“don’t act surprised, just play the part / tears in your eyes, i know it’s hard.”
she’s only sixteen’s favorite subject is the self. their discography seems to be an ode to internal conflicts — all kinds of them. they dance around self-doubt, have dinner with angst, and share a bed with loneliness. in their latest single, “broken glass”, the pop-rock indie band parties with facades.
to me, the song is a look into rose-colored glasses — painfully aware of our loneliness and numbness but not doing anything about it. the story she’s only sixteen tells mirrors the instrumentation of the song. the catchiness and upbeat tunes mask lyrics about wanting a connection from anyone, in the same way that the lyrics themselves try to mask the subject’s own loneliness. the title reflects the cold truth of the song: the only thing you can do with broken glass is stare at your reflection.
“broken glass” is fresh. it’s a welcome sound from the band jokingly referred to as the “arctic monkeys of the philippines” during their whatever that was era. the stark contrasts in sound between their other recent single, “currently” and “broken glass” are looking like the mark of a she’s only sixteen more than willing to break our expectations of them. but more than that, you can hear the influences of the band members’ respective solo projects in this track. there’s hints of frontman roberto seña’s lazy mcguire in the funk, slivers of drummer king puentespina’s crwn in the electronic, and the stylings of guitarist andrew panopio’s the relax in the instrumentals. from the outside looking in, i like to think that all the band members are bringing more and more of their individual personalities into the growth of she’s only sixteen’s sound. i can’t wait for a possible EP release, or even an album of a matured sound.
art credits are from the official video by: Friendly Foes, Mark Mendoza, Frances Espina, Garry Cortez, Al Densel Manapat
“‘Cause you taste like wine on my tongue, don’t know if you’re good for me.”
Local indie darling Clara Benin’s Wine is laden with her signature harmonies, ghostly guitars, and uncomplicated piano melodies. After 3 years of her community begging for a fully mastered version of the song, it was finally released on all streaming platforms this morning at 12am.
It’s no question that this song has been a crowd favorite for a very long time. You’ll hear her dedicated fans cheering and screaming every time it was played in gigs, or being asked to play in between performances. With this previously unreleased song already receiving such high praise and regard in the public, it can be challenging to figure out how to up the ante for a song so popularly loved.
And to almost no one’s surprise, Benin pulls it off flawlessly. Her additions of complementary piano melodies, swelling string-like sounds, and her hauntingly-beautiful vocal harmonies (arrangement by The Ringmaster) don’t take away from the simple beauty of the song that audiences fell in love with years ago. Every word in the chorus lands harder and with even more impact. Even with more bells and whistles in the track, it doesn’t take away from the intimacy. Personally for me, the song sounds even more intimate; more personal. It feels more…whole.
For those who aren’t familiar with the song, Wine tells a story we know all too well — unrequited love. In a local music scene so oversaturated with sawi and hugot, it’s difficult to find fresher takes on unrequited love that stand out from the rest. What Wine does well is finding the perfect balance between thematic consistency (playing with the characteristics of wine for metaphors) and simplicity. Her use of metaphors doesn’t try hard to come off as artsy or pretentious. She doesn’t try too hard or too literal in trying to bridge wine and the experience of unrequited love. It’s natural and seamless storytelling at its best.
Clara Benin’s ability to evoke strong emotions is something few artists in the local scene are at par with — and for very good reason. Whether you’re looking for a companion for your 12am thoughts or a song to calm down to, one thing’s for sure — I’m drunk in love with Wine.
sza’s 2017 masterpiece of an album, ctrl, is an ode to 20-somethings. its heart-wrenching, painful narratives of self-loathing and self-doubt paint us a familiar picture of our jaded early adulthoods, masking pain and questionable red flags as “the real world”.
while the album has produced chart topping hits like “the weekend” and “love galore“, its underdog hits are just as iconic. case in point: drew barrymore.
drew barrymore is heavy on the bass — both drum-wise and guitar-wise. like much of the album, it’s deeper and darker compared to its peers playing on the radio stations in 2017 (think despacito, new rules, shape of you). the song’s musicality highlight’s sza’s distinct vocal style — and this proves to be intentional whenever the instruments abruptly stop playing to bring her punchlines home.
it’s this almost-gritty, dark, and deep instrumentation that makes sza’s retelling of wanting to be more for someone and begging for them to stay more mature. this lyrical theme is often tagged as “naive” and “innocent” — think taylor swift during the fearless era. but when sza croons — yelling, almost — “‘cause it’s hard enough you got to treat me like this / lonely enough to let you treat me like this / do you really love me? / or just wanna love me down?”, you can’t help but imagine an empty apartment, someone else’s button-down shirt, and empty bottles.
but more than the darker sound making it more mature-sounding, the lyrics themselves seem carefully constructed to make sure we’re understanding that this is a different dimension to that familiar feeling. and this all boils down to the core emotion of this song — self-awareness.
unlike other songs that come off as more innocent and “childish” that revolve around the protagonist of the song being better than the other romantic prospects of the subject, sza is extremely aware of her loneliness, and how all of this stems from the fear of being alone.
that almost desperate yearning for companionship, of someone to give purpose to your life is something greatly associated with your 20s. you hit the ground running after college — finding a job, navigating independence, trying to make sense of all the new things that the world presents you. at the end of the everyday burnout, you’re left with yourself. and a lot of people don’t know how to wrestle with that.
drew barrymore is an ode to the lengths we’ll go just to feel something. sza offers herself as the sacrificial lamb for love — or rather, a semblance of companionship. she lays it all on the line. from an outsider’s perspective, it’s easy to feel sorry for sza. she laments on how she’s sorry she’s not perfect, how she’ll change anything to make the person stay, how she’ll keep showing up to be warm enough for them. but when you’re in her position — it becomes so easy to feel the same way.
folklore greets you with simplicity — two piano chords, strings, and an uncomplicated drum beat. With Taylor’s all too familiar voice the obvious highlight of the opening track, “the 1”, it’s a dip into what the star of this album is: her songwriting.
Taylor Swift is no stranger to penning heart-wrenching lyrics that leave a lasting sting. From Speak Now‘s “Last Kiss” (So I’ll watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you sleep / And I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe), to Lover‘s “Cruel Summer” (“I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?”), the 30-year-old songstress has been hailed as one of the best songwriters of our generation.
Despite this extremely high pedestal she’s perched upon, the lyricism on folklore proves that Taylor is far from “peaking”. The 17-track album has a cohesive theme of nostalgia, revisiting a shared past between Taylor and her listeners. From high school relationships to reminiscing on what-ifs and fond farewells, the singer retells familiar narratives with moving metaphors and a slew of past references to her previous works that only push the feeling of nostalgia home.
One of the breakout tracks from the album has to be exile featuring the king of crying-in-your-bedroom-at-3am folk, Bon Iver. The song tells the story of two ex-lovers with different interpretations of the end of their relationship. Bon Iver and Taylor Swift’s lyrical back-and-forth clearly paint us a picture of unresolved closure with punchline after punchline.
“And it took you five whole minutes / To pack us up and leave me with it / Holdin’ all this love out here in the hall”
“I think I’ve seen this film before / And I didn’t like the ending / You’re not my homeland anymore / So what am I defending now?”
Her storytelling makes sure that no one perspective overpowers the other. The lyrics do justice to both characters, and listeners can opt which character they relate or side with. Is it Bon Iver’s character that didn’t see the warning signs and feels almost cheated by Taylor moving on so fast? Or do they side with Taylor’s character which asserts that she gave all the signs but Bon Iver didn’t do anything about it? It emulates perfectly how some relationships end in the real world: with unanswered questions and different perspectives.
In terms of instrumentation, it more or less follows the same theme of the rest of the songs on the album. It’s a piano and a few strings, with Taylor and Bon Iver’s voices the focal point of the song. With minimal musical “distractions”, you end up paying attention to their words, especially during their climax in the bridge as they tell the story of their respective characters. It’s beautiful, emotional, and leaves you sobbing only 4 tracks into the 17-track album.
Another thing to appreciate is that each verse is never just a set-up or filler to a dramatic bridge. Taylor peppers each verse with a kick as sore as the last. No time is wasted in making you feel the songs. Some may say that the similar musicality of each song blends into each other in a way that may be stagnant, but I personally believe that it makes for a cohesive-sounding album. Each song stands out on its own, whether it be about the summer love nostalgia of “august”, the soft love song of “invisible string”, or the naivety of “betty”. You end up loving each song for different reasons, which is a feat that only few artists are able to achieve.
Overall, folklore is elegantly painful — a beautiful narrative of love, loss, and the nostalgia in between. The instrumentation of the album backdrops arguably the overall best lyrics Taylor Swift has written in her career, and is undeniably album of the year.
Now excuse me while I lie face down on my bed listening to the entire album, again.
“and i’ve never felt more alone — it feels so scary getting old.”
i “graduated” from high school this year.
while i may have not gotten the end-of-high-school-indie-movie-esque experience i envisioned in my head, i spent a large majority of my senior year counting down the “lasts”. last first day. last sportsfest. last meeting. last day. i’ve always been someone who’s pretty anxious, so thinking about “lasts” and looking forward to a very uncertain future has been the theme of many nights spent in bed wondering what the hell am i going to do with my life.
lorde’s cult-favorite hit “ribs” is an ode to those anxiety-filled nights. she was 16 when she wrote this — and wrote it about how she felt after throwing a huge, huge house party and realized she was growing up into a more “adult” world that she didn’t know anything about.
there’s no doubt that she captures that perfectly. the song is a perfect snapshot of that split-second, life-altering moment you realize that life is changing and nothing is ever going to be the same way it’s been. the people in your life are changing, your relationships with them are changing, and the whole world is changing in front of our very eyes.
and that’s terrifying.
taking in the context of 2013 pop music (think get lucky by daft punk, we can’t stop by miley cyrus, best song ever by one direction, etc.), the musicality of ribs seems almost out of place. the instrumental is a bass-laden electronic beat, deep electronic synths, and an almost ghostly chorus of vocal-like sounds harmonizing with one another. while individually they sound haunting, together they paint a full picture of teenage naivety and the fear of “growing up”. the song opens with a cacophony of voices almost sounding like they’re being cut, reversed, or scrolled through. it almost sounds like a cassette player being winded to start from the beginning. it’s a beautiful exposition into what the song wants to visualize: an almost desperate attempt to cling to the past and rewind time. then, the electronic bass drum comes in, conjuring up the image of loud music filling up the rooms of a teenage houseparty that lorde gained inspiration from. it conjures up a montage of high school naivety that seems to only happen in coming of age movies — living because we wanted to, because nothing else in the world mattered, and it’s just me, my friends, and the world for our taking. at the climax of the song, it’s almost like she’s yelling for time to stop — “i want ’em back, i want ’em back, the minds we had, the minds we had”. the backing track yells with her, lorde’s own harmonized, layered vocals hitting incredibly high notes as she laments the “end of innocence”.
while many of the lyrics in this song perfectly paint lamenting the end of adolescence, one section is a cut above the rest. as lorde’s solo bridge comes to a close, her single voice is suddenly joined by a chorus of voices singing, “it’s not enough to feel the lack, i want ’em back, i want ’em back, i want ’em”.
for me, these two lines are what drives the impact of the song home. lorde is telling us that’s it’s not just about being nostalgic with memories, it’s about wanting — yearning — for the comfort of childhood, for the comfort of high school. it’s the helpless clinging onto sand in an hourglass. it’s not just the feeling of “oh, that was a good memory” that happens after the fact, but an active clinging on to the present as it still happens.
in a lot of ways, i personally consider ribs as the soundtrack of my senior year. thinking about how everything was ending while it was still happening only further fueled the anxiety that i didn’t maximize my time while i was there. but looking back now, a lot of the memories i keep close to my heart are often things that went unplanned. sleeping over at a friend’s house. going to a live music gig. taking uncalculated risks. laughing until our ribs get tough.
on a personal level, maybe lorde was a little wrong. it’s been more than enough. high school has been more than i could ever wish for. and while i’m not too sure of how this new chapter of my life is going to end — or begin, for that matter — this song comforts me on those days.
featured image is from gab suarez. thanks for the memories, miki!
“well, you’re the only motherfucker in this city who can handle me.”
i stumbled upon st. vincent’s emotionally-haunting yet short ballad almost completely by accident.
on one of my (many) adventures through the youtube algorithm, i came across lorde’s performance in new york of her with jack antonoff, singing a (beautiful) medley of new york/hard feelings/liability. as a long time lorde fan, i am more than familiar with hard feelings and liability, both of which have witnessed many tears at midnight when Life Do Be Like That. new york, however, was a song i didn’t recognize. initially thinking it to be an unreleased lorde demo, i searched it up only to find out it was actually by the art-rock/pop musician, st. vincent.
admittedly, i’m not too familiar with st. vincent. i only know her from some of her extremely eccentric music videos that i saw years ago. the music video for new york doesn’t stray too far from the tree — it’s loud, flashy, colorful, extravagant. but play the music and you have an almost jarring contrast to the visuals playing on screen.
musically, new york does so much with so little. the song is 2:34 in length, features a recurring piano theme of two notes, and at its most climactic, a simple percussion beat and strings. lyrically, the chorus of “i have lost a hero / i have lost a friend / but for you, darling / i’d do it all again” coupled with “you’re the only motherfucker in the city who can handle me/can stand me/who’ll forgive me” as the punchline is liberally peppered into the song, often taking a majority of vocal time. but what it supposedly “lacks” is actually what makes the song more impactful; more meaningful.
at the core of this song is the painful recoil of loss. st. vincent mourns the loss of a lover and alludes to a failed attempt of moving on with someone new. the premise is far from original, but i believe that st. vincent captures the frustration and helplessness of leftover feelings perfectly without spoon-feeding it to its listeners. the verses that appear as unfinished, incomplete thoughts perfectly encapsulate the post-relationship mourning period filled with picking apart unanswered questions, never really getting closure, and the exhaustion of trying to rationalize everything.
but my favorite part of the story st. vincent tells is how beautifully and painfully it paints yearning. while most artists will try to explicitly describe how much they miss their lover, st. vincent uses a repetitive 4-line chorus backdropped with swelling strings to paint us a picture of how much she would give to get back together. mourning a lover and bargaining to get them back is almost never eloquently said. when you’re in the middle of hurting, it’s difficult to materialize words to convey the car crash of emotions you’re experiencing. st. vincent’s chorus is genuine and raw in its want. the fact that it’s repeated as the music swells more and more makes you almost feel the heaviness of st. vincent’s loneliness on your chest. then abruptly, the strings, percussion, and layered vocals come to a stop. then, you’re left with a haunting two-note piano melody as the song comes to a close.
the song ends softer than it starts. there’s no heart-wrenching surprise of a lyric at the end. there’s no key change, no reprise. st. vincent leaves us unresolved. it’s almost like she leaves us wanting more, which — either intentionally or coincidentally — is the exact message that the song wants to convey. whether or not that’s true, one thing’s for sure: new york stands a mile above the rest of the songs about loss and love.
kara likes music 