Fluxblog Weekly #167: Fiona Apple, Christina Aguilera, Negative Gemini, James Blake, Louis Cole
I'm starting off this letter with a post I wrote six years ago because the song, "Anything You Want" by Fiona Apple, came back in my life in a major way earlier this week. I hadn't heard it in a while and something about it just rattled me unexpectedly. It made me feel something. Or maybe more accurately, it made me aware of a feeling.
June 19th, 2012
We Try To Swallow The Wave
Fiona Apple “Anything We Want”
Fiona Apple’s previous albums were emotionally powerful, but highly refined and elegant. She has abandoned this approach on The Idler Wheel, slashing her arrangements down to bare rhythms, structural essentials and bits of abrasive sound for texture. Her vocals, somehow even more intense than ever, carry every song, to the point that it seems as though every cut began as an a cappella piece. Everything about the music is physical – the accompaniment draws your attention to the fact that the sounds come from objects being struck and touched; she sings in a way that keeps you aware of her body’s movements and strains; the lyrics obsess on physical fragility, tactile sensations and visceral imagery.
The first thing you hear in “Anything We Want” is a rhythmic metal clanging, the bright notes hitting with a familiar tone that recalls silverware and glass. The rhythm is jarring and impatient, while the chords have a steady sway. Apple’s words sketch out a scene that is placid but full of anxious expectation, as she does her best to trigger a physical response in her partner while remaining essentially passive. It’s a delicate balance, two people just out of sync, with at least one hoping for a moment of sublime connection. There are lines about waiting, and memory, and feeling as though you’ve regressed.
I love the image of her attempting to subliminally signal where to kiss her, but the chorus is what gets to me. “And then / we can / do anything / we want,” the rhythm spilling out slowly, as if you’d have to creep up on the idea of emotional and physical freedom. There’s a sense of mystery about what “we want,” like it’s just something beyond what we really grasp. We know our desires, but only a little, so it’s a little scary. What do we do when we do what we want? What will we want next? I love that this song is so eager to find out.
Buy it from Amazon.
July 1st, 2018
This Feeling Is Legendary
Christina Aguilera featuring GoldLink “Like I Do”
Christina Aguilera’s new album is called Liberation, and it truly sounds like the work of a singer who has been liberated from the pressure of having to compete as a pop star. This time around, she’s just an R&B singer making an R&B record with an assortment of talented collaborators – Kanye West, Hudson Mohawke, MNEK, Demi Lovato, Julia Michaels, and on this track, Anderson Paak and GoldLink. Paak’s track has a warm, mellow vibe that gives Aguilera permission to dial back her typical bombast, but without neutralizing her mighty voice. Aguilera is playing it cool here, and singing from a place of understated confidence – she’s basically telling a guy, “hey, I’m a lot more successful and experienced than you, but I’m going to give you a chance to get on my level.” It’s a welcome flip on usual gender roles in pop, and allows her to play flirty in a way that feels fresh.
Buy it from Amazon.
July 3rd, 2018
The Way Someone Broke You
Negative Gemini “You Weren’t There Anymore”
“You Weren’t There Anymore” is a song that’s very much in the phase of a breakup where you’re just looping a one-sided argument with your ex in your head, like you’re rehearsing a script for the most cathartic conversation you’re probably never going to actually have. The song seems to move in emotional circles, with Lindsey French singing lines like “I’d feel better if you felt bad” with a mix of raw anguish and resignation. The song structure reinforces the feeling of being trapped in a loop, but there are a few dynamic shifts that shake up the rhythm and the feeling. When the beat picks up in the final third, it relieves some tension and suggests she’s almost through ruminating about this.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
July 4th, 2018
All Those Cyclical Thoughts
James Blake “Don’t Miss It”
“Don’t Miss It” is a song written from a position of clarity about living in a distorting cloud of depression and anxiety. And with that clarity – guilt, shame, fear of backsliding. The music is melancholy and mournful, but the elements of the arrangement are just off-kilter enough that the feeling isn’t pure or easy to place. There’s a slight warble on the piano, the emotional and wordless backing vocal is mixed so it feels a bit distant from James Blake’s voice, and Blake delivers some lines with bleak sarcasm. The music frames a feeling from not long ago, and Blake comments on it. He’s close enough to feel it, but also to be outside of it. The clarity he has in the moment is not yet fully clear.
Buy it from Amazon.
July 6th, 2018
This Is How It Works
Louis Cole featuring Genevieve Artadi “When You’re Ugly”
“We all live on planet Earth and this is how it works,” Louis Cole and Genevieve Artadi sweetly sing before laying out the rules in a boppy, funky chorus: “When you’re sexy, people want to talk to you, and when you’re ugly no one wants to talk to you.” And you know, at this point I just think “well, fuck you guys!” But then there’s the turn: “When you’re ugly, here is something you can do: FUCK THE WORLD AND BE REAL COOL.” That sentiment might be a little trite, but it’s also something I personally need to hear a lot lately. The world may be cruel in aggregate, but there are many good and open-hearted people, and there is always value beyond the superficial. Cole’s song is incredibly sunny, elegant, and joyful. When he implores you to just be cool, the song offers you some of its grace and strut to take as your own. You get to decide how you feel. Fuck the world and “how it works.”
Buy it from Bandcamp.