Discussion #1

Part 1: 

My name is Carly King, I am currently majoring in creative writing and minoring in marketing. I walked for June’s graduation, so after completing this online course I will have officially graduated! I’m currently located in New Jersey as I try to stay cool in the east coast heat!), and prepare for my sister’s upcoming wedding in Canada, AYE! I have a passion for writing and creating music, and am stoked about this course. 

Part 2: 

a.) The first key feature for an album review is the author or critic’s ability to “show up” on the page. By showing up,  the author is reviewing the album through their own lens. They are being completely subjective. By taking into account not only the album itself but their own personal experiences with it creates a platform for compelling and personal storytelling. Whether their subjectivity to the album makes their review wrong is insignificant. In the words of Rob Sheffield “Just make sure when your wrong you’re wrong on your own terms”

Secondly, in an album review, the author must have knowledge of the social, political and technological landscape that surrounded not only the creation of the album but the music itself. Jim Derogatis, while reviewing Simon and Garfunkle’s Bookends, referred to the advances in music technology and experimental spirit of the ’70s as influences on the blending of the sounds and songs on Bookends. Which was a blend of rerecording versions of already popular Simon and Garfunkle songs and new material?  Powers on Random Access of Memories demonstrated an acute awareness of the political landscape of Daft Punks influences by referring to the key social constructs linked to the disco and funk genres Daft Punk was channeling in songs like “move yourself to dance”. 

Lastly, it is paramount that the author of the review has a founded relationship with the artist and music as well as being versed in the artist past. The author doesn’t need to know every detail about the artist-in-review’s childhood, but rather a solid knowledge of their past works from a musically educated standpoint. For example, in the 2nd & 3rd paragraphs of Trixie Balms review of Go Girl Crazy, she establishes the Dictators essence and demonstrates her knowledge of music.  In the 3rd paragraph, she references the 4-4 Tempo they adhere to throughout the album, which can be heard in the first 60 seconds of the album, during “The Next Big Thing”, in the form of a cowbell. 

b.) In Petrusich review of “Tell Me How You Really Feel” she weaves in details about Courtney Barnett life and background seamlessly to help the reader better understand herself and her music. In the review, as a reader, we learn the key and trivial ingredients that makeup Courtney Barnett, which is also to say her music. From Petrusich, we learn Barnett is an Australian woman with a love for language, she owns her own label, Milk! Records, and is well aware of the “suffocations of the patriarchy”, and is actively concerned with sexism within her industry. She has received a Grammy nomination, but is also responsible for where her morning coffee is coming from, and tending to her garden. She is noteworthy, yet ordinary. In “Tell Me How You Really Feel”, optimistic and empathetic lyrics are carefully laid over garage rock tones and scrappy guitar solos. Relatable, yet completely unique. This type of juxtaposition is the essence of Barnett’s new album. 

Heard It In A Past Life Review

By Carly King

Well aware of its existence, it took me a full 6 months to actually get around to listen to Maggie Rogers debut album. As a singer/songwriter, I felt an acute combination of jealousy and annoyance by Rogers viral rise to fame after having to meet Pharell Williams in a master class at NYU. I wanted nothing to do with her. As a human being, Maggie Rogers is undoubtedly talented, and beautiful. However, as her fame continues to grow like bushes in a once maintained walkway, I can’t help but call bullshit to this hyper-free-spirited pop star I keep seeing ostentatiously dance on my Instagram feed. So once time allowed and my 22nd summer was in full blazing heat, I decided it was my turn to have some skin in the game. 

“Heard It In A Past Life” starts with the overproduced catchy pop hit, Give a Little; a true ode to Pharrell Williams artistry, as anyone with a pulse can dance to it. Immediately, Rogers detaches her sound from the familiar indie-folk song, Alaska, that caught Pharell’s eye. Rogers lyrics in Giving a Little and throughout the album are openly asking her old and new audiences to get to know the newly baked up Maggie Rogers. Lyrically she begins her album by identifying this change… 

I cannot confess I am the same 

she then goes on to overtly reintroduce herself

 You don’t know me, and I don’t know you 

This is still true. Even after listening to this album on repeat, windows down volume up, Maggie Rogers I don’t you! As the album progresses, she attempts to build herself a new identity as I try to connect the dots. Throughout all 12 of Rogers songs on this album she constantly employs the notions of one’s ability to lose, change and become a new version of themselves. As my coming of age story and college career comes to a close, I relate to the questions she probes in her lyrics and answers she conveys through her upbeat optimistic sound. 

However, dynamically in sounds of self-reflection, Maggie Rodgers avoids whether these changes in herself, life, and music are for the better or worse.

I can’t seem to tell if this Maryland born, summer camper, and music student is happy with who she is today or mourning who she once was. Perhaps she is somewhere in between. I know I am. In her least produced songs, Past life, she opens up about the topic with a tremendous vocal range over a crisp piano that leaves us wondering if the old Maggie Rogers will ever return.

Before Pharell Williams waltzed into her production class, she would never have added loops of distorted techno bird calls, like the ones in Overnight. The pre-Pharell Maggie Rogers was a student of the game and a musician first and foremost. The one I see on dancing on festival stages, and morning shows waving a scarf, unfortunately, comes off as a try-hard and facade. 

The lyrics in her top-grossing hit, Light On, support my speculations, quite literally of her being caught up in the fame, and what everyone one else is expecting of this cooked up viral star:

Would you believe me now if I told you I got caught up in a wave?

Almost gave it away

Would you hear me out if I told you I was terrified for days?

Thought I was gonna break

Oh, I couldn’t stop it, tried to slow it all down

Crying in the bathroom, had to figure it out

With everyone around me saying, “You must be so happy now”

Songs like Light On and FallingWater are apart of mine, and many Americans, daily meditations. The dreamy tone of Rodgers voice-over ambiguous filtered instruments not only genuinely makes me feel good but keeps me coming back for more. Heard It In A Past Life,  debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200, and has stayed in the top 10 since. This album is for summer breezy car rides with all the windows down, an in-between conversation of the future. Whether it be political, social,  or personal, society is looking to the future and asking optimistic questions. Rumors of pending Grammy nominations have been circling nearly every tabloid and music blog, however, the overall consensus form veteran critiques is the album is overproduced. 

It seems to me it is not just her music that is becoming overproduced, it’s her life.