Month / June 2018

by sweensryche

Songs of the Summer 2018

It’s that time of year when eggs fry on sidewalks and toast toasts on windowsills. Summer! Here’s a playlist of music that should go perfectly with your 2018 barbecues, beach blanket bingo tournaments and dead skin peel-offs. You can find song by song analysis below that. And below that? Nothingness. An eternal void. HAPPY SUMMER EVERYONE!


1. Janelle Monáe – “Make Me Feel”

Who better than sci-fi R&B diva Janelle Monáe to use the raw materials of Prince’s “Kiss” as a launchpad to something entirely new? “Make Me Feel” achieves the kind of bliss that turns summer flings into engagement rings.

2. Caroline Rose – “Soul No. 5”

“I got soul” is a gutsy thing for any singer to claim. But as Caroline Rose belts it over a relentlessly catchy new wave riff, we accept it as a matter of fact.

3. Khruangbin – “Maria También”

Old school strutting music from a trio of surf-lounge-funk instrumentalists. What, you were just gonna walk?

4. Cardi B – “I Like It”

“They call me Cardi B / I run this shit like cardio.” After hearing the most satisfying bass drop of the summer, how could we argue?

5. Natalie Prass – “Short Court Style”

A lush, breezy disco groove that waves like palm trees – requiring zero effort to enjoy.

6. Pusha-T – “If You Know You Know”

Why did Push and his producer Kanye West make us wait 37 seconds until the incredible beat drops on this track? Because they knew we’d appreciate its luxurious stereophonic glory even more. They knew.

7. Kacey Musgraves – “High Horse”

“Oh I bet you think you’re John Wayne,” goes this effervescent disco track from country singer Kacey Musgraves. Defenders of the way things used to be have never been eviscerated so neatly, or joyfully.

8. Parquet Courts – “Wide Awake”

One of our most dependable rock bands expands their scope from Ramones pep and Velvety churn to include Fear ofMusic-era Talking Heads, resulting in a shout-along funk gem that boasts the bass line of the year.

9. Sofi Tukker – “Batshit”

A New York EDM duo channels Right Said Fred in a song about losing your mind, and wouldn’t you know it – I’m doing my little turn on the catwalk.

10. Drake – “Nice for What”

You can argue about the legitimacy of Drake’s feminist stance here, but can we do it when the song is over? That flow over an expertly deployed Lauren Hill sample is positively infectious.

11. Azealia Banks – “Anna Wintour”

Speaking of music great enough to drown out uncomfortable conversations, problematic human Azealia Banks continues to fuse dance music with hip hop in breathtakingly organic ways.

12. Screaming Females – “Fantasy Lens”

Marissa Paternoster is the best guitar player.

13. Cupcakke – “Cartoons”

“I don’t look for n****s so fuck Waldo / Bitch I’m cocky like Johnny Bravo.”

14. Khalid & Swae Lee – “The Ways”

The high point of the stacked Black Panther soundtrack is this agave-drizzled island love song from a burgeoning singer/songwriter and half of Rae Sremmurd.

15. 2 Chainz ft. YG & Offset – “Proud”

Rappers usually turn to balladic form on songs dedicated to their moms. 2 Chainz opts for a burbling, insidious trap groove – the perfect balance of sweetness and grit.

16. Frank Ocean – “Moon River”

I used to think “Moon River” was a trifle of a song, propped up by a legendary actor in a hit movie. The lyrics are meaningless! Then Frank Ocean sang it, harmonizing like a motherfucker over gentle, ringing guitar chords. And I can’t stop crying. End every party with this, and even the lame ones will feel meaningful.

by sweensryche

Kanye West – Ye

“Everything I did or thought was aimed at creating music that would make people happy and also keep them away from me, and because I was successful, my weirdness was accepted.” That’s a quote from Brian Wilson, the infamously troubled leader of the Beach Boys. For the handful of years that his band was on top, Wilson faced immense pressure from his label to keep cranking out hits. And from his bandmate Mike Love, who just wanted to keep making “Surfin’ U.S.A.” over and over again. And from his own desire to be revered, to be spoken of in the same breath as Gershwin, Spector, McCartney. This pressure, coupled with unresolved childhood trauma and drugs, triggered Wilson’s mental illness. He finally broke down in 1967, in the middle of the sessions for his greatest work. He never reached those artistic heights again.

I’m guessing Kanye West can relate. Ever since that night in 2009 when he crashed Taylor Swift’s VMA acceptance speech, the artist has had to compensate for his “weirdness.” Every uncomfortable interview and narcissistic tweetstorm would be chum for an American public with a voracious appetite for celebrity failures. But then he’d drop another masterpiece, and we’d lose the scent. We’d focus on his production choices instead of his personal ones. He could be spinning out of control, yet still control the narrative.

It’s amazing that it lasted this long. It would have made sense if West bottomed out after 2010’s astounding, leave-it-all-out-on-the-field My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. But three years later came the stripped-down primal scream of Yeezus. And in 2016, the sprawling sinner’s gospel of The Life of Pablo. Which brings us to Ye, the artist’s eighth solo LP. And his first attempt at breaking the cycle.

Like all five of the albums West is releasing this summer, Ye is seven songs long, recorded in a remote studio in Wyoming. A loose, murky affair, it’s a clear aesthetic shift for the producer, a notorious perfectionist. (Merely weeks earlier, West was flexing his still-peerless ability to turn old soul tunes into luxurious summer hip-hop on Pusha-T’s Daytona.) For the first time, it feels like he walked into the studio and just shared what was on his mind, off the cuff, awkward vibes be damned. It’s as much of a performance as it is a purge.

“The most beautiful thoughts are always beside the darkest,” muses the artist during the extended spoken-word opening of “I Thought About Killing You.” It’s a mission statement on a record that explores what it’s like to be a bi-polar celebrity, the highs and lows, the likes and blocks, the emotional cycles and media cycles. That song title is more than just a provocation, with West sharing that because he’s thought about killing himself, it only stands to reason that he’s thought about killing you too. As he admits, “Sometimes I think really bad things,” he pitch bends his voice downward, a chilling moment of truth.

“Yikes” contains Ye’s most traditionally catchy hook, as he does some of the most convincing singing of his career over a chopped-up vocal sample from the underground ’70s psychedelic funk group Black Savage. But it’s a song about opioid addiction, and it’s appropriately haunting. “Sometimes I scare myself,” West croons on the chorus, which I absolutely can’t get out of my head.

The other major highlight is “Ghost Town,” a soaring, guest-heavy melodic sunburst reminiscent of The Life of Pablo’s gospel opener “Ultralight Beam.” Kid Cudi sings about unrequited love; Kanye sings about “taking all the shine,” and newcomer 070 Shake brings down the house with her extended outro, sung with pure, deliberate joy – “I feel kinda free / We’re still the kids we used to be.”

Notice I’m not talking much about rapping here. West has always been unafraid to bust out a cheesy play on words, but on Ye, he’s lost a lot of the conviction that could make those moments charming. “If I pull up with a Kerry Washington / That’s gonna be an enormous scandal,” is typical of this newfound laziness. Then there’s “Don’t get your tooth chipped like Frito-Lay.” On the closing “Violent Crimes,” West finds his fervor for bars again – but its queasy father-daughter narrative does him no favors. “Curves under your dress / I know it’s pervs all on the net / All in the comments, you wanna vomit,” he raps. He may be opening his eyes to our culture of toxic masculinity. But he’s a long way from woke.

Hey, maybe he’s just more comfortable singing these days. Because that, along with his sparse, rain-spattered production choices, make Ye a rewarding listen. It’s a small album, not just in length, but in the space it inhabits – the internal world of one very famous and conflicted man. It is the absolute definition of what a self-titled album should be.

What it’s not is an event. In the headwinds of West’s latest stint in the news – the Trump support, the “dragon energy,” the victim blaming of slaves, that song where he raps “Poopy-di scoop / Scoop-diddy-whoop” – it folds like a tent.

Perhaps he wants it that way. Perhaps he made a quiet album about mental illness and addiction because he’s tired of summoning the flood every few years. Perhaps he’s done making music to keep people happy, and away from him. Kanye West has made his Pet Sounds, and his Smile, several times over. He’s earned the right to just surf.

by sweensryche

Catching Up with King: The Stand

When I moved to Stephen King’s home state of Maine, I thought it would be fun (if a bit cliché) to finally read his books in earnest, and discover how I really feel about his work. For this installment, I started lifting weights for the first time in my life – I was about to pick up the 1,200-page “Complete & Uncut” edition of The Stand.

In the introduction to the extended edition of his 1978 novel The Stand, Stephen King had this to say about his writing process:

“When asked, ‘How do you write?’ I invariably answer, ‘One word at a time,’ and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man.”

King had a right to get a little hyperbolic here. The Stand is a behemoth, in size and scope. It’s a contagion horror story, American sociological study, roads-go-ever-on Tolkien adventure, and elemental Biblical showdown. It’s 1,200 pages long. And it is beloved by readers. When the BBC did their “Big Read” project back in 2003, asking viewers to vote for their favorite novel of all time, The Stand came in at #53, between Of Mice and Men and Anna Karenina. 

At its heart, The Stand is a simple story. Disaster strikes a top-secret government lab, that was developing an extremely deadly biological weapon. One infected soldier escapes the premises, and he represents the difference between the status quo and the apocalypse. King details the gruesome efficiency of the resultant super flu (a.k.a. Captain Trips) with the thorough commitment of a beat reporter. We get transmissions from Kansas, California, Maine, Iowa. We learn how a doctor’s waiting room gets infected and follow patients out into the world, leaving diseased bridge clubs and YMCA pools in their wake.

More than 99% of America dies. And the remaining 800 pages or so are left for the immune survivors, left scattered across our tired, polluted country. Like Stu Redman, a standard-issue soft-spoken Eastwood hero from East Texas. And Fran Goldsmith, a Maine college student prone to fits of giggling who is impregnated by an indifferent boyfriend right before the plague hits. And Larry Underwood, a journeyman musician and all-around selfish idiot who’s just landed his first hit single.

The balance of the novel accounts how these characters coalesce around one of two supernatural figures in this new Paradise Lost reality. The first one we meet is a demon in denim called Randall Flagg, who assembles a legion of the demented and technologically adept in the on-the-nose location of Las Vegas, Nevada. The second is a 108-year-old woman named Abigail Freemantle who  can channel the power of God. She summons her flock to Boulder, Colorado. And in case you ever wondered for a second about Abigail’s skin color, King is there to remind you, over and over again, that’s she’s black.

Here’s where King’s Great Wall of China starts to crumble. He’s given us every brick in his head, including the cracked ones, the soft ones, the ones that didn’t spend enough time in the kiln.

If the treatment of “Mother Abigail” isn’t discomfiting enough, we then follow the Colorado commune as it evolves to become “The Free Zone” – a society of chosen people. If any other non-white people are a part of this community, they’re not mentioned. Is this a choice of the author not to mention the race of his characters, with one exception? Unfortunately not. Here’s a list of things that King has black people do in The Stand:

  1. Perform televised executions of white people while wearing loincloths
  2. OD on heroin in Detroit
  3. Dress like a pirate, answer to “Rat Man” and be described as “the only guy in Las Vegas too creepy to sleep with”
  4. Emerge from a jungle holding spears

I’m not here to say that Stephen King is racist. But these moments in this book absolutely are. According to 2017 U.S. Census data, 94.8% of Mainers identify as white. It’s probably safe to say that growing up in 1950s Bangor, King wasn’t exposed to much diversity. Non-white people were people outside of normal life. Not inferior, but other. So he ends up using the heinous backhanded compliment that is the “Magical Negro” trope, over and over again in his career. Perhaps I’m being too generous in this reading. But living in Maine for the last five years, and seeing firsthand how blindingly white it is, I can see how it would make somebody terrible at writing about people of color.

This rank insensitivity is also a by-product of the surface-level treatment that a majority of The Stand’s characters suffer from. King pulls his camera back to the point where he’s an omniscient narrator, using Stu and Fran and Larry and Nick like pawns on a wasted American chessboard. We’re up so high, we can’t get close enough to them, to truly feel their grief. We’re in the hands of an Old Testament god.

This book is historically popular for a reason. King masterfully plays off our fears of infection, making Captain Trips so nauseatingly scary, you’d welcome an axe murderer in its place without blinking. The section where the Free Zone is created is absolutely unputdownable, a microcosm of what makes humanity unique, and uniquely self-destructive. The story arc of the bullied Harold Lauder is a fantastic exploration of how toxic masculinity can turn boys into monsters.

But no way is this King’s best. It’s just his most. You’re going to get more death, more disease, more pitch-black humor, and more corny boomer nostalgia (fricking Jim Morrison shows up at one point, people). As an ambitious journey into what’s admirable and problematic about the human race, The Stand is worth the long sit. As long as you’re willing to accept everything admirable and problematic about its author.

THE “CATCHING UP WITH KING” RANKINGS

1. Pet Sematary

2. Carrie

3. The Shining

4. Nightmares & Dreamscapes

5. 11/22/63

6. The Stand

7. The Gunslinger

8. Bag of Bones