This song's album — MAGDALENE — which I have covered before as an album of the week, is extremely emotional. This song does not disappoint. This song was written when twigs was in a lot of pain; emotionally and physically. She was still recovering from her relationship with movie star Robert Pattinson, who starred in Twilight, and she also had uterine tumors called fibroid tumors; both of which are indirectly mentioned in this song.
In these lyrics, which she described on the song's Genius page, she humorously refers to her fibroid tumors as fruits. She also describes how even breathing caused her pain. Even though she was in so much pain, she did not use pain killers to alleviate her pain. She says that she was "very cautious what [she] put in [her] body. [She didn't] want to put painkillers in." After her laparoscopic surgery, she was only on pain killers for a very short time. She was given some to take home to ease the pain, but she preferred to not take the medications. Even though she was in immense pain, she was still able to "maintain her grace". I also interpret the "Breathe in, breathe out, pain" lyric about being able to recover from pain quickly and keep up appearances so that no one else knows that you're struggling, as to not bother them.
In these lyrics, she describes how having a lot of anything can lead to the risk of more being taken away, compared to only having a small amount. "More money, more assets, more problems, [the] more you have to lose. It’s all in ratio."
I could honestly keep going on about the lyrics in this song, but this is already pretty long, and I'm very close to crying, so I'll leave this entry here. Below, I've provided some choice lyrics.
This makes tears well in my eyes. I literally cannot. "Breathe in, breathe out, pain."
I love the sprawling ambience on this track. Other than lyrics, this is the most beautiful part of this track. Its captivating bass and short synth line makes the song so memorable to me. The song is about still having feelings for a partner that you've already ended a relationship with. Her pain is invisible to others; only facing the true pain by herself.
This line shows Kelela facing her supressed love and emotions. All throughout the rest of this song, she talks about hiding her emotions, but in this verse, she's facing it.
*Note: I found this out as I was reading Kelela's Wikipedia page, but apperently she's signed to one of my favorite record labels of all time: Warp Records. This is the label Aphex Twin is signed to. Aphex Twin is the artist that originally got me really deep into electronic/experimental music.
I love this track so much. This song singlehandedly got me through a depressive / dissociative episode. If it were a person, I'd owe it a very large amount; so the least I can do is write something about it.
During the tour for "OK Computer," Thom Yorke was under so much stress that he couldn't take it anymore. He was told by a friend, Micheal Stipe of R.E.M., to repeat one line...
By the way, this is the line that helped me get through the depressive episode. I was in the hardest class I have ever taken to date, and this song helped me get over the overwhelming urge to dissapear (The class was pre-calculus, by the way ☻). The urge to die but not really die is called passive suicidal ideation. All suicidal ideation or urge to dissapear should be talked about to a licensed therapist. Plese call 988 if you have plans to commit suicide. Remember, you are loved!!!
This line, while not really filled with an intense amount of meaning like the previous lyrics were, are an allusion to a dream Thom Yorke had on the night of one of their biggest shows ever; where Radiohead performed at Dublin's RDS Arena. Thom York dreamed he was running naked down Dublin's River Liffey, followed by a tidal wave.
Most of my information for this song comes from this article and the song's Wikipedia page.
This song feels like the intro track for a movie. Its synth arps and catchy beat make me feel like I'm alive. It is just one of the songs that puts me into gear in the morning. This song is one of my favorites off of her most recent album, Eusexua.
This song is about becoming one with your partner and feeling incomplete without them. One of the major repeated lines throughout the song is "Just don't leave, don't leave," highlighting the protagonist's desperation and willingness to do anything for their partner. It features piano instrumation that is just so soothing. This is a wild comparison, but honestly, every time I hear this song I think of the "Pikmin Bloom" (mobile game) main theme. This song is so sad, but the piano completely envelops me and wraps me in warmth. Every time I listen to song, I completely zone out from whatever I'm doing and just feel it.
I love the instrumentation on this song. I first found this song a couple of weeks ago when I was listening to the "For You" playlist (album? radio?) on Apple Music and it stood out to me so much the first time I listened to it. Beth Gibbons' vocals are incredibly stunning on this song. She delivers such an emotional performance.
This song is about stark and prevailing depression and loneliness. The "we" pronoun (blue hair and pronounce) in the song refers to the fact that, in our postmodern age, many people are troubled by "fragmentation, instability, indeterminacy, and uncertainty…” (Steven Best, Douglass Kellner, The Postmodern Turn, 1997, page 281). The modern age also exacerbates these feelings because social media is incredibly harmful for human social development and retention of social stability.
In short, this song is so fire PLEASE listen to it.
Oh my god, Black Lake... It is such an amazing song. I am so happy this song has a 10 minute playtime because I absolutely cannot get enough of it. It is just so sorrowful and so emotional... It makes me fall in love with the song, music as an art form, Bjork, Arca... I just have so much love for this song. Some choice lyrics:
I actually can't with this lyric. I feel this WAY too much.
Even though Bjork felt literal "Eternal pain and horrors" (which is an absolutely crazy bar, by the way), she still recovered from the relationship and returned home as a new, better person.
While writing this, I've listened to the song 5 or 6 times and I don't think I'm going to stop when I finish. ☻
This song is absolutely one of Richard's best. He's using a player piano to have every note be hit at exactly the right time and exactly the right pressure. He uses this player piano and a prepared piano all throughout the album this song is from, Drukqs. I think I might have Drukqs as 'album of the week' sometime, but we'll see. ☻
This song is about the people who have a constant need for stimulation in fear of boredom. It also talks about how these kinds of people are such thrillseekers that they need a large amount of stimuli (drugs, sexual intercourse, or other) to feel anything at all. Being a Lexapro user... yeah... ☻ (I'm basically zombie mode all the time but it's ok because reasons)
In addition to being very obsessed with electronic and experimental music, I also love to listen to some Progressive Metal and Progressive Rock. Though being able to make any sound under the sun with synthesis is great and all, I also love to listen to artists and bands who are really adept at playing physical instruments, which TOOL are. They all show complete technical mastery at their instruments, and Maynard is able to write some really meaningful lyrics. I'm listening to a couple TOOL albums today, starting with Fear Inoculum. ☻
This is one of Aphex Twin's more emotional songs. It's an ambient track with a really heart wrenching synth with some sparse drums. It's one of the songs from his discography that I think everyone should listen to all the way through, even just once.
... Soooo this song just about made me start crying yesterday. It is so freaking good and so emotional. The repeated "didn't I do it for you?" just about killed me. This and "Sad Day" are my faves off of the album (MAGDALENE).
It has some really neat reversed piano sounds that are just so stylish. I love Twigs' vocals so much... I chose this song because i'm listening to LP1, Magdalene, and CAPRISONGS in that order :3
This album is one of my favorites of Aphex Twin's. This album is very sonically diverse, with tons of borderline breakneck breakcore tracks, heavily juxtaposed by the many serene, almost ambient tracks. Drukqs may not be the longest Aphex Twin album (its runtime being 100:41, only eclipsed by SAW II, with its runtime at 166:53), but it can certainly feel like it at times. Though its quick genre changes can make you feel like you're in the middle of a tempest (someone please get my TOOL reference), I love being able to hear all of the amazing things Aphex Twin is able to do as a producer.
One song in particular that I'd like to highlight is QKThr (don't try to pronounce it, you might go tongue-tied). Now, you may hear this song and think that it's eerily familiar. For years, this song has been used as a background track for many "fail" or "funny moments" videos (as well as Alberto Balsalm, but it's from a different album so I won't be covering it here), but I think this song is very emotional. The instrument that sounds kind of like an organ and kind of like accordion is called a harmonium; alluded to by the track's alternate name, "Penty Harmonium". I think it sounds like an organ that has to breathe, and that makes this song kind of sad to me: It sounds very sorrowful to me, as if someone was weeping from grief. I feel like this song is about sadness, or something that can cause an extreme sadness.
This album has some amazing tracks for lovers of electronic, ambient, noise, piano, and contemporary classical genres; as well as those who venerate music as an art form in general. I suggest you give this album a listen if you like any of the mentioned genres. ☻
This album is full of some very long tracks, with the longest being "7empest" at 15:44. However, don't let the long runtime for the songs on this album (average of 12:23 via this Reddit post) steer you away from the album. This album is AMAZING. Truly aurally amazing work is done on this album. Aside from its three interludes, I believe every song on this album is absolutely worth a listen (though I don't condone skipping songs on the basis that they are interludes).
This album is extremely lyrically dense and would take a long time to properly decode, so I will leave some choice lyrics. I suggest listening to this album and attempting to find meaning in the lyrics yourself.
This is another one of my favorite albums from
Arca. This album is one of
Arca's more "mainstream" electronic albums (Though very far from actually being mainstream). This album strays
farther into pop than any of her previous albums, with its defining genres being avant-pop, electronic, IDM,
deconstructed club, and experimental pop (taken from its
Wikipedia article). I think this is one of
the best albums to use as an intro to Arca's discography as a whole: it has a wide range of sounds from
borderline poppy to Arca's usual electronic beats. My favorite track from this album (and
from Arca's whole discography my favorite song of all time) has to be
Riquiqui. Though rap isn't my
favorite genre, that's definitely what this song is. It has these whirling soundscapes; thrown in are slashing
noises, gun noises, ambient synths, and, of course, its extremely catchy beat. I catch myself singing along to
this song WAY
too often (though I can't speak a word of spanish).
Another song that I just ADORE from this album is Mequetrefe. Its borderline trap beat is what attracts me to this song so much. The song is about a queer person owning their identity and showing it off for the world to see. Its title, "Mequetrefe," refers to a 'loser' or a 'foolish man,' though this song is not about any foolish man. Contrarily, it's about a queer person seeking to mock this mequetrefe and take control of them, or (I like this explanation better) taking control of the mequetrefe within themselves.
Unlike Mutant, also by Arca, this album is a MUST LISTEN for electronic fans. It has some pretty beginner friendly tracks, is really soulful, and is predominantly queer. This album is a love letter to queer people, and to Arca herself.
Honestly, I have no clue how I haven't had an Arca album as album of the week yet, considering she's my favorite artist of all time. I also haven't had her as a song of the day??? I actually need to get it together and lock in... Anyways... Mutant is a very unapproachable album at first glance. With its hour long playtime (which I love) and its HIGHLY experimental sound, it's a difficult album to get into. The album's title track took me a very long time to truly appreciate. At first, it's a cacophony of bassy warbles, screaming synths, and literal screams (which I'm assuming are from Arca herself). This violent soundscape lasts for about 2 minutes before any "real" melody comes in; but when it does, it's beautiful. The melody takes control of the warbly bass and uses it to make it sound so good and hit so hard. This extreme juxtaposition is what Mutant is all about: the horrifying next to the beautiful, the melancholy next to the pure (almost terrifying) joy, the love next to the hate, and so on...
Again, when I first listened to this album (most certainly the title track in particular), I was confused because the sounds Arca had put together didn't make sense to me. Some of the elements in these songs sound so highly synthesized but so natural, like a voice's vibrato or a guitar string hitting the fretboard. It was extremely overwhelming at first because I just had no idea how to process it; there's not any lyrics to pick apart, sounds meld into each other, and its highly experimental nature meant that it was hard to find people to talk to about it online. Since I've first heard this album, I have listened to it about 5 times all the way through and am still discovering new elements as I listen now. This album is a MUST LISTEN if you like experimental or electronic music.
The only other (somewhat mainstream) thing I can equate this album to is some of SOPHIE's music, such as Ponyboy. Again, I LOVE this album and highly recommend that everybody should listen to it (at least once, just for funsies).
This album is so good. Like, so, SO, good. Production, lyrics, meaning... Holy... I can't explain my love for this album without some choice lyrics.
A quote from twig's instagram about "thousand eyes": "the thousand eyes that i sing about on the first song of my album refers to the chorus of people who have an opinion on the choices made in ones life."
This line is soooo cunty
This line refers to how contant overthinking can take over your senses and can lock up your senses and movement, or as twigs says it, lock you to your daybed (couch). This analysation of this line (+ input from twigs herself) comes from Genius and puts it much better than I can:
"The lyric 'possessive is my daybed', she says, is about when you’re lying on your sofa lost in thought, and you just can't move. 'Have you ever had that?' she asks. 'Everything in the room becomes really abstract. Like when you say a word over and over again and it starts to lose its meaning. Like that, but with your room or your house or just… everything. You just start to see things in a different order. Everything has a place and a harmony and all you can do is let it happen, let it wash over you.'"
And of course, the most iconic line of the album (or maybe twigs' discography as a whole):
OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS LINE. OH MY GOD. Like holy crap... I'm gonna have to have it as a song of the day (again; because I didn't do it justice the first time) or the length of this entry is gonna double. Good lord. Just this song in general, man... But holy crap, just this album.
This is one of my favorite albums from Bjork, both sonically and lyrically (also, Bjork happens to work with one of my favorite artists ever, Arca, very heavily on this album ☻). It's Bjork's "break-up" album; specifically, it's about her break-up with film director Matthew Barney. This album has many amazing tracks, but my favorites have to be Stonemilker, Lionsong, History of Touches, and Black Lake.
I would absolutely write more about Black Lake, but it's already the song of the day (and an amazing one at that). I almost included it here, but once it got to be many lines, I thought it should just be the song of the day instead ☻.
This is one of my favorite albums from TOOL. Its opener — Vicarious — is one of my favorite songs of all time. It talks about how people often feed off of the sadness, tragedy, and anxieties of others. The 2 part title track (Wings For Marie (Pt 1) and 10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)) is soooooo good. In the song, Maynard talks about his relationship with his mother. The title "10,000 Days" also loosely correlates the time Maynard's mother spent in the hospital after a debilitating stroke until the time of her death. From opener to outro, this album is packed with sick ass riffs and some really deep meanings that I suggest everyone give a listen to.
One of my favorite electronic albums. I listened to it a little while ago and was hit with a really weird wave of nostalgia. Aphex Twin is one of my favorite artists of all time and he has some really amazing tracks.