Music & Films for
Common People
a violent noise
the xx
25
The XX managed to get fame at a very early stage of their adulthood, a time where one is still finding their place in the world. Of course, the effects resented all of them, and they have been writing a lot about the idea of loud places that cover the noises inside of one's head. A Violent Noise specifically targets Oliver Sim's drinking problems that got him in trouble with the people he loves.
The house beat contrasts with the spaciousness of the guitars, creating an environment of an asphyxiating dance club, and the use of silences opposed to a noisy bass creates a dynamic tension that enhances the idea of that part of the night when your own demons are the only ones who keep dancing with you.
BLissing me
bJörk
24
Björk elevates Love 2.0 to a celestial stage in Blissing Me, a song about two music nerds falling in love with each other as they exchange MP3 files of their favorite songs. The idea is cute and quirky, wondering if this bond has a chance to transform into something meaningful in real life, or if it's better just to leave it as a platonic crush.
But instead of making it an indie pop "500 Days of Summer" history, Björk tries to detach from the temporal bonds (how long until MP3 will be a term of the past like CD?) and convert it, with the help of harps and flutes, into an ethereal study on how we develop feelings for people with similar tastes. She finishes by wondering "Did I just fall in love with love?" and well, pretty much we all have just fall back in love with her and her music.
DNA.
kendrick lamar
23
After Kendrick Lamar performed at BET Awards over a police car to criticize the police brutality towards black people, white anchors of Fox News criticized his lyrics, stating that "Hip Hop has done more damage to young African Americans than racism", proving that there's a huge segment of the white population that hasn't got the point yet.
Lamar samples that same Fox News racist comments in a songs that goes deep to analyze black identities, how is it have been shaped not only by their own culture, but by the repression and hate that has been targeted towards them. DNA. traces a personal and social history of race fights to define oneself, to take pride of who you are and where you come from, and to keep fighting for your right to don't be a second-class citizen.
I promise
radiohead
22
I Promise is the testament on how much Radiohead have been always in total control of their career and their identities. I Promise had the potential to be a hit rock ballad like Creep, something that would inspire basic frat boys to play in their guitars to the pretty cheerleader, and if they had released it as part of OK Computer, their trajectory would have been very different.
Twenty years later, they are able to release this gigantic ballad as an appendage to the re-release of OK Computer without risking attracting the wrong audience (you know, Coldplayliebers) and the vows they make in the song to "won't run anymore" are more a promise to themselves rather than to a dull lover.
Los ageless
st. vincent
21
For Annie Clark, Los Angeles is a sour place where the shallowness is submitted to plastic surgery to make it look flashy and fabulous; she makes a pun in the title to signal that obsession with eternal youth in a place where "the mothers milk their young".
With potent new-wave synths she wanders aimlessly through the boulevards of this city, contemplating how everything's designed as the mannequins in the shops' windows, she let a few guitar riffs show up, but they are soon engulfed by the twirling synths just like the gigantic waves in her son. It all leads to a monumental chorus where she plays with the repetition of a phrase to find hiding meanings behind it. In any case, the loathe that Clark expresses for the city is only a channel to express her self depreciation
ravens
mount eerie
20
Death, no matter how it occurs, is the most violent act for the one who has to continue living. Ravens tackles how, in our most vulnerable moments, we desperately seek for hidden meanings in things. Two black birds flying toward the island where they intended to move. At that moment he needed that to be a sign, a higher power explaining him what all this suffering is about; but if that was the sign, he never got to understand what it meant.
There are moments when he just breaks structures, he tries to fit the word huckleberries in a space that was clearly designed for a three syllables word, like a child learning how to rhyme and that doesn't fully understands what he is going through, but feels that need to tell us about how he picked berries for the woman he still loves.
Chanel
frank ocean
19
Coco Chanel has always been a prominent feminist figure, and also is held in high-esteem by the queer studies that consider her an icon of androgyny. Frank Ocean revamps the queer iconicity of Chanel, by making its symbol, two interlaced letters "C" facing opposite directions, as a metaphor for bisexuality and gender fluidity.
Just the opening line "My boy pretty like a girl, and he got fight stories to tell" can inspire big studies of new identities on rap music, but still he goes on to include comments on police racial profiling, and his new-found wealth and fame. Ocean claims that he can "See both sides, like Chanel", and indeed we can't think of another musician that has brought such refreshing perspectives to rap.
Apocalypse
cigarettes after sex
18
Apocalypse opens with cinematic images of a city collapsing in the end of the world, only to later reveal that it all is a metaphor for how it feels the first contact with the lips of our years-long crush. Cigarettes After Sex go for teenager platonic lust envolved in dream-like atmospheres, getting the best dark youth seduction since The XX's Crystalised.
Part obscure dream-pop, part seductive shoegaze, Apocalypse talks the language of desire and sexual tension. It is the mind-games played by a seductive crush, who got us completely fooled into the "innocence" of their erotic teasing. It is delicate and ethereal, the kind of track that soundtracks our fantasy scenarios, and that has the potential to musicalize good sessions of love making.
Passionfruit
drake
17
Within the last few years, Drake has proved that even if he still has good skills for rapping, his better tracks always come from his pop side. Embracing dancehall, every time with more cheeky openness, is treating us to the best collection of pool party tracks, and Passionfruit is the Millennial tropical vibe that immediately rises the body temperature and guide our feet straight to the dancefloor.
Passionfruit mixes its ingredients in the perfect doses to create an addictive cocktail: a downbeat rhythm, a marked baseline of clapping synths, soft drums and fake trumpets. His laid-back voice, as if it was coming from a hammock, just enforces the idea of this Caribbean fantasy, and make us thirsty for more of his secret elixir.
desafío
arca
16
In Desafío, Alejandro Ghersi goes deep in creating a narrative of the mix between sex and abuse, pleasure and pain. He uses his falsetto voice to create an operetta orchestrated by pulsating synths, discordant strings and alarming sirens. There are contradictory images while he pleads "Love me, tie me and behead me". He is slightly explicit, with imagery of blood and body fluids underlying there; it's aggressive and disruptive, showing the two sides of lust and desire, the opposition of tenderness and raw instinct.
People can easily reject Ghersi's music because it touches fibers that are almost unknown to us; he let us peek through the aesthetic of violence and decadence, the parts of ourselves that we try hardest to shut down.
bad liar
selena gomez
15
Sampling Talking Heads' bass line in Psycho Killer as the backbone of the track, Bad Liar gives some sense of pop minimalism and intimacy that we didn't heard since Lorde's debut. Selena Gomez sounds conversational, almost in a stream of conscience way, finding the object of her affection in different person's faces and offering a king-size space in her room and her heart. If she has been constantly criticized by her narrow voice range here she makes this restrictions a weapon to get some playful depth.
This is the kind of pop that defies the norms of the genre, so it'll be a matter of time to see if Bad Liar will be either her "oh, she once did a great song", or the beginning of something truly meaningful for pop music.
Read the full review here.
perfect places
lorde
14
Every once in a while, a young prophet is ready that remind us that there's a deep side of being a teenager. In Perfect Places, Lorde uses her witty lyricism to describe the disenchant of her generation and her dying idols: Bowie is death, Hilary Clinton lost the elections; is there room for hope when headlines threaten with WWIII and nazi groups?
And if we can't even succeed on a Friday night out, how are we supposed to succeed on a career or in a relationship or at being adults? This notion of the existence of perfect places, boasted by perfect Instagram posts is the one that keeps bringing us down, by thinking that we are a total failure. It's only when we realize that perfect places don't exist is when we start making the most of our imperfect self.
PURE COMEDY
father john misty
13
Watching Donald Trump being a buffoon and fooling hoards of fanatics could have been a very funny experience (remember The Apprentice?) if it didn't had real implications in the world and in our lives. 2017 has only made the absurd of human life much more evident, so it was time for Josh Tillman to leave his quirky descriptions of everyday life to pen something like Pure Comedy, a poignant analysis of the history of human despair.
Father John Misty bites straight in the neck of the biggest institutions of power: political system, religions, patriarchy... questioning how it is that they retain their legitimacy and their power by throwing large groups of people under the wheels of the train of privilege. By the end, he laments that unity could save us, but every day we are further away from it.
holding on
the war on drugs
12
Opening with shiny synths, Holding On attacks from very early on the track with electrifying riffs of pure classic rock, we feel the urge to listen to it in a stadium as if in the gold era of rock bands. Adam Granduciel, with his forced Dylan-esque voice, goes on verses that try to decipher the past in order to understand the present. It's as if this much reflection on old times was mirrored by the sonic atmospheres that expand like the Route 66 through the U.S. desert, and just fading in the infinite in that finale.
It is a track that shows consistency with their previous albums, but that also shows new paths for the band. They keep sounding fierce in the melody and wise in the lyrics, a band that has expanded themselves and that embraces the 80's Americana rock.
the system only dreams in total darkness
The national
11
After the disastrous year that was 2016 in world politics, there was a mass reaction in the arts this year, so it's no wonder that so many songs became very critical of the situation that allowed the hateful conservatism to resurface with such power. The National, very vocal Hilary Clinton supporters, created a song to represent the entire feeling of whoever managed to see past the bigotry populism.
The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness portrays our disbelief and our incessant search for answers to explain what went wrong, as the darkness takes over and menaces to destroy everything that years of human rights fight have achieved. It is critical and cryptic rock music for liberals who are ready to resist and fight back.
