Manchester, rise through all the struggles they saw around them? It wasn’t easy for Noel and Liam Gallagher, but they did manage to come together. Liam had originally been part of an earlier band called Rain with drummer Tony McCarroll and guitarist Paul Arthurs. Once Noel joined, the band name was changed to Oasis. In ‘94 the band released their debut album Definitely Maybe which became one of the most sold debut albums of the time, reaching as far as North America where it became just as popular.
In Definitely Maybe, Noel Gallagher brings forth honest and blatant statements, never shielding away from potential backlash. This is especially seen in songs like “Up in the Sky” and “Cigarettes and Alcohol” that constantly reference drugs. These songs are drastically different in their sounds, that is “Up in the Sky” offers a quick beat and drawn out lyrics while “Cigarettes and Alcohol” slows it down into something that sounds more like an ode to drugs. Although I don’t recommend doing anything suggested in these songs, I’m loving how badass they are and the ‘cool’ feeling I get listening to them. Tracks like “Rock ‘N’ Roll Star” and “Supersonic” offer a certain loudness to the album through their use of electric guitar and drums that mimic the loudness of society; if the noise of workers striking was ever captured, it would be in these songs. There is no quiet song until “Married with Children,” the final song on the album, plays. After crashing our way through the tracks, we get a certain quietness that feels like credits in a movie beginning to role and the audience sitting in awe of what they just witnessed.
Truly, this album is a masterpiece. It somehow combines the smugness of the Sex Pistols and the melodic tunes of Paul McCartney, constantly weaving between the two extremes and reflecting the instability that both the band and society were facing.
In their debut self-titled album, the 1975 created a song that is nothing short of a masterpiece. “Robbers” is by far their best song and has yet to be topped, and this is due to both the melody and vocals. The use of electric guitar and drums creates an echoing sound that offers a chilling and airy feeling. Then, frontman Matthew Healy gives haunting vocals that draw you in as he traces an abusive relationship. The theme of death, or at least of something going wrong, is shown through the lyrics, “I’ll shoot him if it’s what you ask” and “Now everybody’s dead,” reflecting the creepy sound the melody offers.
The song becomes unnerving as it goes through emotional highs and lows, and it’s good to know Healy’s inspiration for the song is not based on any of his or his bandmates own experiences. Instead, Healy draws inspiration from Quentin Tarantino’s movie True Romance:
“I got really obsessed with the idea behind Patricia Arquette’s character in True Romance when I was about eighteen. That craving for the bad boy in that film it’s so sexualised… ‘Robbers’ is about a heist that goes wrong – I suppose you can read it as a metaphor – and a girl who’s obsessed with her professional killer boyfriend. It’s a romantic ideal.” – Matthew Healy
Indeed, Healy grasps the typical Bonnie and Clyde/Clarence and Alabama ideals and runs with it. He takes what’s happening in film and transposes it into music, giving us a song that will do nothing less than give you chills as it proceeds through every event. Nothing is censored–drugs, sex, and death are all on the table just like it would be in these films. So next time you feel like you need a bad boy/bad girl, you may want to take another listen to this song before diving head-first into a romantic heist you may not be able to handle.
Since 1993, Papa Roach has remained part of the nu-metal scene, combining heavy metal with other musical genres like hip hop, alternative rock, grunge, etc. In their tenth studio album Who Do You Trust, Papa Roach challenges musical genre boundaries, ultimately never settling into a particular sound. Yet, the title track “Who Do You Trust” is much more similar to the sound they’re normally known for with heavy guitar riffs and lots of energy. It’s abrasive and loud, starting off completely in your face and making it impossible to ignore. Then, it quiets down into a low techno feel that is completely unexpected after the energetic opening. The song weaves between these two sounds seamlessly, never feeling out of place. Yet, the genre of the lyrics remain the same despite differing sounds, “People going in and out of focus/ I’ma need to check all ya motives.” Although this song may be more on the pessimistic side, I’m loving it all the same.
To accompany this song is one of the best music videos of all time. It opens with a mock ad for braces, then each member of Papa Roach becomes part of “New at 6”, highlighting some ridiculous made-up stories and offering some of the best weather commentary I’ve ever heard. As the song continues, the “news anchors” can be seen dancing to the tune. Despite this being hilariously great, it also adds to the seriousness of the song by ultimately underscoring that you really can’t trust anyone as even the news, which is supposed to be strictly factual, is riddled with biases and misinformation. This is definitely a nice touch, and I give the band and director major credit for coming up with this.
So if you haven’t heard this song already, turn your stereo up and enjoy this track as it’ll have people of all musical genres singing along.
There is little to imagine in Florida Georgia Line’s collab with Jason Derulo in “Women” as it works as an ode/tribute to their female counterpart. FGL sticks to their roots in their classic slow country beat and Jason Derulo offers his beautiful voice and varying pitch range to the track. Lyrics like, “We’re all better off with ‘em” and “Wanna thank you/ For everything, everything you do” can make any person get behind the message and overall sound of this song.
The fact that I’m so happy that there’s a song that offers thanks to women also upsets me in a way I didn’t think it would. It makes me realize that a lot of the time women are underappreciated and underrepresented in society. In my home country of Canada, it is no secret that gender inequality still exists today.
According to Statistics Canada: – Women have retained a disproportionate share of housework, childcare and eldercare. Combining earning and caring roles is very challenging, and one of these roles often has to make a sacrifice. More often than not, this results in women working less hours so that they have more time for their families. – Women are more vulnerable to lower income than men. One reason is that women are paid less than men even when they have the same qualifications and work the same number of hours; Women typically earn $0.87 for every $1.00 earned by men. – Young women and girls under 25 years old continued to have the highest rates of police-reported sexual assault in 2016 and 2017. They account for over half of victims before and after #MeToo (from 55% to 56%).
So thank you FGL and Jason Derulo for giving us a song like this one that brings the focus to women. Although the song is not revolutionary in its sound, it’s definitely a song that everyone should listen to as we often forget just how much women do for those they love while suffering gender inequality throughout the globe.
If you’re interested in visiting the pages I found my facts, you can look here and here.
For more information involving gender inequality in Canada and what you can do to help, visit The Canadian Women’s Foundation.
Said the Whale released their sixth studio album Cascadia on February 8th, and it’s unlike anything they’ve done before. This album has essences of folk, alternative rock, and indie, making each track unique as they constantly vary between these genres. Yet, “Record Shop” sticks closer to the rock sound their known for and makes it seem a bit out of place on the album. Nonetheless, it’s a solid track that anyone can nod along to.
The track explores a love for music that makes it easy to escape into another world. As the narrator in the track faces heartbreak, he’s able to find some sort of peace at the record shop. Ultimately, being there and listening to music is the one way that he can feel better. Although the song is somewhat metronomic in its delivery, there is a sweet harmonizing in the middle that is a nice and unexpected twist. This harmonizing makes the track feel inclusive by creating a unity amongst the bandmates while inviting the listener to join in and celebrate with them. As the track winds down, the keyboard becomes a bit imperfect in its sound and the volume slowly fades to nothing. Somehow, Said the Whale has perfectly captured the image of the needle of a record player moving across the record. They also reenact the brief moments of silence between tracks on a record and truly make me forget that I’m listening to it through Spotify.
For all music junkies out there, there’s no doubt that this song will resonate with you. Said the Whale captures our dilemma with the simple lyric,“I wish that I could drop a million bucks.” Until the time comes that we can drop some serious cash at our local record stores, we’ll have to stick with Said the Whale who seem to truly understand the plights of a music junkie.
Said the Whale has stepped outside their comfort zone in their astonishing new album Cascadia. While originally having mixtures of electric rock and folk from frontmen Tyler Bancroft and Ben Worcester on their last album As Long As Your Eyes Are Wide, each track on Cascadia moves between alt-rock, indie, and folk. Despite differing sounds, all tracks advocate for the same thing — love. Cascadia takes you on a winding road in its discovery of love in all its variations and imperfections while paying homage to the beautiful land itself. Like the varying cultures and flourishes of art from city to city in the bioregion of Cascadia, Said the Whale’s Cascadia varies from track to track, never settling into a specific sound and mimicking the beauty of diversity of this region.
The first track opens with a few piano keys and strums from guitars over a fuzzy background, almost as if the band is testing out the instruments before the song starts. Then the drums come in and set the beat. Worcester offers short lyrics, each line like a solid punch through the instruments that places an importance on what he’s saying. He opens with “Wake up, wake up/ Wake in the sound of the rising sun/See a bright light shine on the lions.” Each line acts as a call to action, to pay attention to the natural world around you. As the chorus comes in Worcester sings, “Time makes all things fall together”, and if anyone knows this it’s Said the Whale. They’ve been together since 2007 and have seen one another grow in the most personal ways possible: getting married, pains of miscarriages, and having kids. Despite all this, the trio of Ben Worcester, Tyler Bancroft, and Jaycelyn Brown has remained strong. Indeed, time does make all things fall together and acts as a running line through this album.
For artists like Said the Whale who tour for months at a time and are away from their families and home, love becomes essential in grounding them in their identities and in their homeland. In “Love Don’t Ask”, the band intertwines love as a pet-name and love the feeling so that the listener simultaneously thinks of both, making it inescapable. With a strong and consistent beat brought together by drums, guitar, and piano, the lyrics mimic this strength with a love that can “brave together/ uninspired in spite of the fires.” Although their may be moments of weakness, which can be heard in the disgruntled piano chimes in the song, this love has an end goal: “a simple life alone with you beside me would be paradise.” The next track that explores love, “Level Best”, is written by Bancroft to his son and underscores the lengths he’ll go to for him, “If you need a million dollars by tomorrow/ I will rob a bank to do my level best.” With hard strums of guitars and strong vocals that enunciate every word, it becomes impossible to miss what Bancroft has to say. He definitely sets the bar HIGH, making it hard for any parent or lover to follow this up. In “Love Always”, Said the Whale offers a creepy feeling to open with— just the guitar strumming, then vocals that echo making Worcester feel far away. As the chorus begins, the drums come in and offer a much more grounding sound that ends the echoing of the lyrics and brings Worcester back to Earth. Essentially, this song advocates that love is always the answer to whatever the issue is, and if we can remember that then we can solve anything. Most importantly though, there’s the element of time in all these songs. Nothing happens right away, but always looks towards a future that only knowledge over time can bring.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to love, however. In “Shame”, Said the Whale explores what it means to screw up. In an interactive phone hotline promoting the album, the band describes “Shame” as a “powerful commentary about being a man in 2018 and the importance of listening to women.” This is important because there are so many stigmas revolving around masculinity, especially when it comes to being in a relationship. You can be sensitive, but not too sensitive. Attached, but not too attached. It’s a hard balance to juggle, and a lot of the times results in messing up a good thing. In terms of sound, the song may start off with a grunge/alt-rock feel, but it continuously slows down throughout, leading to an ending silence as the shame eats the person up. And this is where “UnAmerican” works perfectly with “Shame” as it also aims in flipping the notion of masculinity: “I wanna write you a love song/ I wanna get all the words wrong.” What?! A sensitive guy?! I didn’t know they made those anymore! Being kind and sensitive, and being a male on top of that, is about as un-American as you can get because society constantly places value on being a tough male figure, both mentally and physically. With songs like these advocating how crazy this idea is, it’s only a matter of time until this stigma ends. I’ll be waiting!
At all moments of Cascadia, there is the undertone of the deep love the band has for the land. Many songs offer images of mountains and rivers throughout, and the band gives full tracks dedicated to their Vancouver home like the title track “Cascadia” and “Gambier Island Green”. Ultimately, this album takes us through the winding roads of Vancouver and traces all variations of love across a modern time (love for a child, love for a significant other, and love for the land). Although certain things may not work out in the moment, it is important to remember that time makes all things fall together. All we can do is let time work its magic to bring us back to the people and the places that mean the absolute most to us.
I’ve loved Sam Smith since I heard him on Disclosure’s song “Latch”, so I was super excited to find out that he released a new track. When I found out it was a collab with Normani, the songstress alongside Khalid in “Love Lies”, I couldn’t wait to hear it and had high expectations for it.
And I can happily announce that all my expectations were met.
The track is nothing short of dance music. It opens with finger snaps over a fuzzy background until Smith sings, then the beat comes into focus and falls into quick and repetitive patterns. Even the lyrics are repetitive, ultimately matching the consistent beat. As Smith sings, “I don’t want to be alone tonight/ It’s pretty clear that I’m not over you”, Normani responds with, “I wasn’t even going out tonight/ But, boy, I need to get you off my mind.” Then they replicate, “I don’t wanna be alone tonight, alone tonight, alone tonight”, making it easy to find the similarities in the lyrics and join in with them. Despite having melancholy lyrics, the beat makes the song so easy to dance to, and there’s so much potential for remixes that the song will easily fit into any club scene. The two later come together in a harmony that is nothing short of masterful. While Smith expertly varies in pitch range, Normani offers smooth and velvety vocals that ultimately balance each other out into perfection.
Although this song is not necessarily revolutionizing in dance music, it’s catchy and solid in its delivery of vocals and beat. Ultimately, the two create an atmosphere that allows any listener to place themselves in the club that Smith and Normani offer – dancing with a stranger in an attempt to forget a certain person.
As my friends and I walk up to Phog Lounge, we’re greeted by a group of people smoking outside. One of the women smiles and says hello. We say hello back and then enter, engulfed by the living art that is Phog Lounge.
It’s impossible to live in Windsor, Ontario and not know Phog Lounge. It’s every students’ go-to place for drinks and music. It’s small with graffiti art on the outside of the building, a mosaic sun patterning the floor, and pictures/paintings from local artists decorating the walls and ceiling. If this bar had a slogan, it would be “We’re all broke here” – a complete haven for all who need a break from the stress of school and work for cheap.
I walk in and drop a few coins into a “Pay What You Can” jar, and proceed to a table close to the stage. The group outside walk in, and as the woman who greeted us takes off her jacket I realized it was Anna Mernieks outside the bar, and I’m kicking myself for not realizing it sooner. As I stand up to go talk to her, the opening act finishes, and I know I won’t get the opportunity until after the show as she moves towards the stage.
The audience is substantial for the size of the place, with people crowding in the doorways and any extra space they can. She hooks up her electric guitar and strums a few chords, making the place fall silent. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. While the opening acts struggled to keep attention, Mernieks grabs it with ease. She thanks everyone for being here and Phog for hosting her, already setting up an air of professionalism that the other acts seemed to lack.
She then opens her performance with a slow song, an original called “3-Star System”. Her voice croons as she somehow encaptures a melancholy feel that I didn’t think could be possible using an electric guitar, and carries this feeling throughout her whole performance.
As she transitions into her song “Find Me”, and the next song “I Will Find You”, she begins to vary in pitch range. As she hits spectacularly high notes, I can only think that she gives Tori Amos a run for her money. Hard strumming from the guitar and enunciation at its finest, Mernieks doesn’t want us to miss anything from her performance.
Her next songs showcase her instrumental abilities. She’s constantly switching between rock and roll-esque sounds to soft and slow chords, all the while making sure her voice is at the forefront. I’m in utter shock as she transitions so seamlessly. Although some of the folks in the crowd begin to zone out, I’m completely encapsulated. As soon as she starts playing her second-last song of the night “Til’ The Morning Comes”, I know this one will be my favourite. It’s quieter than her last ones she played, so I’m very much aware of the people talking and ordering drinks around me. As I’m scribbling notes, she shocks me. Halfway through her song she gives a psychedelic sound that I didn’t even know was possible to make using an electric guitar. The audience seems to fall under a spell; they completely stop what they’re doing and solely focus on the music itself, the only thing that matters in this moment.
While the song comes to a close, I think back to seeing her outside and talking with people she may or may not know. It was a brief moment of relaxation before her performance that she carries to the stage despite so many people being here. Calm and melancholy, she weaves in and out of fast and slow paced songs, never settling into a specific sound.
She finishes her performance, and thanks everyone for coming. I hear someone at the next table say, “Wow.” I couldn’t agree more.
There’s no denying that Bruno Mars has an angelic voice that could make any girl swoon, and that Cardi B is an amazingly talented rapper. In fact, Cardi made history at the Grammy’s last week winning Best Rap Album for her 2018 album Invasion of Privacy, making her the first female solo artist to win this award. So to find out that the two were releasing another collab after such a good year was music to my ears. I eagerly awaited for the release of “Please Me”, yet I was disappointed once I heard it.
Now it’s not as if the whole song is a trainwreck, that is the song opens and a catchy beat is set. Bruno’s voice comes in beautifully as he longs for someone to “please and tease” him. I’m all for it, and then Cardi comes in and although her rapping/singing is great, I’m surprised at her lyrics. It’s not that I didn’t expect vulgar lyrics to come up in this song, but I did underestimate the level of intensity.
As the song continues, I realize that my main issue is that their vibes don’t match up. As Cardi comes forward with strong and risqué lyrics, Bruno opts for more sensual and, in a way, “subtle” lyrics (that is he doesn’t blatantly reference his genitals). It’s almost as if they’re trying to give you the best of both worlds, the implied versus the full-blown “this is what I’m going to do to you tonight”/ no mystery whatsoever.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I hate Cardi B or Bruno. It’s just that in this song they are on two different wavelengths that I just can’t seem to get on board with. Hopefully we’ll get another collab by them in the near future that will be more cohesive.
Alice Merton is the millennial we’ve all been waiting for, and it was worth the wait to get the masterpiece that is her debut album Mint. This album advocates for living life the way you want to, not how you should. But more than anything, this album explores Merton’s personal life as she was constantly moving due to her father’s job (and I’m talking 12 times in 25 years). So it is no surprise that she became an expert at saying goodbye and dealing with this feeling of loss.
“Honeymoon Heartbreak” is emotionally driven and is the only slow song on this album. This song interestingly starts with no sound until about seven seconds into the song. It’s almost a bit unnerving, and I’m checking to make sure I actually hit play. Then, only her voice. No loud crash of drums or strums of guitar, rather a soft croon that draws me in as she recounts the story of a relationship gone sour. It isn’t until about fifty seconds into the song that the guitar and drums join in, all working in harmony with Merton’s wide pitch range that seamlessly transitions between high and low notes. As she sings, “My homeless heart is still hoping/my homeless heart is still holding you”, I realize that although this recounts a relationship, it also works like “Homesick” where her heart is ‘homeless’ as she longs for the people/person she had to leave behind. As she sings, “You let me go, my honeymoon heartbreak” I can’t help but tear up, why would he let her go? Why would he let her leave?!
It’s feelings like these that make Mint so great as although it’s personal, it’s so relatable. We can listen to “Honeymoon Heartbreak” and think of our first love, but for Merton this heartbreak has happened ten-fold as she learned how to say goodbye all too well.
Notes on Notes 