Tag Archives: tuneoftheday

“This Town” by Kygo ft. Sasha Sloan (2017)

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“All of my friends are settling down/ Their only kids but their married now/ Let’s follow the lights, follow the crowd/ Baby we gotta get out/ Let’s get out of this town”

The first time I heard “This Town” was on a scorching hot summer day. It wasn’t like it was a “nice” hot either, it was painful. I was on my way to work and I was already sweating thinking about the huge paint job that was waiting for me once I get there. The first thing I remembered about this song was how the beat, instrumentals, and vocals all fused together to create a “chill” atmosphere in my tiny SUV. It helped to set my mind somewhere else rather than my unconditioned vehicle. With its downtempo and pinches of dance that remain constant throughout the track, it literally made me feel like I was on a much-needed break from reality. However, something I didn’t pay attention to the first time listening to this song were the lyrics.

               Once I replayed the song a few times, I noticed that Kygo created a beat that works extremely well with Sasha’s vocals and the overall lyrical meaning of song. Sasha’s vocals are so soft and so calm that it would make any runner’s heart rate stabilize after the verse is sung. As for the meaning, the song is about slowing things down. Instead of conspiring to the same old routine of eat, work, sleep, repeat, this song suggests that we are all still young and should be experiencing and enjoying the world for what it has to offer. Just like Sasha Sloan sings, “I don’t wanna live my life in circles/ I just wanna find an empty road/ Let’s get away from here, let’s go.” So, let’s all get away and enjoy this beautiful world that gets lost in the everyday routine. The soft acoustics in the background with pinches of dance, the little twinkling that is heard in the background, Sasha’s vocals, and the lyrical nuances all fuse together to create to tell us all— “Hey! take it easy”

-Maria

“Robbers” – The 1975 (The 1975, 2013)

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By Michaela Maxey

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.

Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now” (2009)

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By Mina Wiebe

I was only eleven when Lady Antebellum released their Grammy-winning track “Need You Now”, and I was surprised when the song managed to make me relate to the heartache of a breakup that eleven-year-old-me had yet to experience. The lyrics “[i]t’s a quarter after one, I’m a little drunk, and I need you now” blasted from my Mickey Mouse radio, and I couldn’t help but melt and sink into an imaginary sorrow despite the lyrics being far from applicable to my life. But I guess that’s a sign of a good breakup song—when it makes you mourn an imaginary relationship.

In reality, the agony of missing someone you were once inseparable from is a tremendous hurdle to cross—a hurdle that almost everyone will have to cross at some point in their life. And I think that’s partly why people went crazy for this acoustic-country tune upon its 2009 release. It topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart at number one for five weeks straight, and reached an impressive number two position on the Billboard Hot 100. It was played on country and pop music stations alike, receiving international recognition and praise. People may have been taken with the song because of its beautiful melody and delicate piano, but I also think they related to its raw depiction of heartbreak.

One of the things that makes “Need You Now” such an incredibly effective breakup-song is its duet-style. It offers heartache from the perspective of both partners, as their raw vocals ring with passion and sincerity, presenting you with this miserable imagery of two former lovers who are drunk and alone, wishing the other would call. It’s a breakup song that does its job, acting as a poignant reflection of the pain that so many have felt: that feeling of empty loneliness as you ache for someone and wonder if they’re thinking about you too. The line “[i]t’s a quarter after one, I’m all alone and I need you now” resonates with the world’s heartbroken listeners who have felt that exact pain.

Ten years later, I’m listening to “Need You Now” after a breakup, so this time around the sorrow is real. Something that hasn’t changed though, is the song’s ability to force me to grieve. Hearing your thoughts and emotions conveyed through music is validating, and sometimes that’s necessary to move forward. I would qualify it as one of the best songs to listen to post-breakup, specifically when you’re in need of a good cry. And for that reason, I play it on repeat and encourage the broken-hearted to do the same.

“Part of your World,” The Little Mermaid

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By: Julia Ristoska

I’m in a karaoke room with a couple of friends, and we organize our usual set list that consist of our go-to karaoke songs. We press play and with my microphone in hand I was ready to belt out “Part of your World” a classic Disney song from my favourite movie The Little Mermaid. This song has the power to bring automatic lightness on the darkest days with its bright melodies it’s hard not to feel happy while singing. This song starts off with a twinkling sound of the piano that reminds me of water, and slowly builds adding dramatic violins and twirling flutes into the mix.

With the transition of conversational verses to a slow and emotional verse it can be really fun to sing along and even act out. Singing this song makes you feel like you are on broadway acting out the whole emotions of this inner monologue. Ariel is pleading for adventure and some discovery outside of her own ocean. Being a university student I too am pleading and aching for adventure outside of the library!  

Singing and listening to this powerful ballad allows me to scream out full force, in which helps release temporary frustrations. In a strong whisper the mermaid we all love ask, “What would I give If I could live outta these waters?What would I pay to spend a day warm on the sand?” I ask myself these exact questions as I sit in class looking at life occuring outside the window, and wishing my life live outta these desk.

This song brings me back to the less stressful days of my childhood. A time where I would put in the old The Little Mermaid VHS tape and watch the movie on replay until my parents hated me. Instead now I sing this song on repeat in the karaoke room longing for 3 minutes of a piece of my childhood.


“Breathe” feat. Mandy Gonzalez (In the Heights OBC, 2005)

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Musical theatre has a way of letting you see and hear the stories that aren’t always brought to attention. Like the songs about being the socially awkward friend at a party and you start to have a panic attack. The music and acting work in tandem to give the audience authentic moments that they can personally connect with.

This soundtrack— written none other than by Lin-Manuel Miranda—is so incredibly unique because it seamlessly juggles rap and multi-lingual phrases in a 2 hour production, while being targetted towards a younger demographic. Somehow it all just seems to work together beautifully, while still keeping crucial topics about poverty and gentrification in the forefront and integrating Latin sounding instrumentals to compliment such.

It’s a melodic monolgue from Nina who is struggling to find the words to tell her parents, and friends that she dropped out of Stanford. She worries they’ll hate her and will be dissappointed because she was the only person to actually “make it out” of the barrio.

The lines in this song are so authentic and really affect anyone who has ever felt an impeeding weight resting on their shoulders placed there by their own parents, because they set the bar so high (myself included). She starts off by singing, “Hey guys it’s me/ the biggest dissappointment you know…” she can’t keep standing on their pedestal and feels guilty about it. The barrio isn’t worried because they know their “star” will get out of this low place eventually. “Ay te adoro, te quiero/ the neighbourhood waved and said Nina, ‘be brave/ and you’re gonna be fine!'”

As hurtful as it is to listen to initially, it’s also comforting and hopeful to hear all of the voices wishing her encouragement and telling her to keep going. Nina realizes that she can always get back up and try again with pacienca y fe (patience and faith). At times when I feel overwhelmed, this is my mantra to help me push through.

So to anyone who needed to hear it today: Pacienca y fe… just breathe, and try again.

-Genna Dara

The Beach Boys, “God Only Knows” (Pet Sounds, 1966)

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By Allesandro Rotondi

Illustration by Andrew Kolb

God Only Knows is one of the greatest songs ever written. It’s Paul McCartney’s self-proclaimed favourite song. I first heard it on The Wonder Years, at the end of the fabled episode where Kevin realizes the girl next door was gone forever. She drove away on a bus to summer camp, as Kevin stared into the distance with “God only knows what I’d be without you” chiming over and over again for what felt like an eternity.

Just last week it was featured in the new trailer for Toy Story 4, and much to the same effect, it left a profound impression on all those who watched it. I don’t know what it is about the song—something about it is just so beautiful and pure. And to think it starts with the lines “I may not always love you.” However, it continues with the lines “but long as there are stars above you / you never need to doubt it”, thus completing one of the greatest opening lines of any love song. Ever.

The song is actually ridiculously complex, functioning in two interchanging keys, with a bass line that moves in a chromatic stepwise motion using inversions of the root chord. That probably sounds like a whole lot of mumbo jumbo, and it is. The point is, Brian Wilson could do what most composers cannot. And that is, write a mindblowing-ly complex masterpiece of sonic art, or a “pocket symphony” as his compositions were sometimes labeled, and have most that hear it call it “beautiful in its simplicity.”

The end of the song alone would go down in history as a composer’s primal achievement. It is the perfect vocal round: Dozens of multi-layered voices singing the tagline of the song in interweaving and meandering harmony, only to fade out into infinity. I always picture that once the song has faded, the ending tagline is still looping into eternity somewhere. Thank you Brian Wilson, and thank you to all those who checked out Notes on Notes now, and in the ongoing future. God only knows what we’d be without you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkPy18xW1j8

NSYNC, “Bye Bye Bye” (No Strings Attached, 2000)

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by Chelsea Ives

With each year that passed bringing me closer to finishing my university degree, I began to feel older and more decrepit than I ever ought to feel. Every year it seemed each generation became less infatuated with the suave, seductive boy bands of my youth, and I became accustomed to the fact that millennial’s would never feel the same kind of love for the music and boy bands as I did when I was a pre-teen girl, freakishly hoarding burned CD’s scrawled on with black sharpie.

Such was true for my copy of NSYNC’s  2000 album No String’s Attached. I was particularly fond of “Bye Bye Bye,” the lead single from the album. Everyone knew the scandal of NSYNC’s legal battle with their manager Lou Pearlman and former record label, so as much as I was hoping the song meant JT and his then-girlfriend (Brittany Spears) had split, the song was speculated to be about the bands split from their former label.

The song features heavy kick and bass, and catchy lyrics which are impossible to get out of your head. Not to mention NSYNC stomping in unison to a dance that would become iconic with the ability to get your entire high school in a flash mob. NSYC’s lyrics spoke to the hearts of many: like puppets being played with, “(Bye bye) Don’t wanna be a fool for you / Just another player in your game for two”. “Bye Bye Bye” boasts a theme and beat that will never get tired.

I used to lament the fact that millennial’s would miss out on the best generations of music: with every year, and every new boy band hair flipping their way onto the music scene with less classy swagger and more haughty grins, I was increasingly aware of the distance between new age music and 90’s classic’s like NSYNC.

But that changed in 2018. Backstreet’s back, baby! With their single “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” it was only time before the other popular 90’s boy bands would reunite and follow suit.

And follow they did!

Just March 1st of 2019, New Kids on the Block released their first song in 11 years – even paying homage to “Bye Bye Bye,” in their music video by dangling by strings like marionettes.

NSYNC by today’s standards may not be the most attractive boy band there ever was, but in the 90’s they were every teenage girl’s daydream. And maybe we’ll be seeing more of them soon.

Papa Roach, “Who Do You Trust” (Who Do You Trust, 2019)

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By Michaela Maxey

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.


Alan Walker, Sabrina Carpenter & Farruko – “On My Way” (2019)

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Alan Walker’s newly released track “I’m On My Way” starring Sabrina Carpenter and Farruko was released a few days ago alongside with a music video.  Although the video doesn’t incorporate any of the artists on this track, it does portray and interesting sci-fi story. The protagonist goes an adventure to find mysterious rocks that ultimately lead her to an archaeological discovery. Now… I’m going to have to keep the “archaeological discovery” a secret until I enlighten you on who exactly Alan Walker is.

              Walker is a Norwegian DJ. What makes this DJ different from others, is that he has started out in computer programming and graphic design and from there has learned to compose music through simply watching YouTube videos. Soon enough this 17 year-old European DJ produced a song called “Faded” in 2015 that received platinum certification in more than ten countries. Another attribute to Walker’s unique character is that he always appears to be wearing a hoodie and a mask that covers half of his face.

               In an interview with Teenage Magazine, Walker explains that “It became a part of my uniform. I wear it to symbolize that people are all the same and all equal. I like to believe anyone is behind the mask, and anyone can achieve amazing things.”

              “I’m On My Way” includes hidden elements of Walker’s unique characteristics in its very own music video and comprises a different type of sound than say Calvin Harris, David Guetta, and other big music composers out there. This track incorporates pop, reggaeton, and EDM. It starts off sounding like a mainstream pop song, but then a when the drop comes around its surprising components include a sub-bass and a clarinet tune —it is super cool and rare!

Now, going back to the big reveal…. like Alan Walker himself, the protagonist in the music video wears a hoodie and mask, and although the protagonist is a girl, she achieves an amazing discovery—Walker’s music. The huge archaeological discovery acts as a metaphor that symbolizes Walker’s music as a hidden “underground” statue and upon its ancient discovery, it literally informs the world, “I’m On My Way.”

-Maria

The Japanese House, “Maybe you’re the Reason” (Good at Falling,2019)

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By: Julia Ristoska

Good at Falling is the debut album by The Japanese House which consist of the British singer-songwriter Amber Bain. The song “Maybe you’re the reason” is definitely the most pop sounding track for such a indie album. This song opens up with a catchy guitar riff and blooming echoes coming from the synths, in which reminds me of the Breakfast club theme song. Compared to The Japanese House’s usual moody indie sound this song is very pop. Lyrically the song is very emotional and personal focusing on topics such as depression and feeling insecure.When Bain was asked about the meaning of the song she said, “It’s about being depressed and realizing there’s no meaning in anything. Then in the chorus I thought, I can’t keep this up! I need to make it something nice. I thought about my girlfriend at the time, and how maybe loving someone is the reason you live? It’s the cheesiest chorus ever, but I think it needed it.”

The rest of the song Bain gets deep and personal describing how she she is finding meaning in a meaningless world. The production of the song does a good job at reflecting the meaning sonically. The production of this song is particularly clever where the synthesizers shape up the sound giving it a blend of 80’s influences and modernist feel. The opening guitar riff is bold and confident producing a wave of sound like a pebble dropped in the river. Eventually as the stone skips further the sound creates a faint echo, and some unexpected changes. Much like the song there is some distortion and chores changes almost as if the song is doubting itself. This track in particular is about feeling like there is no meaning in life, but the chorus flips this idea and suggest that loving someone is the reason why you live.

This song feels nostalgic even if the listeners hasn’t experienced this depressing yet loving relationship. We can connect and feel it through lyrics, sound and create meaning. Nothing is lost in translation.